The Development Beat: Goodbye Busy Bee, Hello Trophy Tap & Table
Brought to you by Rufty-Peedin Design Builders.
Week of January 16, 2017
Trophy Brewing’s newest restaurant begins work
Real Estate Report: a new ITB home from Cornerstone Properties
New Mayan restaurant on Fayetteville Street receives permits
Brigs restaurant rebuilds after fire damage
Sushi Nine breaks ground
Exclusive renderings of another new hotel for downtown Raleigh
Planned apartments no longer coming to Ridgewood
Planning Commission updates
Goodbye Finch’s
Before we get to this week’s development news, let’s all take a moment to thank Finch’s for their decades of service to Raleigh. They closed their location in Raleigh for good on Sunday, and will reopen in Durham in the spring of 2017. They will be missed.
Trophy Tap & Table
Despite William Needham Finley IV’s best efforts to “Save the Tots,” permits were issued last week to allow for the conversion of the former Busy Bee Cafe/Mash & Lauter into the new Trophy Tap & Table. Home to the Busy Bee for more than eight years, the spot at 225 South Wilmington will soon offer a new range of beers and a menu focused on chicken of the rotisserie variety. Notably absent from the new menu will be the Bee’s famous Tater Tots. Tragic, but we imagine the owners, who also founded Trophy Brewing, are looking forward to opening another storefront location in which to serve their beloved beer. And if the chicken is as good as the pizza over at Trophy on Morgan Street, customers will certainly be pleased. The Raleigh Agenda first reported on this change back in December 2016. The work for the renovated space, which will include an interior bench and an equipment change in the kitchen, will be handled for $3,000 by the building’s landlord.
Real Estate Report
A super ITB property is being sold by our friends at Cornerstone Properties. At over 2,600 square feet, this 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom new-build is located at 1007 Marilyn Drive in the Lacy, Martin, and Broughton (ITB trifecta) school district. This is an ITB no-brainer. Construction begins this February. Contact Broughton alumnus Dale Moody (dalemoodync@gmail.com) for more information, 919-607-4606. The lot next door, 1009 Marilyn Drive, is also available from Cornerstone Properties if you want to bring your own custom home plan.
Note: To feature listings here, contact wnfiv@itbinsider.com for options.
With Your Permit-ssion
Tulum, a new Mayan restaurant coming to 411 Fayetteville Street should soon open to the public, as it received its construction permits last week. The $265,000 worth of work will be handled by Edward Donohue. This spot has previously housed La Volta, Twisted Mango, and San Lorenzo. Owner/operator Alfredo Lara, who also runs two Mi Cancun restaurants in the area, told the Raleigh Agenda last year that Tulum’s food will be traditional Mexican fare with a Mayan touch. We just hope the menu doesn’t include tacos with a side of ritual human sacrifice.
The popular North Raleigh brunch spot Brigs Restaurant in Brennan Station on Creedmoor Road should be reopening its doors very soon, as permits to repair damage caused by an electrical fire earlier this month were issued last week. Brigs has four other locations in the region: two in Cary (ugh), one in Durham (double ugh) and another in Wake Forest (triple ugh). We’re glad to see they didn’t let a fire shut them down, and look forward to their grand reopening.
A bright future is in store for the customers of Capital Boulevard Storage at 8740 Wadford Drive, where permits were issued last week for a large rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) system to be installed across six buildings. We first wrote about this new project in February 2016, which is being built by our friends over at Rufty-Peedin Design Builders for a listed cost of $5,870,000. Long in the works, the solar panel system is one-of-a-kind in Raleigh. The work will be done by Sundance Power. We’ll be following this one closely, so keep an eye out for updates.
Other Recent Permits of Note:
- Gap at Crabtree Valley Mall (per the AP Stylebook, it is never to be referred to as “The Gap,” only “Gap” or “Gap Inc.” — who knew?) is set for a massive, $660,000 expansion into an adjacent space. The work will be handled by Commercial Contractors Inc.
- Anchorlight Studios, an “interdisciplinary creative space, founded with the intent of fostering artists and small businesses at varying stages of their development” received permits for their new space at 1407 S. Bloodworth Street. The $122,000 worth of work is being done by Ellington Contractors.
- Permits for renovations at Durant Park’s Campbell Nature Lodge, which will include the replacement of all HVAC equipment, ADA improvements to the second floor, the replacement of roof and canopy, and various aesthetic upgrades were issued to Scotia Construction. The listed cost for the project is just shy of $1 million at $999,200.
Durant Park
ITBreaking Ground
After being destroyed in a tragic fire in 2016, the beloved Sushi Nine broke ground on construction of their new restaurant. We covered this news over on the Raleigh Public Record when they received permits in December to rebuild in the same location. The owners worked with New City Design to design the new building. We’ll keep you updated on the construction progress.
Site Unseen
For the second week in a row, we’re reporting on plans for yet another new hotel in downtown Raleigh. The proposed 12-story, 192,964 gross square feet 192-room hotel is planned for 413 McDowell Street. Currently home to an Enterprise Rent-a-Car and across the street from Poole’s Diner, the land was purchased by the Winwood Hospitality Group in July 2015 for just over $4 million. County records indicate it was “sold” to a subsidiary of Winwood in June 2016. Winwood operates a number of local hotels, including the Hampton Inn & Suites and the Hilton Garden Inn, both near the Crabtree Valley Mall. Updated renderings, received from Winwood on 1/16/17, indicate it would be branded as a Courtyard by Marriott and include ground-floor dining and retail options. Construction should begin in the fall of 2018. We hear Raleigh is in desperate need of more Mexican restaurants, so hopefully that’s the direction Winwood intends to take.
A 2.68-acre open lot near New Bern Avenue and New Hope Road, currently owned by Young & McQueen Grading Company, could soon be turned into a recreational field. Site plan review case SR-2-17 would see this empty space on Corporation Parkway behind the Wal-Mart transformed into a rec field with an accompanying 33-space parking lot. Plans depict a soccer field.
A Zest for Zoning
The first rezoning case of 2017, Z-1-17, would allow for the redevelopment of 5.91 acres on a site at 7900 Falls of Neuse in North Raleigh. Presently home to a La-Z-Boy furniture gallery, a condition added to the property in 1994 prohibits any use outside of furniture sales on the land. We imagine the applicant, Ashby Furniture, has something like that in mind. If it were up to us, we’d use the land to rebuild a much, much larger space for New York Bagels & Deli, currently located in the shopping center across the street. If there’s a better bagel shop south of the Mason-Dixon, we’ve yet to find it. Z-1-17 is being handled by Capital Civil Engineering, which also worked on the REX Healthcare center in Holly Springs.
Planning for a Better Raleigh
Raleigh’s Planning Commission met for the first time this year to discuss a range of issues, from a new site plan for the Ridgewood Shopping Center to regulations governing transit easement and amenity installations. As fascinating as we find these meetings, we know this sentiment is not shared by all our readers, so here’s a quick recap:
- SP-12-16: Ridgewood Shopping Center — this plan calls for a 21,159 square foot mixed use building with 14 structured parking spaces on a 9.86 acre site on Wade Avenue, just inside the beltline. Although new apartments were originally included as part of the redevelopment of this long-standing, Whole Foods-anchored center, they were dropped in part due to a perceived oversaturation in the multifamily market. Planning Commissioners unanimously recommended the site plan for approval.
- CP-5-16: This more technical case (an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan) would have removed the proposed extension of West Morgan Street from the Street Typology Map; but commissioners unanimously recommended the case for denial.
- TC-2-17: Transit Amenities: This text change would codify regulations relating to developer requirements for transit easements and amenities, which, per staff notes, had been planned somewhat haphazardly in the past. The case was referred to the Commission’s Text Change Committee for further discussion.
- Z-38-16: This rezoning case would allow for a three-story mixed use development at the intersection of Buffaloe and New Hope Roads. The local Citizens Advisory Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of the project; Planning Commissioners last week chose to defer the case to a later date.
- Z-41-16: Also deferred by the Commission was a case that would allow for more intensive residential development to a space on Everspring Road in Northeast Raleigh by rezoning it from R-1 to R-6.
- Z-36-16: This rezoning case, which we wrote about back in November, would allow for the transformation of St. Augustine University’s Tuttle Community Center on North Tarboro Street into the Tuttle Public Health Center. Commissioners voted unanimously to recommend approval of the case.
- Z-22-16: This case would rezone a 2.6-acre property at 7930 Six Forks Road from Residential-4 to Commercial Mixed Use with a three-story cap. No residents attended a neighborhood meeting about the case in June 2016; Planning Commissioners voted to unanimously recommend the case for approval.
- Z-39-16: A 2.5-acre property on Green Acres Lane off Capital Boulevard could soon be rezoned to allow for the construction of a parking lot that would complement a “car sales” facility on Capital. Commissioners voted 8-1 to recommend approval.
- TC-7-16: The first text change case of 2017 is a very exciting one: it would amend Section 1.1.12.C Historic Development District Design Guidelines of the Raleigh Unified Development Ordinance by renaming it to ““Design Guidelines for Raleigh Historic Districts and Landmarks.” Woah!! Commissioners unanimously recommend approval of the case.
- CP-4-16: This amendment to the Comprehensive Plan would amend the Raleigh Street Plan and Area Plan Location Maps. Because this topic was so fascinating, Commissioners voted unanimously to leave it open to further discussion. We can’t wait!