It’s usually just the parking lot though sometimes the mall will close for the day. I think Fran closed several stores for weeks, but that’s usually generational type flooding.
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I worked at Crabtree during Fran. Everything in our store was destroyed and it did indeed take weeks to get clean and reopen. There was a mold issue for years afterwards too.
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What happen to the flood barriers that they had many years ago. Where thick sheets of plywood like 1 1/2 in that fit in chancels at all lower level openings. Is that still there or did it get removed in remodel at some point. This was in place before the upstream flood control lakes were built so could be decided did not need them any more!!! (oh will never happen to us again, thinking)
Saw the annual State of North Hills report for 2021/Outlook for 2022 popped up on my LinkedIn. Lots of pretty pictures, renderings, and overall good news. This one picture grabbed my attention as I think we might have to adjust our overall 2022 construction crane count if all these things start this year:
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How is the Exxon not in the cross-hairs?
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It probably makes a mint at that location. Might as well redevelop some lower-performing stuff that doesn’t require the same kind of land remediation before getting to it.
The North State Bank location is honestly more surprising to me.
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That’s a very good question. Maybe thinking the longer they wait the higher the payout? Especially as the ‘Main District’ gets built out?
It’s part of the RX-40 rezoning so it’s probably just not on the “planning” docket while the potential capacity is up in the air: visitnorthhills.com/rezoning
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Fenton will open without a grocer and they have not yet found a replacement for Wegman’s. It will be a year out two before they get a replacement. Wegmans is still paying rent.
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Interesting, and thanks for sharing this!
I almost wonder if it’s gonna be another 2 years, if Wegman’s might rethink whether they are still oversaturated.
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I thought the mayor of Cary leaked that Publix was coming
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He did, but maybe that was more like initial discussions, and they may not have panned out.
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Former Wegmans employee here (not in NC though), I can toss some light on the subject here.
- Supermarkets sometimes have a habit of doing things to keep competition out and Wegmans paying rent on a location they backed out of could be indicative of this, however this is a lot more common with market dominant chains trying to keep a potential rival out of a market, not of a newcomer to a market.
- Wegmans has been a bit over-extended since they’ve grown outside their traditional boundaries and it has shown in some ways and other “newer” markets have had similarly aborted stores (Fenway, Annapolis, Arcola VA). However, Cary was the first announced location back in 2016 though the move from Cary Town Center to Fenton didn’t help matters.
- COVID has really, really hurt Wegmans. A lot of what set them apart - the copious hot/cold bars, KBS (samples/prep techniques), beer/wine events, even certain café options - are heavily modified at best if not gone at worst. Even things such as the Chef’s Case aren’t the same as they once were. These are what set Wegmans apart from the competition.
- The above on a localized level in NC is worse as they opened Raleigh only 5.5 months before things hit the fan and all those things above barely registered in Raleigh and never were in the other locations in NC. Take those things away and Wegmans isn’t all that great.
- Out of any market Wegmans is present in, the competition here is fierce and their closest mainline grocery rivals - Harris Teeter, Publix, and Lowes Foods - are all of equal quality to Wegmans even more with a lot of Wegmans uniqueness on ice. And even Food Lion in the Triangle isn’t as bad as it comes off as.
- One of the key reasons that Wegmans gave for backing out of The Fenton was the increased amount of Instacart orders that made having an extra physical store redundant. While Wegmans has seen unreal utilization of Instacart in newer markets and many stores were majority Instacart during early days of COVID, it is a bit of a bubble. Wegmans in fact took curbside pickup wholly in house last year because the Instacart-hired contractors were not vetted and were causing strife.
- That part of West Raleigh/East Cary is a bit of a grocery black hole and Wegmans knows that they would probably succeed well there given how it’s just far enough from Raleigh/West Cary. That they pulled out was concerning and I think COVID turning them upside down hasn’t helped matters and I think they want to see the first batch of stores planned post-COVID before revisiting this.
- Perhaps there is a little quid quo pro going on vis a vis Publix, especially once Wegmans expands further southward. Maybe there’s a fear of letting Publix in now will hurt them in 10 years when Atlanta or parts of Florida are on the table and Publix turns heel. Farfetched but viable.
I think that’s enough for now.
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Outstanding, love the expansion and design. Yay!
Man. At this point I’m just considering that part of Cary as cursed. No Top Golf (which I didn’t really care about), no Ikea, no mixed development, and now an unfinished mix development area. We’ll see what happens in 2 years but it sucks because it seems Cary has been trying.
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I can’t possibly take credit for that shirt. House of Swank designed that gem of a shirt.
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Interesting prospective on Wegmans there. I wonder if COVID has had any additional delays on their other expansions down here in NC? In Holly Springs they’re building a Lowes home improvement and Wegmans side-by-side store off Highway 55. To my understanding both were ‘scheduled’ to open in 2021, but only the Lowes has so far. Looks like they haven’t really started construction yet on the Wegmans.
Here’s the development plan off the Holly Springs website for reference.
EDIT: Looks like the Wegmans website claims it’s still coming so who knows.
It’s still on their website as “Coming Soon”. I thought last time I passed by there that there had been some dirt movement on the Wegmans half.
You might be right, last couple of times I’ve been to that store it’s looked like it’s been at about the same pace. It’s night and day when compared to the speed some of the other developments are moving at around Holly Springs.
For instance, the big Fujifilm campus they’re building already cleared out a forest basically and has a sign up saying ‘Future Campus’ coming soon so 
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