Updated April 7
The Growth Rate has not been published for several months because the Wake Forest Planning Department stopped updating its list of commercial and residential projects under departmental review and recently it has vanished from the department’s web site. That and other information was the basis for The Growth Rate.
The planning director has said she intends to make the planning department more transparent. While we await that, the editor has determined to rebuild The Growth Rate over the next few weeks and months. Please send the projects you see or are interested in to cwpelosi@aol.com.
Future residential projects
Update April 7 – Wake County Commissioner Shinica Thomas, having been made aware of the following problem, has referred the plight of the current residents of Deerfield Crossing Mobile Home Park, to Wake County Manager David Ellis.
The Wake Forest Gazette learned in early March that Middleburg Communities/The McAdams Company have made an offer to purchase the Deerfield Crossing Mobile Home Park (formerly Wellington Mobile Home Park) owned by George and Martha Mackie on East Wait Avenue.
The plan for Quail Crossing, the name for the new development, was considered at a Technical Review Committee on Feb. 25. (See below for what the committee considered.) (Quail Crossing would have been the name of a small shopping center in the southeast corner of the NC 98 Bypass and Jones Dairy Road. Ground was cleared and some infrastructure installed before the project was abandoned. The 14-acre site has been owned by Food Lion since 2012.) Residents say the offer has been accepted and the next step is for the 36 acres to be rezoned to conditional district general residential 10 which will allow for a rental community of detached (single-family) and attached (duplex or townhouse) housing. The 36 acres stretch from East Wait to Jones Dairy Road, and is immediately west of the property recently rezoned for Radford Glen.
Residents there say several residents are elderly, living on fixed incomes and cannot afford to move their homes to another mobile home park if they could find a place.
The community meeting was by Zoom on Monday, March 8. One of the residents who joined said the Wellington residents could not see each other or hear their questions, “. . . but from what they said yeah a lot of people were upset. They (apparently the developers) also pointed everything at Mackie saying he had all the answers.” The developers said they were working with “the housing authority to help but I’ve contacted them before and their so backed up it’s insane. So no real help or even hope from that meeting . . . left near the end as I just couldn’t stand to hear them anymore.”
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*Hawthorn at Traditions is planned for 272 apartments in two four-story buildings at the intersection of Gilcrest Farm Road and Royal Mill Avenue. Part of Mendocino Street, the subject of much opposition, will bisect the project and end at Royal Mill Avenue.
Technical review committee is composed of various members of the Planning, Public Works, Engineering, Administration, City of Raleigh Utilities, Inspections/Fire Prevention, and Police Departments. It met twice during February.
*Forest of Franklin Townhomes master plan was submitted by The Nau Company for 12 townhome lots on about 2.105 acres zoned urban mixed use UMX. The lot is at 0 Franklin Street. The case manager is Kari Grace.
*Hawthorne at Traditions is a major site master plan submitted by NV5 (Patrick Perez) ffor 272 apartment units on about 12.4 acres at 601 Gilcrest Farm Road. The zoning is residential mixed use RMX, the hearing will be quasi-judicial and the case manager is Kari Grace.
*Quail Crossing is a conditional district rezoning on 39.86 acres located at 1423 Deerfield Crossing Lane. Current zoning is rural holding district RD. McAdams Company wants a new zoning of conditional general residential 10 for 260 dwellings. It is currently the Deerfield Crossing (formerly Wellington) Mobile Home Park. The case manager is Patrick Reidy.
*Wait Avenue Condos is a master plan submitted by FLM Engineering for 40 multi-family units on a 1.55 acre site at 413, 425 and 435 Wait Avenue zoned urban mixed use UMX. The case manager is Patrick Reidy.
*JP Morgan Bank is a master plan submitted by SDG Engineering for a 3,298-square-foot building located at 11051 Ligon Mill Road that is zoned planned unit development. The case manager is Kari Grace.
*Taco Bell is a minor site master plan submitted by Commercial Site Design for a 2,007-square-foot building on about 0.96 lot at 951 Gateway Commons Circle and is zoned highway business. The case manager if Patrick Reidy.
*Foundation Drive apartments is a site master plan submitted by The Nau Company for 48 multi-familu units on a 5.15-acres parcel zoned residential mixed use. The case manager is Kari Grace.
*Super Deal Tire and Muffler is construction drawings submitted by Ray Brothers LLC proposing a 13,248-square-foot building on 1.27 acres at 538 and 609 South White Street. The zoning is urban mixed use UMX. The case manager is Patrick Reidy.
Technical review committee is composed of various members of the Planning, Public Works, Engineering, Administration, City of Raleigh Utilities, Inspections/Fire Prevention, and Police Departments. It met twice during January.
*Hawthorn @ Traditions: The committee reviewed the major site master plan submitted by NV5 for 272 apartments in two four-story buildings on a 12-acre site. It is zoned residential mixed use and is at 601 Gilcrest Farm Road and Royal Mill Avenue. This is a quasi-judicial case.
*Legacy Center Church. This is a minor master plan submitted by EarthCentric Engineering for a 12,400-square-foot church in a one-story building on 10 acres zoned general residential and located at 7102 Rabbit Run.
*Radford Glen. Construction drawings submitted by BNK for 165 single-family dwellings on 47 acres zoned conditional urban residential. It is on the south side of East Wait Avenue (NC 98) immediately east of Deerfield Crossing (formerly Wellington) Mobile Home Park.
*City of Raleigh Drinking Water Compliance Lab. Construction drawings were submitted by Dewberry Engineers Inc. for a 14,375-square-foot office and lab building on about 8 acres at 10700 Star Road and is zoned highway business.
*Rosedale Subdivision. This property has just been purchased from the four Pearce family heirs by Tryon Investment Partners II LLC for $2,938,190. The 68 acres of the Pearce family farm lie on both sides of Rosedale subdivision where Priest, Craven & Associates are planning 60 residential lots in differing sizes. The engineering firm submitted construction drawings. The land in zoned for conditional planned unit development.
Approved residential projects not under construction
*Holding Village North Lake Phases 5-8 along South Franklin Street are planned for 208 single-family lots and 156 townhouse lots. The developer will also be constructing the new section of South Franklin Street which will meet the N.C. 98 Bypass.
There is still more development planned and possible in Holding Village. Wake Forest Assistant Planning Director Jennifer Currin said the planning department has also received construction drawings for the Holding Village apartments. In addition, “There is also a portion of a parcel north of Friendship Baptist Church, adjacent to the Bypass, and a smaller tract off S. Franklin St. that are part of Holding Village and could be developed.” The trees have been felled and heavy construction that includes the extension of South Franklin Street is underway for this and the apartments.
*Holding Village Apartments on Friendship Chapel Road plans 320 units and is part of the heavy construction underway.
*Radford Glen was approved by the Wake Forest Town Board on Sept. 15, 2020 for 167 single-family homes and 10 townhouses. The Sept. 2, 2020 edition of the Gazette has a full description of the subdivision. It is on the south side of Wait Avenue immediately east of the Deerfield Crossing (formerly Wellington) Mobile Home Park.
*Averette subdivision will have 890 homes on both sides of Averette Road. It is an extension of the Tryon subdivision.
*Kinsley on both sides of North Main Street, 203 acres with 274 single-family lots and 450 townhouse lots – 724 in all, was approved by the Wake Forest commissioners on Feb. 9, 2021. This is a somewhat smaller version of the subdivision than was originally proposed.
*Wait Avenue Condos will be in the multi-story building at the northwest corner of Wait and Franklin Street, and the plan recently submitted eliminates the nonresidential part and proposes to build only 56 multifamily units.
*Royal Mill Apartments is planned for 96 apartments in four three-story walk-up buildings with one building for three townhouses all on 6.3 acres at the southeast corner of the Royal Mill Avenue and Flaherty Avenue.
Residential projects being constructed
*Kitchin Farms Phase 2B on Burlington Mills and Ligon Mill roads for 123 single-family lots. The master plan has been approved.
*Meridian Rogers Branch Apartments on Rogers Branch Road is planned for 264 units. The Wake Forest Town Board has approved this project. Building permits have been approved.
*Legacy Heritage, an apartment complex of 307 units at the N.C. 98 Bypass, Heritage Lake Road and Friendship Chapel Road, has been approved by the town board. There has been blasting to take out the granite.
*Holding Village South Lake Phase 4 along South Franklin Street is for 25 single-family lots.
*Crenshaw Trace will be a four-story apartment building on Durham Road with 68 units for people 55 and older who will not have to pay more than 30 percent of their income for rent.
*Everly amendment for the subdivision on Stephen Taylor Road to increase the plan to 173 lots.
*A building permit has been issued for the St. Catherine of Siena Parsonage at 600 West Holding Avenue.
*Devon Square on Capital Boulevard with an entrance on Harris Road was approved by the Wake Forest Town Board on April 17, 2019 by an unusual three to two vote with Mayor Vivian Jones voting in Commissioner Liz Simpers absence. It will have 148 townhouses and an unspecified amount of commercial nearest the highway that is also US 1, as well as 40 single-family homes in back. There are 68 acres and the plan includes a 50-foot naturally wooded buffer between the single-family residential section and E. Carroll Joyner Park.
Future commercial or institutional projects
*Wake Forest High School Stadium, Trentini Stadium, will be renovated by BAR Construction Company, which was the low bidder at $6.6 million of six bidders when the Wake County Board of Education put the put out the project for bid. BAR will demolish and replace the existing grandstands, athletic field and track. The track will also be brought to current standards and existing drainage problems will be addressed.
The target date for completion is March 2022.
The stadium began life as Groves Stadium for Wake Forest College. It was named for a donor, completed in 1940 and could hold 20,000 people. Trentini Stadium is named for Anthony Trentini, a Wake Forest College football player 1952-1959 and the coach of the Wake Forest High School football team 1959-1963.
Commercial projects being constructed
*The Loading Dock, a co-working facility in the former warehouse at 525 South White Street, is under construction. It was built as an office and warehouse for the W.W. Holding Cotton Company and is owned by Bob and Elizabeth Johnson.
*Heritage Corner in the northwest corner of South Franklin Street and Rogers Road across from Sheetz will be two two-story buildings with commercial uses in the first story and office space in the second story.
*The Tru Hotel on Wake Union Church Road and Hampton Way Drive has been at a standstill – red clay, a couple pieces of equipment – for months but Novel Construction has finally pulled the permit which had been languishing in the Wake Forest Inspections Department and construction may begin soon.
*1628 South Main Street is being built by Marlowe Construction of Raleigh, its owner, and will be a two-story building facing South Main with its entrance from Forbes Road. The building will have commercial uses on the first floor and office space on the second floor. It will be named the Marlowe Building.
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