Durham_Transplant

Ultimately the results will be pretty obvious one way or the other. It’s not like I think First Citizens isn’t a good platform. They’ve built a solid business but it’s been largely based on local, family owned type companies and is essentially still a family owned/operated business itself. Four years ago they were $40B in assets and now they are gonna to be 5x that size driven largely by acquisitions. That’s a challenging transformation to manage even without getting into a radically different line of business — system integrations, regulatory requirements, talent retention, etc. I think SVB was a great business and brand. Obviously engineering the deal through the government at a huge discount allows for a tremendous amount of upside. I just don’t necessarily think it’s a slam dunk. I worked in that space for about a decade and everything about it is very different from how a traditional commercial bank operates. It will certainly be interesting to follow.

I don’t see any scenario where the likes of Microsoft and Google shift any amount of deposits to First Citizens. These are trillion dollar companies with incredibly sophisticated needs. I find this an extremely odd cultural and strategic fit for First Citizens. We will see how it plays out.

That’s the new Novus residential tower downtown. Will be 27 stories with a significant retail component at ground level. They are already marketing the condos for sale at $1k+ per square foot and I’ve seen several listings that are already pending. Insane. Second phase for that site to be announced.

We need affordable housing in Durham but we also need more market rate housing, commercial space, retail, etc. You can’t have a thriving downtown without these things. Yet every single project that is proposed in Durham is met with “we don’t need this, we need affordable housing”. We can have both and in fact a meaningful amount of affordable housing is getting built right downtown today. I’m very concerned that city leadership is going to end up squandering a generational opportunity for the city.

It makes so much sense and yet people have already started making silly complaints about it. That area could be the beginning for a true downtown core with the Y redevelopment project, the next phase of Durham ID, the Novus tower (plus phase 2 of that project) and this proposed tower. But leaving this huge chunk of that block as a parking deck really kills that momentum. I’m optimistic that it will get done in some form but it’s frustrating how much Durham gets in its own way.

This line of thinking is so frustrating. Here’s a thought: maybe having hundreds of people living across the street would actually *improve* the outlook for the Carolina Theater. With the major residential and office developments planned for that stretch in addition to new retail/restaurants I would think the theater could thrive as the arts centerpiece.

It’s good to see both Apple and Google expanding here in advance of establishing permanent operations. Obviously they are finding the talent they need in the region. Haven’t heard anything further about the supposed Meta expansion here but certainly expect others to follow.

Wasn’t sure where that news fit best so I posted it in the RTP/biotech cluster thread as well. Major news and a really significant new player coming to the market. The pipeline of major projects in downtown Durham right now is wild: —Novus residential tower (followed by future phase 2) —ATC expansion —Durham Center II residential tower —YMCA site mixed use two building project —GeerHouse two building residential project —Next Durham ID building —Mixed use redevelopment at the old police HQ site (505 W Chapel Hill) —Possible project on former McDonald’s site? Then major mixed use projects at this site and Northgate to anchor the neighborhoods north and south of downtown.

Potentially major news for the downtown Durham segment of the emerging Triangle biotech cluster. https://commercialobserver.com/2022/06/life-sciences-sterling-bay-development-conversion-durham-nucci-kono/#slide1 “A source familiar with the deal revealed the Chicago-based firm paid $63 million for the shovel-ready development on 9.6 acres in downtown Durham, with plans to transform the Class C shopping center currently on the site into a landmark $500 million mixed-use campus. The project calls for 2 million square feet for life sciences companies and multifamily units, along with three acres of open recreational space.”

We are really building our very own biotech corridor running from downtown Durham through RTP, Morrisville and all the way down to Holly Springs. It’s an amazing thing to watch happen in real time.

Bunch of us are watching the McDonald’s site next to the Y as well. They demolished it 8 months ago and nothing has happened since. Possible that ends up being a new project. If they planned to simply build a new restaurant then I assume they would have done that by now.

Probably gonna be a good while still. When the project was originally announced they said construction would start “no earlier than October”. Guessing it will really get underway in early 2023. The next few years are going to be absolutely nuts downtown with 3 25+ story buildings going up on consecutive blocks and the ATC expansion soon to be underway.

Well they haven’t broken ground yet but they filed a development request with the city in late 2021 so it looks like they are ready to move on it. Having 3 25+ story buildings within 3 blocks is going to be quite the transformation for that part of downtown.

This would be a great project and would help diversify our regional ecosystem beyond software/life sciences. I was at the EDPNC forum yesterday and a lot of the discussion was around how to leverage the community college system and reskilling/upskilling to fill jobs exactly like this with strong compensation and upward mobility. Also took note of the reference to locating R&D operations in the Triangle. Would be a great fit considering the labor force here and embedded tech talent. The state of NC has built truly unbelievable momentum in recent years and we seem to have the state and local leadership working in coordination to build on that. Very exciting times ahead.

RDU released a pretty comprehensive long range plan entitled “Vision 2040” a few years ago. The major components are: expanding terminal 2, investing in a comprehensive parking/rental car facility and building a longer runway which could support international travel to as far away as China. Unfortunately this work was all done pre-pandemic so I’m not sure what the airport’s financial picture looks like right now or how this plan might be adapted as a result. Here’s the link with a video that does a nice recap: http://rduvision2040.wpengine.com/

I don’t have any real insight. My casual observation is that it feels like a lot of Raleigh projects are announced very early. Things to the effect of “New York developer eyes 40 stories in the Warehouse District” with no real formal plans. A lot of the Durham projects, for whatever reason, are basically only publicly promoted once the final plan is pretty much baked and they then move to construction in fairly short order.

East West Partners developing the downtown Y site into a two tower complex with 27 stories residential and 11 stories office plus a state of the art new Y. Very big news. This is the third 25+ story tower announced within a couple blocks over the last few months.

Yeah I was definitely ready to see the old South Bank building go. According to those more well-versed in architecture it did have some level of historical value as a period-specific example but I always thought it was just hideous. This new project will also be going basically right across the street so significant changes to that piece of downtown: https://craigdavisproperties.com/our-work/durham-center-ii/ Regarding the Mutual Life building, I also don’t find it to be very aesthetically pleasing but given its ties to Black Wall Street and the black community in Durham seriously doubt it will ever be demolished. I do think that with the ATC West project and ultimately the redevelopment of the old police HQ site next to the Mutual Life building it will be less prominent in the future. Right now it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.

New 27 story residential tower soon to be underway. https://www.thenovus.com/ Second phase will supposedly be announced sometime this year and there have been allusions to that possibly being a hotel. It’s a ridiculously large site.

Alexandria continues their RTP buying extravaganza. $80MM for a group of buildings at 104 TW Alexander. Seller paid only $20.5MM in December 2020. 70k square feet of existing space and room for up to 1MM square feet of additional development. Guessing based on the aggressive purchase price that they do indeed plan to develop a significant amount of additional space on the site. TBJ Link From the article: Alexandria Real Estate Executive Chairman and founder Joel Marcus said the company, based in Pasadena, California, plans to “bring several of our over 800 innovative client tenants and create a vibrant and updated mini campus for life science and clean energy.

I understand all that. Before I moved here I spent 10 years living in “real” cities so I appreciate the pros and cons of walking to the grocery store. My point was that this location is at the very edge of the downtown core which makes it fairly inaccessible to a lot of the people living downtown. A more central location would be reachable for a lot more of the downtown population. Maybe we’ll get another grocery store downtown and it’s a moot point but for the time being anyone living on the other side of Main St from ATC is more than likely going to still be driving to the grocery store.

Out of curiosity I did a quick Google search to see what the timeline looked like for the Austin campus that NC was originally considered for. Looks like they agreed on the site in 2018 and are currently under construction with expected occupancy in 2022. So we are likely looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 2025 for the campus to be complete. Could be a bit longer since the site is basically a forest or a little bit shorter since the plan is for a smaller hub (3k in RTP vs baseline of 5k in Austin).

Personally I’m skeptical that the grocery store will be much use there outside of the people working there or living within a few blocks. South Bank site or somewhere more central downtown would be much more beneficial. Getting in and out of that location by car seems like it will be really challenging with Willard and Jackson providing the only direct access.

Man I would kill to have Burial go into that spot they are designating for a brewery. I know they discussed having a movie theater but wonder if they are firm on that. Nearly 20k square feet is huge for the entertainment space.

Alexandria Real Estate is nearing $1B+ in investment in RTP in the last 24 months. Today’s announcement that they are moving forward with a 125k square foot facility branded as the “Center for NextGen Medicines”. For those who don’t know, Alexandria is one of the largest life science real estate investors in the world and is heavily tied into the most innovative companies in the space. Announcement Link