I feel like developers shouldn’t be able to show renderings of mature trees alongside new looking buildings, when the 2 will never coexist…
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I can’t imagine for a minute that the mall would be demolished. The $$$ would not work out. Renovated, added too, sure. But it is not going anywhere. Not for 10+ years at min…
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I don’t know why the TBJ editor jumped to the conclusion that Crabtree would go 
kablooey minutes after John Kane signs a contract. As the author notes, “there’s the issue of what to do with the retailers who hold long-term leases inside the mall” – you can’t demolish anything until those leases expire or are bought out. All of those leases say that they’re entitled to stay inside a mall, and for that privilege they pay the owner tens of millions of dollars in rent every year.
Of course it’s a valuable redevelopment candidate; the prior owners recognized that with their 40-story proposal, and I’ve certainly floated a few improvement ideas upthread. But it would make no sense for Kane (i.e., the guy who owns more entitled but as yet unbuilt FAR in Raleigh than anybody else), to spend $X00,000,000 just to control more dirt.
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Can’t fix flooding issues on a mall built on a flood plain. - we’ll you could, but would take some serious cash.
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My school has relocated a couple of medium sized trees before. If this is made one of the priorities to achieve the look of the renderings within a few years, I’m sure it’s possible.
Edit: I’m not sure if they were oak trees though.
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May 12th
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All I want is a grocery store and some type of entertainment option. It doesn’t need to be a Theater because that’s too cliche, but something that I can enjoy when it’s rainy or too hot outside. Put a grocery store and a Dave & Busters (or similar) in the Macy’s building and you’ll have a North Hills sans 20 story towers.
Pg. 49 of the greenway plan shows a greenway trail going between Crabtree Valley Ave and Parklake Ave. You won’t get the social events North Hills has, but will have a nice lake you can walk to. I thought a nice park at the top of Homewood Banks overlooking the area would have been nice, but it seems that’s going to be an aparment complex (Click here for ASR). Normally I’m all for apartment complexes, but this one could have been a park.
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No worries, they have a warning on the sidewalks.
Went to check it out tonight and I think it’ll be really cool for people like me living in the suburbs near everything. I wouldn’t really think people downtown would drive out to visit or anything. I drive everywhere, by choice, but I prefer to park my car at a destination and walk around, and this definitely works for that. I’m most excited about M Sushi and Dram & Draught and the high end restaurants being so close to me. Ashley Christensen was at Williams Sonoma making tasty truffle pasta and they had mint juleps. Actually a fun little time on a Friday after work.
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Interesting that Kane may buy Crabtree Valley Mall. I can see that turning mixed use and it going up up up into the sky.
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In the meantime, I was kind of hoping that the businesses at the mall would relocate here if this even gets built. I assume it’s dead but it could be an effort.
Even to convert the mall into an outlet mall, it’s not going to work - land is too small
Crabtree North | McAdams (mcadamsco.com)
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Yeah. This is supposed to be apartments now with the exception of the Marriott. I’m looking forward for it to be a better pedestrian access from Lead Mine Rd to the mall via Marriott Dr.
Back before the great recession of 2008, there were some pretty aggressive plans for Crabtree that included a more North Hills sort of experience on the south side of the creek, and that obviously fizzled. While there has been development since, it’s just not the previous vision. I’d be really curious what Kane might do with the Mall if he were to get ownership. At the very least, the mall needs a serious facelift. The last one was a major upgrade to its previous version, but it’s looking extremely tired these days. If it stays a mall, I sure hope that it doesn’t follow in the Disneyesque interior of Southpoint rather something sleek and modern like one might find in larger metros in the country. Something like this…
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I love southpoint but I do agree with you. We need one of our malls to feel like the grown up “galleria” types.
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That looks really cool. Crabtree is convenient for me but it definitely looks dated. I like Southpoint more. I do still like regular malls, maybe because I’m a 90s kid, but they’re great for in person clothes shopping. Whatever Kane does if he gets Crabtree will be an improvement I’m sure.
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A nieman marcus that’s sounds sexy. Though we did have one.
A Needless Markups would probably do well in that area.
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Oh, cmon Nieman Marcus, Gucci, and Louie Vuitton, would work well there and at North Hills.
Perhaps. I don’t really know. Not sure Raleigh quite yet has the critical mass of wealth for places like that to do well but not my area of expertise. Seems like you need a lot of people who like bling—Miami Beach, NYC, Paris. It would be interesting to see how one of those brands fares in Raleigh. They have entire departments running numbers to figure those things out though.
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How would you guys feel if we permanently closed Fayetteville St and turned it into a pedestrian plaza? I’d love to see this happen. It’s already closed a lot for festivals & major events so why not close it for good? Add outdoor dining, a little outdoor shopping mall area and maybe even get some of those local businesses and food trucks down there. Especially with Moore square station being just a street or two over, the capitol building and the performing arts center, I really think it makes the most perfect sense for it and would probably do really well, while encouraging people to stop driving cars everywhere
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Not sure how long you’ve lived in raleigh, but it was a pedestrian plaza from 1979ish until 2005. I doubt there’s much appetite to spend that much money to make it one again.
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