I’m pretty sure the’re just being renovated. I have a friend who just moved into one next door- was only offered a month-to-month lease, as they are unsure of when they’ll start reno’ing those, but that’s what he was told - renovated into either “LuXuRy ApArTmEnTs” 
or condos.
3 Likes
Anyone know the zoning of this lot? I’m hoping for a 10story tower: ground floor retail, 2-3 levels of office, then rest apartments or condos. It will probably end up being a parking deck. 
1 Like
Apparently on Nextdoor, 1 person owns all 3 McDonald’s around Downtown Raleigh and they’re renovating both the Cameron Village one and the Downtown Raleigh one. But I don’t trust Nextdoor to be accurate.
2 Likes
Ugh. What a waste. 20 characters.
Zoned for 5 stories.
I think fast food restaurant are an interesting zoning taxing problem. Because they make enough cash flow for their owners that they don’t actuall incentivize building a bigger buildings which should have higher “value” to everyone (owner and tax roll).
The Zaxbys on Hillsborough is a good example of this. All the parking around the Friendly Apartments which have zero parking is for the Zaxbys. Friendly Apartments have like 20x the value per acres in tax value, but I bet the Zaxbys creates more cash for the owner. So tax value starts to not be as well tied to actually value of what is there.
2 Likes
We need these fast food joints to be on the ground floor of mixed used buildings in the future, and not stand alone drive-thru buildings.
At the end of the day, owning franchises of McD and the land they sit on is just a longer term RE play with the land generating income until such a time as it makes sense to cash out on the land value alone and then start the process all over again somewhere else.
7 Likes
I 100% agree with you, but something seems to be broken where the owners of these buildings don’t seem to ever act on the idea of being a ground floor Fast Food joint. I want them to start rebuilding as that. Are there any known examples of a successful fast food restaurant in Raleigh becoming a multi story mixed use building?
2 Likes
Well, Chick-fil-A was such a place before it closed. There’s also Subway on Fayetteville Street.
Not what he asked… Wants to know if a single story fast food restaurant in Raleigh rebuilt into a multi story mixed use building… I would like to know that myself.
Pardon me for misunderstanding the question. I don’t know of any examples.
1 Like
Sorry didn’t mean to make it so harsh sounding… but I was trying to think of any examples myself and could not come up with any… Chick-fil-a became a two story in Cameron Village and it is in a mixed use location but not quite what he is asking I think…
The Zaxbys on Hillsborough just fully remodeled itself which would have been a great time to rebuild. 
Perhaps something like a drive-thru tax? The damned things need disincentivized somehow anyway (come on haters, bring it) Couple it with a parking lot tax somehow and we’d be getting somewhere. The idea behind property taxes is to get people to do something with their land, and this would just refine it to doing a particular something. Edit: thanks for moving these Leo…I can’t seem to help wandering off on tangents.
1 Like
Closest thing I can think of is the iHop on Hillsborough. It moved down the road to a mixed-use and the iHop location near Ashe Ave is supposed to be apartments. This may not be what we’re looking for though.
9 Likes
It came up on another topic recently, but Clyde Coopers did something similar to what is being talked about. I don’t recall if they owned the old building they were in.
2 Likes
They did not, and they were very butthurt about getting pushed out of their falling apart old building that they never thought to buy for the last century. And then realized how happy they were being in a brand new building once they had moved.
4 Likes
I completely agree. There ought to be some sort of boundary in DT within which there’s a moratorium on new drive-thru businesses. If you are in your car, driving to and from DT, there will be plenty of other drive-thrus in more car oriented parts of the metro where you can get your morning latte.
3 Likes
So, not renovated…torn down as of yesterday two days ago or so. That’s fine I guess (they were as plain Jane as it gets but plopping materials in a landfill is always a waste), but this should kick off the final removal of anything remotely affordable near CV.
Thought I read somewhere they would be torn down to the foundations and rebuilt on the same footprint.
If that’s the case, missed opportunity for a more urban-style development fronting the sidewalk instead of a parking lot.
2 Likes
That’s a loophole so it can be approved as a ‘renovation’. Agreed, residential over retail fronting the sidewalk would be a way better orientation and composition.
2 Likes