It’s difficult to inspire interesting retail with sky high leasing rates. Regardless of how many new residents there are. If you think about it, more eclectic and fun spots existed when it was mainly dorm room students, because people could afford to take a risk and open a new bar/restaurant. Now you need to be an established brand, like the IHOP and CVS that occupy those spots now. It’s stale, boring, uninspiring, and nothing like what you would expect the main street of the college to represent.
The owner is a personal family friend who I’m working through the land lease agreement now, they want to keep it in the family name. My wife’s company would do the construction, and I’ve already lined up a restauranter who would take on the signature sports bar, the bottom would be filled with simple retail, College sports apparel etc.
Good luck with that endeavor! Big fan of those plans. It would be very welcome for Hillsborough to have some new life breathed into it - especially over on that end. Other than Brickhouse or Raleigh Brewing (which are further away past the next intersection), there’s no where to go before/after NCSU Baseball games in that area.
Also excited about the proposed retail for college sports apparel. The Red & White Shop is always slammed during the academic year. Have been hoping for a while that something along those same lines would open on Hillsborough closer to campus.
Speaking of struggles on the western end of Hillsborough—spots in the Royal Bakery near Meredith are dealing with rising lease rates. Ben & Jerry’s just threw in the towel and others are considering to do the same.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re soft-pushing out all the businesses that can’t afford it and then eventually empty out the building for redevelopment…
It’s a neat building, but it’s pretty tired. Feels like it’s due for a renovation. Glad it’s landmarked, though, we don’t have much Art Deco / early modern architecture in Raleigh.
That’s good! Yeah, wouldn’t be against renovating it and perhaps even developing some of the back lot into more useable space, but glad to know it can’t just be demolished.
Can’t imagine that many folks actually going to a Ben & Jerry’s brick and mortar with all the solid local ice cream spots and when you can just buy it by the pint at most grocery stores
So you guys think they are raising leasing rates there to drive out tenants rather than to turn them over and make more profit?
Anyway it would be a shame to lose this one. It’s a solid, attractive building and there aren’t many interesting, historic buildngs this far from downtown.
Basically the entire back parking lot is power lines and railroad right-of-way so the only land that might be useful to develop without tearing something down is the parking lot directly across from the entrance to Meredith. That’s about 14ksf which could fit a small apartment building like 1301 Hillsborough. But given what happened to the Goodnights building demolition is definitely a possibility.
