This area presents a strong case to explore the concept of highest and best use. From a rental perspective, nearby Platform Apartments are listing one-bedroom units for $1,750 per month, excluding additional fees. On the for-sale side, luxury condos at the Fairweather range from around 1,000 to 2,400 square feet, priced between $500,000 and $1.5 million. Townhomes and duplexes in the area are also priced between $1 million and $1.5 million. The surrounding neighborhood offers decent retail options and is relatively walkable to the southern end of downtown Raleigh.
Despite these positives, it’s uncertain what the area needs to continue growing from a real estate standpoint. Inventory appears sufficient, and now it’s about filling up that supply. At present, developing a $400 per square foot condo product seems unrealistic, and rental rates, hovering around $2.75 per square foot, appear steep, as evidenced by the concessions being offered.
Looking at the pipeline, the nearby Maeve project with 297 units, the Platform project with 442 units, the 300 units planned for West Cabarrus Street, and Blue Heron’s South Street development with 230 units collectively bring over 1,200 new units within close proximity. Assuming a best-case scenario of absorbing around two residents per day, that amounts to about 18 months of lease-up, which would be an ambitious schedule.
The interior on these is much nicer than the Duke’s for the same price point. They also have outdoor space and easy access garages, which is unusual for most downtown townhomes.
I agree the exterior could have potentially been a little better, and the rooftop is small/there is no privacy wall between the two units on the top - but overall these are purpose built versus someone looking to cheaply build and flip. Not quite sure how they were justified financially, but not my problem and could be worse!
CJ MANN has sold 520 Harrington. Here is part of the article that was in the Biz Journal.
A Downtown Raleigh property where a 20-story tower had been proposed has been sold for nearly $2 million.
Trailblazer Investments LLC, with an address tied to Tryon Solutions, bought a 0.13-acre lot next to the Fairweather Condos for $1.925 million, according to Wake County deed records. The seller, Raleigh real estate firm Vistabution, had wanted to build a 20-story mixed-use building on the site, but the plan never came to fruition.
There is a single-story office building on the site at 520 S. Harrington St. just south of the railroad tracks. Adam Downing, president of Tryon Solutions, said the building will be an office for the IT services firm. He did not provide further information.
In 2022, Vistabution applied to rezone the property. It wanted to build a tower with 365 units, 38,321 square feet of office space and 2,667 square feet of retail space. But the proposal received pushback from City Council members and residents of the Fairweather Condos. Eventually, the rezoning request was approved after being amended to allow for up to 12 stories of development and adding conditions.
Vistabution CEO CJ Mann did not return requests for comment on why the company decided to sell rather than develop.
No site plans have been filed for the property.
Trying to get the building rezoned from DX-5-UL to DX-7-UL to allow for a community room that is already on the roof mezzanine area. It will probably take an act of God to get the residents to pay for it. But at some point in the future, we may get there. I can’t believe the developer just walled over it. But I guess he found out he didn’t have the zoning to build it out so they let it go. Like a lot of other nice to have things. So we sit here with no community room. We do have a smallish work out room…so there’s that.
Don’t give up hope! My building in Miami bought the only 1st floor unit in the building and converted it into a larger gym and then converted the original gym into storage cages. It can happen!
Also, 615 Peace is zoned for 4 floors yet the top floor units are 2 floors: essentially making it a 5 story building. Maybe there’s a cheat scenario like that that you can use?
Another tree planting season has come and gone, and the street trees around this building still haven’t been addressed. Or that ugly pole (anyone have a saw?). But the residents are organized and serious enough to legitimately get the property rezoned. Fascinating.
I would love for someone to care about the little things.
There was already some of that funny math with the Fairweather. It was/is zoned for 5 floors (I believe) and it’s technically 6 given the top residential units (penthouses) have 2 floors, but they got away with that being 1 as I understood it from the developer.
Without researching the UDO for the specific provision, lofts that do not constitute more than 50 percent of the floor footprint do not count as a story against the maximum stories limit as long as the building is below the maximum height limit for the zoning district (which is usually a generous amount).
Yeah. It is some strange math for sure. But this math requires one more floor to build out an existing room on the 5th/6th? floor of said building. And since technically no DX-6, we move up to Dx-7.
Yep. This one hasn’t been bad but it really has been hard to explain why a building that already exists and won’t change on the outside, needs a rezoning of two stories. LOL
Ok interesting! Thank you for the response. No one has even entertained me the other ~3 times I’ve mentioned this.
But someone else emailed trees@raleigh.com or something like that and had a menu of trees to pick from and they planted it. What reason are they giving you all for not re planting the trees? And what’s the deal with the pole? I’ll give it 2 more weeks on the pole and then will take some sort of action myself.
