This is my neck of the woods now and I’d love for them to break off as much as they can into this area. There’s a ton of these ‘city within a city’ kind of developments out here that are built or being proposed/built. This Veridea thing immediately reminded me of the Sweetwater development in Apex. I think I saw they’re starting on the ‘town center’ aspect of the development. I think there are rumors of a Whole Foods being the grocery store for that development?
Down the street from me they’re clearing land for this big 'ol thing called Carolina Springs in Holly Springs. Same kind of story of the Veridea development too with homes of all shapes/sizes and a ‘town center.’
@atl_transplant Yep, I got some friends and coworkers who live over there and they mentioned as much. TBJ picked it up not too long ago and had something on it too.
All for these types of developments. BUT, the difference in plans and amenities during the initial press stages until well into the residential construction are extremely different from what gets finally built. I can’t think of one of these mega developments that actually followed through with the office/retail/mixed use promises that create an actual neighborhood. If anything does get built, it’s more strip mall type spaces.
Agreed, the only thing I can think of that might have remotely come close to delivering the ‘advertised amenities’ is the 5401 North Development in North Raleigh. Not sure if you’ve been there, but the parents of some friends moved out there and it has a lot of these within the community. Think I saw there were some schools, trail points to the Neuse River, a brewery, and some other things out there.
There’s a few in Chapel Hill that have done a great job. Sweetwaters will be great and so far Wendell Falls is coming to form. 5401 is “okay” to me but there’s not enough greenspace within the neighborhood and so far they only have that one brewery and not much else commercial wise
5401 North was what I had in mind as a disappointment. The actual residential part of the neighborhood is great with 2 schools and there will be 3 access points to the Neuse. It does have a neighborhood feel, which Raleigh is sorely lacking.
However, if you take a look at the development plans from the beginning and even 3 years into construction, it’s hugely disappointing. They were touting very large areas of mid rise office and retail with a lot of pedestrian amenities. What they built so far is an architecturally nice strip mall with no permanent outside space or connection to the walking area around the nicely landscaped retention pond. That part is ok, but could have been much better.
But the rest of the mixed use spacing is shameful considering the initial plans. The development plans already approved are for single story businesses with the majority of the space used for parking lots. A huge area of the mixed used space will now be generic apartments with huge parking lots. It will look like an extension of what is already built up and down louisburg road.
You would have to think, like everything else right now, that COVID might have played a role in their planning. I think office space going forward will be a crap shoot, especially for smaller firms who can save money on overhead by having a larger WFH presence. These smaller firms were probably their target audience for the office space sector I feel, which is probably why some of that probably hasn’t really taken off IMO.
Maybe the best route forward would be for the developers to market these spaces as coworking places for people within the neighborhood? Something like Loading Dock but for residents? I think something like that could appeal to a lot of residents who might be shifting more to permanent WFH status.
Would have been a no brainer if they hadn’t abandoned the Durham & Southern south of Apex back in 1982, but today, you’d have to carve a new right-of-way to make it happen.
This fishing hook-shaped rail line to Veridea seems like it might be trying to atone for the error of letting the D&S abandon its route. Problem is, while a fishing hook is great for catching fish, it’s not a great shape for a rail line.
It would be neat if this rail route can expand into Holly Springs and beyond, but I’m not sure if it’s possible. The fact that the rail spur only goes to the center of the Veridea tract makes me think that it was only possible because all that land is owned by one entity. Buying (and probably suing for) right-of-way to Holly Springs would probably be way too costly to add to our fiscally-constrained plan.
The same plan also mentioned what looks like FAST buses to Durham, as well as local buses beyond the GoApex 1 route that will start next spring. If those sorts of frequent, fast buses could extend to Holly Springs and Fuquay, maybe we won’t need to rely on rail?
Another thing I noticed on closer inspection of the map: there are provisions for “future civic/higher education use” and a public school, too. I’m more skeptical than @ahops0428 about coworking thriving in the post-covid world, but those land uses suggest that Veridea could become a true community. …at least, I hope that’s what happens.
“Retail follows rooftops,” and offices/factories even more so. Because businesses generally want to minimize their employees’ commute times, they generally will prefer more central locations than their employees will.
So, the new town of Reston VA did eventually surpass its goal of having more employees than residents, but only does so because many (most?) of its employees commute from residential sprawl even further out. Turns out that while having a “self-contained community” is a nice idea, in practice job markets are metropolitan in scale and most New Towns import/export most of their workforces.
Were you referring to Southern Village in Chapel Hill? Not sure how many housing units they have, but the town center is actually quite nice. Also, Park West in Morrisville might be one of the largest mixed use live work play centers in the area. Not my taste, but there are a lot of options there.
Have these buildings at North Hills been posted? Spotted on SK+I’s website, who is also designing the first residential building in Downtown South. They’re fairly handsome compared to the usual mid-rise residential buildings we see around here.
186,000 SF Residential
17,800 SF Retail + Makerspace
200 Residential Units
