That’s a valid question. Housing in the area is good, but a bit more mixture would be better. Something that is aimed for post-college adults is in short supply in that area. I bet a development aimed at university staff & faculty would be a success.
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If they’d made the vape shop a circular design, Raleigh could’ve designated it a historic structure in half a century or so.
I’m a big fan of any student housing on Hillsborough given that when I graduated in 2013, the options were slim outside of SFH and UT. But I just wish now these new apartments had better retail options going in. A few are a rotating door of uninspiring concepts and others have sat totally vacant.
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Looks like the Jersey Mikes/FedEx building? I know Roots just moved in next door and hasn’t been there long.
I don’t think that’s the right location. Site directly East, home of Man-Mur shoe shop. Based on the property owner and parcel ID cross referenced to imaps. Plus there was a TBJ article about Man-Mur’s owner selling a while back https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2026/04/09/raleigh-man-mur-shoe-shop-space-sale-market.html
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I wonder if the ground floor retail will be the Jersey Mike’s and FedEx store that are currently there…
I don’t think I’ve seen this mentioned here yet, but the two mixed-use developments currently under construction have names now. The “Brickside” is at the old Wells Fargo site & the “Heyday Raleigh” is at the old College Beverage 1 site. Apparently no hot tubs in either though… 
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Damn that’s a shame. I was about to sell my house, but no hot tubs is a deal breaker for me.
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Don’t know why entering 2708 Hillsborough St in iMAPS highlights the parcel as shown by @mike. If the development is exclusively on the Man-Mur property, then it will be odd and underwhelming. That collection of commercial buildings are essentially across from The Brickyard/Center of Main Campus.
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To the contrary: the smallest new buildings on Hillsborough are the best. 2304 and 2604 Hillsborough, along with 105 Friendly, set the bar for what a new mixed use apartment building in this district should be. When it’s probably going to be cheap materials no matter what, I’ll take this sort of fine grained texture of small buildings over the monotony and forced, false “articulation” of big wide buildings like Stanhope or Uncommon any day.
A shame to lose the barber and shoe shop though. Haven’t had to get shoes repaired many times but they’ve done the job well. Not exactly sure where else to go for that. Bought a few pairs there over the years too. Haven’t gotten a haircut at man mur either since college but it was awesome to have it right there.
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I’ve had a particular pair of shoes repaired there twice, and have now probably paid more for the repairs than I did for the shoes in the first place. They did a good job, and this particular pair of shoes are important to me. As I suspect it is for others and for my other shoes, I am more inclined to throw them away than I am to get them fixed. Also, a lot of shoes these days are so cheap and glued together, I don’t know that they are worth fixing or can even be fixed.
As for haircuts, well… 
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This was my barber shop forever. Two people cut my hair till I was 25 or so, my grandmother when I was a wee baby, and Mr. DeLuca at Man-Mur. This lot does seem really narrow for much of a building. It will be interesting to see the renderings.
It’s 60 feet wide, exactly the same width as 2304 and 2604. Having every possible spot on Hillsborough built up with a 4 to 5 story building like this is the best case scenario IMO.
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Fair enough - I don’t disagree with that idea. 4-5 stories sounds great to me.
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After a few weeks with Hub up and running, as a member of the church next door:
- Lots of student foot traffic! It’s a shame all the food and retail is across the roundabout. They really could have put in like, 1 spot for a sandwich shop.
- Cox Ave is a disaster now. With people parking on both sides (especially students just getting the hang of parallel parking) it’s basically only wide enough for one way traffic. Delivery drivers and drop-offs regularly make things even worse. If it were permanent residents we might see things settle down as people learn the ropes, but as it is I’m guessing it’s going to be chaos renewed every semester. Doesn’t help either that church traffic is just a big surge in a two-hour window.
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THANK YOU 
sick of the shortsightedness of these HUGE housing developments with zero street-level experience.
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FWIW it does have a coffee shop … on Cox Ave
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Something I’m noticing is that the roundabout is getting backed up routinely from the increase in pedestrian traffic. They may need to consider adding traffic signals to the roundabout (which is not totally unheard of.)
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The Pullen Rd crosswalk needs to be moved further back, preferably between the two roundabouts. It and the Belltower crosswalk on Hillsborough St need to be signalized.
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