In mid-summer of 2012 a Miami, Florida, firm – RREF BB NC SICP LLC – purchased the four parcels totaling 64.2 acres where WRI-Wake Union Place had planned the Wake Union Place shopping center that was approved by the Wake Forest Board of Commissioners in January of 2011.
But by mid-2012 WRI-Wake Union Place and Interface Properties, the developers, had walked away from the project, and local developer Jim Adams and St. Ives 220 Commercial LLC had lost control of the property to an unnamed bank. At that time, Adams was said to be negotiating the sale of the property for use as a shopping center; the approved plan still stands. RREF BB NC SICP LLC may have paid $3.53 million for the four parcels, according to the Wake County website. The county’s appraised value for the four parcels is over $9 million.
Reportedly the Miami company plans to hold the land without developing it for up to five years or whenever there is a significant uptick in the economy.
Adams, who has always given generously for town and area projects, had set aside a two-acre site in the shopping center plan as the future home for the Wake Forest Fire Department’s Station #4. The department now is planning to locate the station on Jenkins Road farther north and west.
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Quail Crossing shopping center at the Jones Dairy Road and Dr. Calvin Jones Highway intersection was approved in 2008 for five buildings and one outparcel on 13.34 acres, and the anchor store was to have been a Bloom grocery store. It was abandoned in late 2009 after clearing and grading, infrastructure installation and a wall beside the Smith Creek Greenway were nearly or totally complete. Reportedly the grading company went into bankruptcy but the then owner, JDH Capital of Charlotte, was suing Food Lion and its owner, Delhaize America. The property was purchased by Food Lion in July 2012 for $1.7 million.
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The Shoppes at Caveness shopping center was approved in 2004 after rancorous hearings, and the land along Capital Boulevard just south of the Caveness Farm Apartments was later cleared. However, the only action has been the sale and/or lease of four outparcels for one retail building and three restaurants. The 35.8 acres separate from the outparcels are owned by Weingarten Investments Inc., a company related to WRI-Wake Union Place and Interface Properties, entities which had planned to develop Wake Union Place but now have abandoned those plans.
Weingarten has built the extension of Ligon Mill Road north from South Main Street to an intersection with Caveness Farm Avenue to provide access for the Woodfield Creek Apartments.
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