Streets at Southpoint Plans to Be Less Like a Mall (Durham: real estate, apartments)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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From today's N&O:
Brookfield Properties, the real estate investment trust that owns the mall, is submitting a rezoning request to the city of Durham that would allow it to move beyond only offering shopping on its 90-acre property.
At a neighborhood meeting on Thursday, Brookfield revealed that it would be requesting a new zoning designation to allow up to 200,000 square feet of office space, 100,000 square feet of new retail space, a hotel and up to 750 apartments.
It's doing this in part to be able to convert the existing Sears store into office space. As for a hotel, that one perplexes me. There's already Fairfield Inn Suites and Hyatt Place Durham on the west end of the campus and Hilton Garden Inn at the east. Is there really that much demand for people to stay near here? And with more people coming with that addition as well as up to 750 apartments, it's going to be even more of a congested mess driving along the parkway between 751 and Fayetteville Road.
Of course, the rezoning hasn't happened yet, so this is just speculation for now. Still, with all this and more development popping up around the area, I'm glad I'm not having to drive south of I-40 on 751 or Fayetteville Road to get home every day.
Honestly every time I go there I wonder how much cooler it would be if there were 2-3 stories of condos or apartments over all the outside shops. Same goes for the shops buildings at Brier Creek.
Location: River's Edge Inn, Todd NC, and Lorgues France
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Originally Posted by Sherifftruman
Honestly every time I go there I wonder how much cooler it would be if there were 2-3 stories of condos or apartments over all the outside shops. Same goes for the shops buildings at Brier Creek.
Maybe it's a generational thing, but I don't see the appeal of living in or on a shopping mall.
Maybe it's a generational thing, but I don't see the appeal of living in or on a shopping mall.
I couldn't do it myself, but there is this big trend all around the U.S. right now for "mixed-use", North Hills-ish types of communities, the theory being that they are more walkable and give a sense of "community", I guess because people want to walk to the grocery store and be assured they will see their neighbor every day along the walk; the easy solution for that is to stick a Whole Foods in the first floor of a condo building.
After all, if downtown property gets too expensive, why not make create your own "miniature downtown" micro-economy in an area where property is still affordable?
Meanwhile traditional malls are struggling as some of their large retail anchors are folding. So, my hunch is that since Southpoint was built with sort of a hybrid approach in the first place (walkways and stores with outdoor entrances), the goal here is probably to hedge their bets on letting residencies be the anchors that ensure shoppers hit the stores.
I personally wouldn't buy a residency in one of these, but when the condos are equipped to look super-slick with nice interior designs, with enough marketing effort behind them they seem to be attracting a certain amount of younger folks without kids that like the idea of the facade of urban living, walk-ability to bars and restaurants, etc.
It's probably a trend which, just like retail malls will lead to lots of empty condos one day even if it takes a couple of decades to get there, but regardless of trends a nice home with a bit of a yard on a quiet street is always going to be a better long-term investment.
They need to copy the thriving, walkable Park West business model.
Only problem at Park West is all the unlocked cars getting stuff stolen while at the movies...
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