Development Beat: New Tenants at Dock 1053, New Downtown Pizza and Beer Spots

Brought to you by Rufty-Peedin Design Builders.

Week of May 15, 2017

Dock 1053 to get a new cafe and bar, and event space

Benny Capitale’s pizza coming to Fayetteville Street

Growler USA coming to Blount Street Parking Deck

North Ridge Country Club upgrades to Leisure Pool

North Hills is trying to create a Neighborhood Conservation District

510 Glenwood is getting a facelift

Hummingbird Cafe Coming to Dock 1053

The owner of PoshNosh Catering announced plans to open two new businesses inside the former food distribution warehouse on the corner of Whitaker Mill and Atlantic Avenue now known as Dock 1053. Hummingbird will operate as a cafe serving breakfast and lunch during the day. After 5 p.m. it will become a bar serving small plates, cocktails, wine, and champagne. According to the N&O, the stools will be repurposed from other venues, including Finch’s. Whitaker & Atlantic will be an event space that features an additional kitchen, bar, and bridal suite. Dock 1053 is currently home to several offices, artist’s working spaces, a furniture store, the Pinetop Distillery, and the Lynnwood Brewing Concern.

Grubb Ventures, which owns Dock 1053, recently acquired the nearby Peden Steel property, as we reported in January. The company is reportedly planning to develop a project similar to 1053, although the current tenant, Waste Management, still has several years remaining on its lease.

Advertisement

New Pizza Place Coming to Fayetteville Street

This pizza’s for lovers. Benny’s, a pizza chain billing itself as home of the “Virginia Slice” will soon take over the space at 121 Fayetteville Street previously home to Crema. The chain adds a different surname depending on its location, including a Benny Cappella’s in Chapel Hill and a Benny Pennello’s in Charlotte. The website notes that Benny Capitale’s will be opening in Raleigh this summer, offering $4 slices of cheese and $5 slices of pepperoni, sausage, and monthly specialty pizzas. Whole pies will be available ranging from $30-$38 dollars. Mama Mia, that’s a pricey pizza! The $28,000 renovation of the 1,615 square-foot space will be handled by Fusion Contractors.

They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot Pub

The Blount Street Parking Deck is about to get a whole lot boozier. Microbrewery pub and restaurant chain Growler USA will soon open its newest location in a street-level space in the city-owned parking deck at 314 South Blount Street. Growler currently has ten locations across the country, including one in Charlotte. While the locations boast slightly different beer and menu offerings, they claim to offer up to 100 varieties of beer on tap. As the name implies, many of these beverages can taken home in a growler. The $358,000 renovation of the 2,152 square-foot space will be handled by Sparkman Construction.

Hilton Midtown Renovations

A massive 18-phase renovation of the Hilton Midtown Raleigh that will involve pricey, floor-by-floor renovations of the entire property is now underway care of Continental Contractors, which received permits with a combined listed cost of more than $4.7 million last week. We wonder if any of the contractors working on the job will be allowed to stay there during construction.

North Ridge Country Club Upgrades to Leisure Pool

Wading pools are out and leisure pools are in, apparently. The North Ridge Country Club on Falls of Neuse last week received permits for a $340,000 project that will replace the club’s existing wading pool with a brand-new leisure pool. For the unwashed masses who don’t know the difference, a wading pool is a “shallow artificial pool for children to paddle in,” while a leisure pool is just what you call a regular swimming pool when you’re in an amenities race with other country clubs in the area. Hopefully no one decides to throw a Snickers bar in upon completion. Aquatic Management Group will be handling the work on this project.

Progress on Exploris School

A 47,915 square foot building on Kindley Street just south of the Meymandi Concert Hall will soon be torn down — even the slab will be removed — in order to make way for the new home of the Exploris Charter School. Built in 1986 and previously the site of a Duke Energy data center, the building was acquired by Exploris for $4.4 million in April 2016. Exploris will consolidate both its middle and elementary schools into the new location, a ten-story structure that will also house commercial office space. Metcon will be handling the $50,000 demolition.

North Hills Neighbors Seek Shelter From Storm of Subdivisions

In an effort to “preserve and enhance the general quality and appearance of their neighborhoods,” residents of North Hills in February submitted to City Council a petition requesting consideration for a “neighborhood built environmental characteristics and regulations analysis.”

The analysis is the first step in creating a Neighborhood Conservation District, an overlay that helps preserve neighborhoods by regulating built environmental characteristics such as lot size, setbacks, residential density, building height, and vehicular surface area. Per the petition, the intent is to “maintain the current built character of the area and prevent subdivision of existing lots.”

City Staff performed an exhaustive analysis of the neighborhood in question, which we’ve linked here. At this point, the staff recommendation to Council is to authorize the initiation of a text change that would “incorporate the North Hills neighborhood built characteristics and regulations into the UDO.” The text change would also “modify the list of standards that can be regulated by the NCOD and contemplate a threshold for City Council authorization of a neighborhood study.”

Approval of the text change will require a public hearing before Council. We wish the neighbors the best of luck!

Land Swap Meet

A joint effort from Wake County, the City of Raleigh, and the Raleigh/Wake Partnership to End and Prevent Homelessness and Catholic Charities could soon lead to the development of the Oak City Center on Wilmington Street.

Before the site can be redeveloped into a new home for the outreach center, however, City Council will need to approve a minor property exchange with Wake County.

Per today’s City council meeting agenda, “The exchange will involve a 0.142 +/- acre portion of the City’s 41.84 acre property located at 1500 South Wilmington Street for a 0.261 +/- acre portion of Wake County’s 4.2 acre property located at 1430 South Wilmington Street. The property exchange will be shown on a recombination plat and title transferred with deeds between the parties.”

While this seems like an odd bit of bureaucratic red tape to have to jump through, its inclusion as an item in the consent agenda likely means the approval will go through without any trouble.

510 Glenwood Set for a Facelift

One of the first new developments in downtown Raleigh, 510 Glenwood was built in the heady days of 1999. The luxury condo building is fast approaching its 20th birthday and facing much stiffer competition than it did when it opened 17 years ago. As a result, the building’s owners have announced that a major exterior renovation will be starting as soon as this week.

Per City records, a permit for facade alterations has now completed its final review. The $123,795 project will be handled by JM Thompson Construction. Our friends at New City Design Group will be handling the design work.

Downtown Discotorium

While we aren’t sure what a “discotorium” is, that’s what will replace the Mosaic Wine Lounge at 517 West Jones Street, which closed at the end of April.

This week’s City Council agenda notes that the owner of the Five Seventeen Lounge and Discotorium requested a two hour parking zone in the daytime and a passenger loading zone in the evening be established on the south side 500 block of West Jones Street. The two-hour zone will allow for short-term restaurant parking, while the passenger loading zone will offer customers “the convenience of having a safe and convenient area for curbside drop off and pick up in the evenings.”

While we have no idea what kind of place Five Seventeen will be — although we hope the owners take some aesthetic cues from The Simpson’s Disco Stu — the former Mosaic Wine Lounge was, for more than 10 years, “a home for many underrepresented music genres in the Triangle.”