Development Beat: Former Ham ‘N’ Egger and Oak City Diner Spot Being Developed

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Week of June 12, 2017

Development coming to Oak City Diner spot

Ridge Road gets pre-schooled

Stone’s Townhouses

Texas takes over Hargett Street block

Arrow Haircuts opening in North Hills

Remedy Diner could move down the street

New bar on Glenwood South

Blast from the past: Capital Boulevard’s abandoned hotel

Former Ham ‘N’ Egger and Oak City Diner Spot Being Developed

Once home to the Ham ‘N’ Egger diner, which later became the Oak City Diner before being torn down in 2008, the site just across the street from Mami Nora’s restaurant has sat empty for the better part of a decade.

Within recent weeks dirt has begun to move at the intersection of Wake Forest and McNeill Street. Over three years ago developers acquired the land and submitted the plan for McNeill Pointe, Wake Forest Road’s newest shopping center. Although no building permits have been issued yet, developers Dale Elmore and Bobby Lewis have begun the application process for the first two shell buildings. The permits, which call for two one-story, 8,400 square foot shell buildings that will be “mirrored from each other” are currently under review by City staff.

When complete, McNeill Pointe will comprise a total of four structures and offer more than 30,000 square feet of space for office, retail, and restaurant uses. The leasing agent for the property, Avison Young, told the News & Observer earlier this year that the space was 45 percent leased and that tenants would include a nail salon, a Shuckin’ Shack Oyster Bar, a House of Hops, and more. The project is expected to cost around $7 million, and should open by the end of the year.

Ridge Road Getting a New Preschool and Day Care

The Goddard School, a franchised early childhood education center will soon open its first ITB location. While four other Goddard Schools exist in Raleigh, the first ITB location will be across the street from Ridgewood Shopping Center.

The school, which boasts that its “unique nurturing approach will give your child the opportunity to develop into a joyful, confident learner who is prepared for success in school and in life,” opened its first location in Malvern, PA — not far from this reporter’s hometown! — more than 30 years ago.

Goddard now operates 460 locations in 36 states, so we can’t be sure this isn’t some sort of pre-pyramid scheme or day care cult. Why so many locations? Why so many states? In our area, they have schools located in Wake Forest, Cary, North Raleigh, and Brier Creek, which is basically Virginia. The ITB location will, naturally, be larger than the North Raleigh and Brier Creek schools at 11,000 square feet. When asked for his thoughts on this new school encroaching on ITB territory, Finley gave a typical measured response, “If it’s not White Memorial or St. Michael’s, then I don’t care.” Fair enough.

Townhomes Coming to Stone’s Warehouse

In March, we reported that work had begun on the redevelopment of the old Stone’s Warehouse on Davie, which will become Transfer Co. Olde East, a “food production hall, market, and gathering place” that will also include more than a dozen townhomes.

Last week, the City began reviewing the first round of permits for these new homes, which will be built on the southeastern side of the property along Chavis Way. While the submitted cost for each of the four townhomes is the same — $160,000 — one is slightly larger at 2,526 square feet, while the other three come in at 2,121 square feet.

While it’s hard to say exactly how long the review process may take — at this point, City records indicate that contact information for several subcontractors needs to be submitted in order to move forward — we take it as a good sign that the townhomes are moving forward so soon after work on the warehouse began.

Arrow Haircuts Coming to North Hills

Arrow Haircuts, a local barbershop chain offering haircuts, hot shaves, and — most importantly — free beer to its customers, will soon be opening a new location in the Park District at North Hills shopping center. The fifth location in the area for Arrow is projected to open in late 2017 in a 1,460 square foot space on the ground level of the new Park Central Apartments.

The company announced the new location on its Facebook page last week, thanking their loyal and amazing customers for the support they’ve shown over the past three-and-a-half years. Arrow currently has locations in Cameron Village, downtown on E. Hargett, on Wade Avenue, and on 9th Street in Durham.

Remedy Diner Moving

Popular vegan/vegetarian eatery The Remedy Diner on E. Hargett Street could soon be relocating to a new spot at the 927 West Morgan Apartments in the former home of P.G. Werth’s, which closed earlier this year after two years in business. Interestingly enough, the new location would put Remedy just down the street from Irregardless Cafe, another local restaurant popular with the vegetarian crowd.

Parliament on Glenwood South

A new bar from Jason Howard, who owned Brooklyn Heights and recently opened The Cardinal Bar on West Street, and Zack Medford, Ben Yannessa, and Brad Bowles of Isaac Hunter’s Hospitality, is coming soon to the ground floor of The Rockford in Glenwood South. The Parliament will be located at 322 Glenwood, which had had previously been home to Loud City Smoke Shoppe.

Texas Real Estate Firm Acquires Hargett Street Block

If it wasn’t for the excellent newsletter put out by Ashton Smith, we would have missed this one:  A real estate firm from Texas recently bought the entire 500 block of E. Hargett Street for $5.9 million. On that block sits the Wintershaven Apartments, a low-income housing community of 61 apartments, along with a few other lots. The block was purchased earlier this month by Artesia Real Estate, a property management and real estate investment firm based out of Austin, Texas. No word on whether they plan to redevelop the block, but the site is zoned for construction of up to three stories. We’ll keep our eyes open for any redevelopment plans that may be filed in the coming months.

Capital Boulevard’s Abandoned Hotel

Longtime readers of the Development Beat — Hi Mom & Dad! — may recall that we’ve written about the old Capital Plaza hotel on Capital Boulevard more than a few times. In my very first column I referred to it as “an ugly scar on the already pockmarked face of Capital Boulevard” and when plans began to surface about a potential redevelopment, I was so excited that I wrote two whole articles about it.

So I was thrilled when I saw a post on Reddit of what we’d call an urban explorer video shot at the Capital Plaza. The video’s author won’t allow embeds, so the best I can do is share this link, but it’s seriously worth clicking through. I’d been curious about this place for going on seven years now, and I know I’m not the only one who wanted to see what it looked like inside.