Here’s a video from the town highlighting the proposed downtown project:
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Garner is geographically on the wrong side of Raleigh to benefit from the Triangle area’s massive growth. Sure, it may get some spillover growth if the stadium and downtown South happens, but its effect on changes to the town of Garner are DECADES away.
Cary is fortunate in that its host to so many tech companies and on the way to RTP and the airport, as well as sprawled all along interstate 40. In my opinion, that’s part of why there’s been so much growth in Cary. Demographics, income, salaries, employers, it’s night and day difference between the 2 suburbs. I just don’t see much potential for things changing much for Garner without the COVID issue; COVID seems like it slows things down even more for them to see much change. Just my 2 cents.
For the person who posted something about a Great Wolf Lodge, i guarantee they’d pick Cary over Garner or any other of the sleepier towns around Raleigh or Durham. Location location location.
Garner has been growing pretty well. From 2010-2019, the population growth is 22%. Fuquay is less convenient to RTP and has 68.6% population growth. One of the hidden growth factors may be the annexation of city land. I can see growth in Garner getting more development especially once the light rail gets put in.
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Also, Garner is well positioned as DT Raleigh and Centennial Campus grow with jobs. In addition to being VERY close to downtown, it’s also a naturally occurring affordable housing option for a broader cross section of the workforce.
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Garner may not be the closest suburb to the airport but neither is Clayton or Johnston County for that matter and look at its growth. Garner is by far the closest to Downtown proper. It has been ‘held back’ solely because of its proximity to SE Raleigh and all the baggage that comes with being next door to that area. BUT as we all know SE Raleigh is transforming quickly and with Downtown South…the exponential growth is set to explode over the next few years. Add in the Opportunity Zone financial benefits compared to say Cary, and for a developer, there are more compelling reasons to invest in Garner.
Best part of Garner compared to say ‘Cary usa’…their primary color of choice is not beige!!!
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Downtown South will also activate land values in Raleigh south of 40. That whole are of south Raleigh and north Garner is well positioned.
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i don’t think the type of growth happening in Fuquay and Garner and Johnston County to date is the kind of growth that we’re thinking from this website is the exciting and transformative types of developments. Perhaps someone will correct me if they know the stats, but I’m willing to bet Fuquay and Garner and JoCo are growing because that’s the only place there’s any land to build new homes. Definitely not because its going to there’s going to be similar development in any of those compared to what they’re doing downtowns of Raleigh, Cary, Durham and CH.
Sorry, perhaps I should have pointed that out. I don’t dispute those areas have large numbers of people moving in to LIVE there. Same as Wake Forest. It’s just none of those are places that I think are going to have anything transformational for commercial development, trendy condos, well planned out towns, etc. Cary implemented those restrictions and tight zoning 50 years ago. It’s way too late for any of these other towns to put that genie back in the bottle. They’re just going to continue to be continuous building of gas stations and Walmarts and waffle houses and cheap motels strung along the busy 6 lane highway south and East of Raleigh, while the “cool” stuff is in Raleigh, Cary, Durham, and Chapel Hill. My 2 cents.
I mean there’s a lot of population growth in Wendell and Zebulon, too…Anyone gonna actually argue they are cutting edge and well positioned for the kind of stuff you want to see happen? It’s out in BFE.
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Garner is 4 miles from Downtown. North Hills is 6.
I would agree the real estate development of Fuquay, Clayton or Cary are not really of interest for this site. Downtown Garner however has a chance to be restored and redeveloped in a a way that is urban-ish…due to geography and proximity to Downtown…if nothing but via spillover from Downtown South’s development.
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As the crow flies, the distance from North Hills to the Capitol building is nearly identical to the distance from the north end of Garner to the Capitol Building. Similarly, the distance from Garner’s tiny historical center on Main Street is closer to the Capitol building than all of north Raleigh above Lynn/Spring Forest Rds.
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I don’t expect Garner to get any tall skyscrapers. If anything, they’d probably get some 4-6 story hotels and potential smaller offices. Having the expectation that a lot of areas surrounding Raleigh or Durham get dense vertically is unrealistic. This is the case in a lot of big urban areas. San Francisco has dense tall skyscrapers, but go outside San Francisco and the skyline drop off. Berkeley doesn’t have tall skyscapers, but has good dense development. The same thing happens in DC and even NYC (except that Brooklyn has come up and Astoria is building vertically now as well). Get 7 miles out of Manhattan and the skyline definitely drops off.
Unfortunately I think one thing that does kill our dense urban development here is that we have Raleigh, Durham, RTP, and CH all apart from each other. For one to grow dense vertically, the other’s would need to miss out.
I can see Garner growing, but probably more as a bedroom community with some decent neighborhood shopping; especially when the rail line gets put in. In regards to the Great Wolf Lodge, if you see areas where Great Wolf Lodges are, they aren’t necessarily close to big cities (Manteca is 73 miles driving distance from San Francisco; the Boston listed one is 48 miles driving distance).
In the long run, I don’t see Cary or Chapel Hill getting 20 story buildings anytime soon (which is ok). The same goes for other areas outside of Raleigh or Durham. HUB RTP may get a couple of 20 story buildings, but I wouldn’t expect it to get much larger than the current size of North Hills for a very long time.
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I think Garner has some obvious challenges. But keep in mind that the location is good and home prices are way more affordable. Price per square foot for downtown Raleigh is around $400-500. Even neighboring Fuquay is becoming less and less affordable with the average home price north of $300k. Forget finding anything affordable in Cary either. So…yes, Garner has a long way to go. BUT…it is a sleeper community and one that is way more affordable currently. With average home prices rising and inventory low, Garner is going to have appeal to many who are priced out of other areas. The fact that Garner is planning some positive re-development for downtown Garner is only going to help. As downtown Raleigh transforms in the South, it is conceivable that Garner’s proximity will help give it another boost. IMHO.
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Well, this is big. The Durham VA plans to build a $100 million clinic in Garner, located near the intersection of NC-50 and Rand Rd.:
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Garner making more big moves with conceptual master plans for two future parks, Yeargan Park and Meadowbrook Park:
There’s also a survey open through the end of the month.
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Town of Garner is considering proposals from three developers—including Raleigh’s CityPlat—for a mixed-use project in downtown:
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Hopefully they will kill the giant parking deck or at the very least wrap it with apartments and hide it
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What do they mean, “tabletop parking”?
The CityPlat proposal is funny because they stuck a huge skyline in the background of both pictures, as if downtown Garner is actully nestled within New York’s Central Park. Seems like it would have been simple to have the background be trees…
LMG’s proposal at least sort of looks like it belongs in Garner (Acquest’s looks like it was designed in a c1998 version of AutoCAD), but I suppose all of these will change. Honestly the CityPlat proposal is so Raleigh, devoid of character, I hope if Garner ultimately chooses them the town forces them to hired a different/better architect and make the structure not look like the other 127,000 cookie-cutter 4-story apartment blocks in Wake County.
I think having anything there is going to be better than having nothing, but I hope the town of Garner has more backbone than the city of Raleigh as far as design goes.
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Let’s add a topper to that with solar panels and/or greenery.
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Those shade canopies over parking could very much be solar panels and it truly would not be hard to dress up the edges of the ‘tabletop’ with some greenery…
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