William Peace and Seaboard Station

dtraleigh · December 3, 2019, 5:24pm

I’m hearing that Sunflowers is closing at the end of the month. Demo early next year?

scotchman · December 12, 2019, 1:35pm

yep seems they are “leaving for the coast”.

https://www.newsobserver.com/living/food-drink/article238222904.html

(made me think American pie - realized that as about it hit post chuckles)

Mark · December 13, 2019, 2:32am

That article said Brew is closing that location too…their flagship spot. I have a feeling, that despite this project, Seaboard will never recover the neat cache it had a few years ago.

R-Dub · December 13, 2019, 2:48am

To each his own, but Seaboard never excited me that much anyway. I think the future is bright for this patch of real estate. Ace hardware and Logan’s survive which is key to me.

Mark · December 13, 2019, 2:53am

18 Seaboard did and Betskis does have super loyal followings. Peace China too from what I can tell at lunch. It felt like 5 points took a turn and Peace and planted some seeds there. Logans and Sunflowers already attracted that crowd so it all dovetailed together nicely. It felt organic and homegrown and now its an out of town developer coming in and deciding what our city will be like now.

OakCityDylan · December 13, 2019, 3:09am

I would hardly give Seaboard Station credit for defining what our city will be like. That area has a lot of potential and hasn’t been able to live up to it as long as I’ve been around. I’ve gone there to Ace, Logan’s and once to the wine shop. I had been to Tyler’s and the concept that followed it but they needed more there to activate the area. Hopefully the new development will do that.

Mark · December 13, 2019, 3:27am

Using the old Newtons corner and taking out the tennis courts should have been done a long time ago but Peace College was Peace, being bad community participants and not letting that stuff go. (they’ve also closed two streets). I think having something fronting Halifax St would have made it feel more whole. As it was though, the things there rounded out and brought retail to a corner of downtown that had zero at that point in time. There were even big plans to build condos where the Brew strip is now but the real estate bubble killed that. Also two versions of apartments were proposed back by the sub station. Point being, there was indeed cache on top of general pragmatism to this area 15 years ago. There were two versions of a grocery store and of course Phydeux. A little ahead of their time, but the forward thinkers were giving it a go, Right there.

R-Dub · December 13, 2019, 3:35am

The grocery store (Capital Grocery I think) that was there failed because it was mis-concepted and mismanaged.

Mark · December 13, 2019, 3:40am

It came back a second time under…new management. Apparently they upped their hot bar but it seemed the same to me. I think it just never had a good idea what it was primarily…was it a speciality store? Was it just a smaller format general grocery store? It sort of half assed each of those. It needed to pick one. Also, not facing Peace or even having a sign facing Peace seemed like a killer to me. I fully expected it to go in the Tylers space (which at first had that little burger place Tookies and something else), but was very surprised when it ended up hiding itself away from traffic and its downtown audience.