I mean… neighborhoods change. They always have. That shouldn’t get in the way of making places nicer and newer. There just has to be a place for the original people to move to as well.
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They can move into Cary Towne Center!!
oohh…wait…
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That’s basically what I meant. We don’t need entire communities to be raised for them to “improve”. When they are, they are almost always exclusively rebuilt for market rate buyers (retail and residential), pricing locals out. Proportional mixed-income housing and retail is essential for communities to grow without too much displacement.
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More Cary stuff. Here is a mixed-use office/retail development at 305 Bowden, on the north side of downtown Cary, basically across the street from Woody’s. This one was proposed several months ago.
TBH while geographically close to downtown, especially to Town Hall- I wouldn’t really call this “downtown” as it isn’t meaningfully contiguous with or walkable to any part of downtown.
(Note the black window frames… haha)
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This is our development 
I frequently walk from this area to DT Cary across the RR tracks at the town hall. It’s definitely a short walk, but not a designated walkway. Cary will fix that with the redevelopment of town hall.
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Man, soon be able to walk that quick stroll for some tasty Lawrence_Que when they move in the summer…
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are there global people that might like the Cary-like driving experience and it might just be its own thing?
This largely ignored corner of Cary provides us with a real live example about displacement that could unfold. It’s all well and good that a particular higher-level project proposed for this “corner” isn’t displacing any particular business in any of the existing strip centers, etc. right now, but it’s foolish to think that investment in the neighborhood couldn’t affect the long term viability of those businesses. One investment will lead to the next, which will lead to the next one, and so on. Eventually all of the neighborhood properties will rise in value and that will eventually threaten the viability of the existing businesses.
This investment dynamic could shape the long term vision for the greater neighborhood, and that vision likely threatens who’s there now. While it may be romantic to think that we can improve the neighborhood and have places for all of these existing businesses, if that includes those businesses seeing a doubling of their rent (because the “place” has improved), we may lose those businesses to elsewhere or to history.
The displacement likely doesn’t stop there. The folks living around the corner in the mobile home parks will also likely start to feel the heat as well. If land values start to climb on that stretch of Chatham, how long before the owner of those parks starts to think about redevelopment and/or selling their land?
Bringing this topic to a higher level, It’s not difficult to understand why stable and affordable neighborhoods would/might resist investment “that doesn’t affect them”. We have already seen this happening in Raleigh with the Method neighborhood resisting the next phase of BRT because some see that public investment as the first step in making their neighborhood unaffordable.
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Do you know where people can find the development plans online?
For Cary a good place to start is the Interactive Development Map:
https://www.carync.gov/projects-initiatives/maps/interactive-development-map
Most things wind up getting posted there eventually. They sometimes link to the plans from there but if they don’t you can get the address and/or development name from the map and then search for it using the development review portal:
https://townofcary.geocivix.com/
You have to sign up for an account in order to search.
For the specific project at 603 E Chatham, the link is here:
https://townofcary.geocivix.com/secure/project/?projectid=1496348
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Shooting a North Hills today. WRAL reporting it’s an not active shooter situation, but police are asking folks to stay away from the area. Carroll Middle School in Code Red lock down.
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My office is next door, initial reports are a chef from Coquette shot a server then walked outside and shot themselves.
awful news
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There’s discussion of what happened in the Raleigh subreddit but I won’t share unverified info here. The news choppers have been circling a long time, I’ll say that.
My wife got stuck in traffic on Six Forks in front of the Captrust building right as the police were closing everything down. Crazy stuff. Also glad my kids aren’t in Carroll anymore.
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Press conference due to start any minute. on WRAL.com
So, if the shooter shot himself then there’s no imminent danger to the community, right?
Yeah, the police chief said that the shooter is in critical condition after turning the gun on himself, the victim is dead, and a bystander has non-life-threatening injuries. But that it’s over and not a general risk. The schools are all back on code green.
Some more news:
It was the executive chef that was the shooter, George Colom. The deceased victim is Jonathan Schaffer, pictured here, and the injured victim is Jonathan Aguilar.
Colom has a previous criminal history.
On Tuesday in Orange County, Colom pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, which is a misdemeanor stemming from a September 2024 crash. He was ordered to pay $193 in court costs.
Before moving to North Carolina, Colom was in federal prison after he was convicted in January 2011 of possessing a stolen firearm in New Mexico. He was sentenced to three years and four months in prison. His initial charges were from 2010.
Colom’s Facebook page is filled with photos of guns with evidence tags from the U.S. Department of Justice.
State court records show he’s originally from Hubert, in Onslow County, near the coast. Those cases include minor drug charges.
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First Fenton and now North Hills. I guess folks have to come downtown to feel safe.
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I prefer the downtown Cary park. Though I did see a homeless-looking person seated on a bench napping there once. Obviously I immediately got in my car and drove home and bolted the door.
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It must be the bus stop at north hills that allowed the shooter to get to North Hills. 
Seriously though - sad day for the victims and their families.
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