It was September of 2012 when T/W/O Capital Partners from Atlanta, Georgia, won approval from the Wake Forest Planning and Town boards for a 315-unit apartment complex on 22 acres on Rogers Road.
Now in December of 2016, the land with steep ravines has been graded and most of the first phase, 214 apartments permitted in 2015, are either complete with tenants or close to completion. It is not clear the reason for the substantial time lag from approval to near-completion but part of it could be the need for a number of environmental and other permits. Or it could be financial reasons.
From a town growth perspective, the 606 new residents in the apartments will be adding to the town population mostly in 2017, five full years after approval. And it is not clear when the 286 renters in the 101 units in phase two will have homes.
In the intervening years, a number of changes have occurred in that area just east of the CSX rail line. The town has also approved The Homestead at Heritage, 206 homes, at the end of Heritage Branch Road which also receives traffic from The Crossings senior apartments, a daycare center and the medical center. The Homestead is rapidly filling with houses – see the monthly Wake Forest Inspections report.
There will be an entrance to Capital Creek Apartments on Heritage Branch Road in the next phase, but currently its only entrance is from Rogers Road. That entrance, which connects through the apartment project to Rogers Road, was cited as the second entrance/exit for The Homestead because the 80 acres south of the subdivision is owned by the town which wants to preserve it as open space.
The intersection of Heritage Branch Road with Rogers Road will meet or has met warrants for a traffic signal but the close proximity of the rail line poses a problem of stacking for traffic if one of the trains serving industries and businesses north of Wake Forest comes through.
