Raleigh-area Mall / Life-Style Center / RTP Redevelopments

[pBeez]

Olde Raleigh at Duraleigh & Edwards Mill always jumps to mind.

[JeepCSC]

I am a bit confused. I thought Kane came up with Midtown as an alternative name for North Hills. And then at some point people just started calling that pocket of North Raleigh “midtown”. Or is that wrong. Incidentally someone mentioned Crabtree, but as of now that isn’t considered Midtown correct?

[NoRaAintAllBad]

There has been a ‘Midtown’ magazine long before the Kane reference (say 2008 or so ?) but I’m not completely certain of the etymology of the local usage. I never use the term personally since I use the smaller area names myself, but I could see how as we grow it becomes more accurate…?

[NoRaAintAllBad]

I mean, I use one of 'Biscuit’s ‘alphabet soup’ descriptors in my communityID and nobody else calls it NoRa but me but that’s OK

[wanderer]

It’s all confusing depending on who you ask.

According to Google, this is North Hills:

According to Apartments.com, this is North Hills:

But this is Midtown:

17 Best Neighborhoods in Raleigh NC lists North Hills description “Located just North of the beltline, it’s Raleigh’s fastest-growing area. One day there are trees and the next there is a shopping mall. North Hills is a great area and neighborhood for anyone who is moving to Raleigh. They possess some great schools for children, the Crabtree Valley Mall for shoppers, great restaurants, live entertainment, and countless parks.”

8 Best Neighborhoods in Raleigh, NC | Mornington Estates - Raleigh Homes for Sale also lists Crabtree Valley Mall as part of North Hills.

https://www.greatamericancountry.com/places/local-life/great-neighborhoods-in-raleigh calls it North Hills and “Midtown”.

https://visitnorthhills.com/ calls itself “North Hills Raleigh’s Midtown”

Midtown Raleigh calls Midtown as the Village District, Crabtree Valley, Five Points, and North Hills.

https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/north-carolina/articles/the-top-7-things-to-do-and-see-in-midtown-raleigh/ considers Crabtree Valley, Shelley Lake, “Artistic Abandon” (which used to be at 6 Forks/Sawmill Rd) to be part of “Midtown”.

Midtown Raleigh is getting a makeover :: WRAL.com calls it four neighborhoods: North Hills, Crabtree Valley, Cameron Village (Village District), and Five Points.

If you look at other “Midtown” businesses, they stretch from Atlantic Avenue to Lynn Rd.

I call North Hills “North Hills”, but if someone was to mention “Midtown”, then that’s where I would think they were talking about. “Midtown East” I would consider Wegman’s since that’s the name of the shopping center there.

[Boltman]

This thread is being over analyzed

[RobertSanderlin]

Maybe, but I love analyzing the analysis of an analogy

[HardeesBiscuit]

Pretty sure he did.

But just like everybody refers to using “Kleenex” while the competitors wish you wouldn’t use a brand as a generic thing, I think it’s kind of turned out that North hills is way better known as a district/area then as just the developments that Kane built.

[GucciLittlePig]

I call North Hills North Hills and I call other areas nearby by what’s nearby (Trader Joe’s). But I get the idea of connecting all the points into one general area and giving it a name, in this case Midtown. For some of you North Hills is an old mall from the 80s, and anything nearby is just an extension of that. I’d say let’s look to the present and future and see if a new name for the general area makes sense. I’ll keep calling Cameron Village Cameron Village for awhile because I’m used to it. I don’t really care if they want to change the name, that’s fine. But I’m used to it being Cameron Village. If they do a good job with their rebranding, though, I’ll eventually start using the new name. I get that Midtown seems like a pretentious marketing gimmick, but if using it refer to a new and planned general area, I say bring on the growth, no matter what it’s called.

[HardeesBiscuit]

Same here on cam village etc
Raleigh is small enough that using “what’s nearby” Like you describe, is plenty, much of the time.

[Alan]

I seem to recall that there was a kind of competition between the Soleil developers and Kane. The Soleil developers wanted the crabtree area called midtown and Kane wanted the North Hills area called midtown. When the Soleil projects fizzled (there was actually more than one project proposed), North Hills won and they applied the midtown moniker to that area.

[R-Dub]

Southern Virginia!

[John]

I’ve heard some people refer to the area from North Ridge toward the west along Strickland Rd. called uptown.

[Kanatenah]

I call that Wake Forest.

[JeepCSC]

I did not grow up in uptown Raleigh.

[Kanatenah]

Billy Joel - Uptown Girl (Official Video)

[JFG]

I grew up in “North Hills.” I used to walk/bike to the old mall. I agree that the concept of North Hills has expanded to refer to not just the Kane development, but all the adjacent neighborhoods to the development. That makes sense and it’s really good for property owners in the area.

I hate referring to both North Hills and the Six Forks/Wake Forest area both as Midtown, because there is almost ZERO connection between the two areas. Midtown to me should just mean anything along the Beltline between Crabtree and Capital. That’s practically meaningless and harmless.

[ADUsSomeday]

I have heard people who live over near Shelly Lake call their area North Hills, which I think is the opposite situations to what you just described (totally agree with what you just said btw.) Where the people who live there attach themselves to the nicer thing, but people not from there wouldn’t say they are part of North Hills.

[Nickster]

To be fair, North Hills Drive runs from Lead Mine north up to Lynn, just east of Shelley Lake.

[GucciLittlePig]

Hillsborough St runs by NC State but no one claims it’s part of Hillsborough…