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North Hills East

dmccall

By dmccall
in The NC Triangle

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ChiefJoJo Town

ChiefJoJo

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The N&O started a new midtown section today and there are some tidbits worth noting. Kane says he would like to build a 35-story tower at NHE. And he apparently has dibs on the 65 undeveloped acres of land east of NHE, all the way over to the Hilton at Wake Forest Road. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop on that land, and figured Kane would be a likely suitor, and it will only be a matter of time.

Kane is building transit-ready development, so in the long term, I'd like to see light rail extended from Crabtree to NHE, over to Duke Hospital (along 440), across the Alcatel site and down the CSX/TTA rail line to near 5 pts, Glenwood South, and the downtown MTC.

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DPK Hamlet

DPK

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I went and did a google maps / wake county tax information overlay because it was more fun than doing what I should be doing at work right now, lol. N&O said there's about 65 acres and the image I made shows roughly the same (65.81 acres). That's a lot of land!

post-15616-1218638742_thumb.jpg

post-15616-1218638742_thumb.jpg

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ChiefJoJo Town

ChiefJoJo

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Kane must be holding a press event today, as WRAL is meeting with Kane to go over his plans for NHE, some of which is now going up (Cap Trust, St Albans Apartments, Hyatt hotel and Cardinal retirement center).

I find it funny how Dan Bowens mentioned Kane's (empty) threats that without a TIF for a massive parking deck he would be forced to develop it into a suburban strip center with "fields of surface parking." Kane had said he needed public money to build out his $800M vision with towers and all, but as it stands now, he apparently has financing or plans for nearly $550M+, with no public handouts. I hope that Bowens asks Kane to explain now about the justification for the public funds when he clearly didn't need them. It's truly amazing that the county commissioners approved the TIF unanimously. Thank God the city council didn't approve that rediculous handout. Now, the taxrolls will be flowing with receipts from NHE for instead of being frozen for decades at submarket levels. (kudos for Meeker on this one)

Oh, and while we're assessing past decisions, those NIMBYs across from the Alexan who wanted to oppose North Hills in order to keep their pine tree buffer look pretty dumb right about know, as they enjoy their 50%+ jump in property values and access to walkable shopping, dining, etc. (kudos for Kane here)

I don't want to give the impression I am against Kane or NHills--just the TIF idea. I shop there often and while the urban design is not very attractive or distinctive, it's brought forward proof to other local developers that good infill, urbanism and walkability can extend outside the Beltline.

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jfmecca Unincorporated Area

jfmecca

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I would not say that. I would say that an additional link over the beltline might be necessary. Like either Hardimont or Quail Hollow, as we've discussed before. But widening St. Albans probably won't be necessary. At the moment, that road carries very little traffic, as far as I've ever seen.
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ChiefJoJo Town

ChiefJoJo

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WRAL has coverage of NHE's expansion. Kane has resubmitted a site plan for NHE. you can't tell much other than the massing of the buildings and orientation to the streets, but from what Kane has said, he is reconfiguring the development to adapt the changing market conditions.

The initial plans for the North Hills expansion called for 1,800 residential units, and a Kane spokeswoman said the request for more apartments would add to that number and not replace condominiums or other units.

"We see the 50 acres on the east side of Six Forks Road just being more density, more urban than what we've done to date," Kane said. "We're going to go vertical with things versus spreading out."

This will mean more density. Kane now says his investments in NHE will total $1B by full buildout. So much for 'fields of surface parking' & needing a TIF for high density. In any case, it's good to see someone is building in this economy and it's generally the good kind of development.

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JeffC Hamlet

JeffC

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Notice the fine print at the bottom of the chart: "the location of buildings shown on this plan may be changed to either temproary (sic) or permanent parking lots."

This is an old developer ploy: depict a high density development, gain approval, then cite "economic conditions" as requiring conversion back to a few buildings surrounded by acres of asphalt parking lots...

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dmccall Burg

dmccall

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Notice the fine print at the bottom of the chart: "the location of buildings shown on this plan may be changed to either temproary (sic) or permanent parking lots."

This is an old developer ploy: depict a high density development, gain approval, then cite "economic conditions" as requiring conversion back to a few buildings surrounded by acres of asphalt parking lots...

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ChiefJoJo Town

ChiefJoJo

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I don't know why Kane would have any reason not to follow thru with a medium-high density vision for NHE. The type of bait & switch that Jeff refers to is usually done to allow flexibility to alter building materials & things of that nature for potential cost-saving measures if the market falls flat, as it has lately (at least for condos). I doubt he can afford to put down a bunch of surface parking at this point, given how much he's invested in making it a semi-new urban focus area.

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orulz City

orulz

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It's getting up there. It's already looks huge from Six Forks; when it's done it's going to be pretty much unbelievable.

The other components of NHE are coming along, too. The apartment building along Camelot Drive is looking pretty big. It has a really big footprint. I'm interested to see what sort of treatment it will have facing Camelot; I've not seen a floor plan or elevations.

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dmccall Burg

dmccall

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The website is up for the new apartments going up at NHE. These units will be upstairs from the 24 hour 2 story Harris Teeter going in below. I wonder if the HT Express will remain open across Six Forks. I always thought that would be a perfect spot for Trader Joes--but I suppose they are still going in over at WF & 440.
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