Monday evening the Development Finance Initiative, part of the UNC School of Government, turned over its final recommendations and findings about the SunTrust development project to the Town of Wake Forest.
If the five commissioners approve of DFI’s findings and recommendations at their Jan. 18 meeting, it is likely that the solicitation for proposals will be released in February.
What DFI envisions is a building that will be three stories along South White Street but could be as high as six stories along Brooks Street. It should have an interesting design and wide sidewalks (outdoor dining?) which will lead shoppers from White Street to the shops on the first floor and then to the shops, entertainment and food in Renaissance Plaza diagonally across Elm Avenue.
That building – retail on the first floor, apartments on the floors above – will be linked to or close to a three- to four-floor parking garage behind the current office building owned by James Warren and the other long building across a parking area owned by the N.C. Surveyors Association.
The conceptual design shows 360 parking spaces with 180 spaces available for public use. The remaining 180 spaces will be leased by the developer for the residential units as well as 20 spaces reserved for use by James Warren’s law firm.
Sonyia Turner, who led the DFI work since 2018, said there would most likely have to be public investment – she said $9 to $11 million – to build the parking garage.
The meeting was held in the second-floor meeting room in town hall. Mayor Vivian Jones, town Manager Kip Padgett and Commissioner Nick Sliwinski were present and a few residents. During the comment period, Matt Reck said he had many questions. Those included asking how much tax revenue was lost by the town owning the bank property since 2018, whether the graduate students involved with the Wake Forest project with DFI were paid and whether they were capable of such work and to object to spending $9 or $11 million on the project.
A woman also had questions about parking.
With the help of DFI and its market analysis and guiding principles, Mayor Vivian Jones and the Wake Forest commissioners have formulated four goals for the one-acre property the town bought for $1.5 million (“And closing costs,” Town Manager Kip Padgett said.) in the spring of 2018 after Suntrust announced it would close the Wake Forest and Youngsville branches and move to the Harris Crossing shopping center on Capital Boulevard. It now is refashioning itself as Truist.
Those four goals are:
- Connect the downtown historic core and Renaissance Plaza and serve as a gateway to downtown.
- Incorporate engaging street-level uses to increase pedestrian activity along White, Elm and Brooks Street.
- Provide sufficient parking to meet needs of development and other downtown uses.
- Minimize public investment and maximize private investment.
In 2018 Mayor Jones said the town board considered the redevelopment of the SunTrust property as a key step in the growth of Wake Forest’s downtown. “Our belief is that someone will come forward with an idea to use this space in a way consistent with the Renaissance Plan. It is certainly a key property as downtown expands down White Street. We felt it was important for all of downtown for us to be able to influence the redevelopment of this property.”
After hiring DFI in December of 2018, the town and DFI have taken a number of steps. The town staff person responsible for overseeing all the work has been Lisa Hayes, strategic performance manager.
- DFI’s scope of work includes pre-development analysis, solicitation of a private development partner(s), and assistance to the Town with the negotiation of a development agreement with the selected partner(s).
- On Tuesday, June 18, 2019, DFI provided the Wake Forest Board of Commissioners with a project update, including details on the market analysis findings and the draft guiding public interests. The Board of Commissioners endorsed the guiding public interests (stated previously) for the redevelopment of the SunTrust site during this meeting.
- In July 2019, The Town of Wake Forest selected JDavis Architects to assist with the development of conceptual development plans for the site and hired Ramey Kemp & Associates to conduct a parking study to determine parking demand in downtown Wake Forest.
- In December 2019, DFI and Town staff met to review the development scenarios for the SunTrust redevelopment site and prepare a program recommendation to the Board of Commissioners.
- In March 2020, the SunTrust redevelopment project was put on pause due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The project was resumed in April 2021.
- On October 18, 2021, DFI presented the program recommendation to the Board of Commissioners in closed session, including a recommendation for additional property acquisition.
- On December 7, 2021, the Board of Commissioners approved purchase and sale agreements for the acquisition of portions of the James Warren and Moss and Panciera properties for the SunTrust redevelopment.
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The modern blue and white building with ample parking was built as the result of little local strong-arming and a swap. In the late 1960s Central Carolina Bank & Trust, which had moved into a small office downtown back in the mid-1930s after both local banks failed, planned to renovate its Colonial-style building at 123 South White.
However, the Wake Forest men on the bank’s local board of directors – Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Olin T. Binkley, former mayor H.L. Miller, and former chamber president John Wooten Jr. with others – persuaded bank officials to make a swap: Build a new bank and allow the town to purchase the existing bank as a library.
The new bank opened in 1972 and town residents and organizations raised $22,500 within four months to buy the new library. The Town of Wake Forest paid operating expenses and maintenance until the Wake County Library system took that over shortly before building the new library in 1996. (There had been a small library, also supported by town residents and government, since 1961. But that is another story.) The former bank and library is now owned by AJB Capital and holds offices and a small shop.
The Wake Forest bank was built in 1972 on 0.85 acre and has been owned by NNN SUN LLC, a corporation related to SunTrust since June 2013. Central Carolina Bank & Trust owned the property from January 1969 until May 2008 when Island American ST Portfolio III LLC became the owner. The 2017 town and county property tax total was $8,891.60.
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