Francesca’s Collections Opens Monday
Cameron Village’s newest boutique offering,
Francesca’s Collections
, opens Monday. Located on Woodburn St. (in the strip that contains Talbots) Francesca’s features women’s apparel, jewelry, accessories, and gifts. This will be Francesca’s fourth North Carolina store.
WineStyles Now Open in Brier Creek
National wine retailer
WineStyles
now has a store open in Brier Creek’s Alexander Place (in addition to their Beaver Creek location). The old-world designed store aims to categorize wines not by origin, but by eight different taste categories.
Their aim is the be accessible, not a warehouse, yet offer competitive prices. A couple of customers have alerted me to this outlet, and I’ll have to check it out the next time near one of their stores.
Blount Street Commons Breaks Ground
The exciting redevelopment of four major downtown Raleigh blocks officially began today. Though site preparation has been ongoing for months, city officials were on hand this morning to break ground. The overhaul involves a 19-acre tract bounded by Peace, Person, Lane, and Wilmington Streets in Raleigh.
Centered around 25 historic houses dating to the mid 19th century, the Blount Street Commons project will add enough new construction to form a classic neighborhood including carriage houses, row houses, stacked townhomes, garden flats, and urban lofts. There will be almost 500 condominiums, and over 100K square feet of new retail space when the project is completed.
Market Place Signing Tenants
The new office/retail complex at Lake Boone Trail and Nancy Ann Drive is almost complete. The center will be called The Market Place, and will be anchored by
JK’s Steakhouse
, formerly of North Hills. The complete tenant list is not being publicized yet, but it appears that both
Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe
and
Salsarita’s
will open a location in the center. There will also be a FedEx store and a LASIK eye surgery business.
The project is being developed by
Oaks Construction
out of Cary. People are most likely to have heard their radio advertising during UNC sports games, as they are an active developer of dental offices in the region. There will probably be a dentist who signs for space in the complex, but to be honest, that 1 mile diameter is absolutely saturated with dental offices. No word on when business these and other businesses will begin opening, but the center looks almost complete, so finish work is all that most of the spaces need.
Waverly Owners Reorganize
Back in the late 80’s one of Cary’s newest marquis corners was developed into one of the country’s most unusual strip shopping centers. Waverly Place, with its curvy, two-level, X-shaped design offered the growing south Cary area a nice grocery store, movie theaters, many restaurants, and plenty of high quality retail. It’s design was reminiscent of a resort center because it contained fountains, escalators, and bronze sculptures. Unfortunately the design was too daring. Across the street a competing center anchored by a Wal-Mart opened and took Waverly’s Harris Teeter. The incredibly boring, single unbroken strip design was far easier to navigate, and the public flocked.
Waverly became a ghost town until developers Zapolski and Rudd took over the site. Their solution: a total reorganization fostered razing half of the center. The
Site Plan
(.PDF) calls for keeping the northern fourth of the “X”, but the hub, southern half of the X, grocery store, and Red, Hot, & Blue outparcel will be demolished and replaced by a plethora of buildings. Whole Foods will move to a new, free-standing store where R&HB once was. The hub area will be replaced by an 8-story hotel, and an 8-story office or condo building will neighbor. About 65 condo units will replace the existing Whole Foods site.
The developer’s site for Waverly recently was pulled, however, due to a reorganization of the Zapolski & Rudd company. According to the website,”Mr. Rudd and his team will focus on management of, and investment in, assets primarily located in California under the name of Rudd Properties, LLC , while Mr. Zapolski and his team will focus primarily on assets located in North Carolina under the name of Zapolski Real Estate, LLC .” Rudd’s website shows that they still own two outparcels at Waverly: buildings housing Bank of America and Chick-Fil-A.
Why is this interesting? The western-based company is
Rudd
Properties…as in
Leslie Rudd
…as in, the owner of
Dean & DeLuca
. It’s been hypothesized that if D&D were going to enter the Triangle market, that Waverly would be a logical place given that Rudd had a direct interest in the center. He still may be a chief investor, though, so it wouldn’t be out of the question once Dean & DeLuca decides to get in the growing mood.
Current sites
were selected based strongly on Rudd’s background, backyard, best friends, and family. (so don’t let any Charlotte people con you into believing that Charlotte was some superior site when D&D looked outside of America’s major markets. It had everything to do with where Rudd wanted to go and write it off). The Waverly connection is not “news” per se, but it’s at least a little nugget to keep in your mind as this project progresses toward naming retailers.
Hopefully Dean & DeLuca will get in the growing mood because the Raleigh/Cary market would, without a doubt, support many of their stores, not just one.
6/17 Note: There is a 3D model of the project posted at Google’s 3D Warehouse by Kimco Realty.
Porto Closes
Due to slow sales, high-end furniture store
Porto
has shut its doors,
TBJ reports
. The North Hills store also had a location in Chapel Hill’s Eastgate plaza.
Sharper Image Stores Being Liquidated
Engadget is reported last night that Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners are liquidating all 86 remaining nationwide Sharper Image stores. This is the same outfit that gutted CompUSA, so expect sales starting at 20-40% off.
This story comes in sharp contrast to the all-is-well-with-Crabtree’s-store news in the TBJ article a week-and-a-half ago.
Crabtree Moving Forward
In the year 2002 there were five malls that opened in the United States. Two of those were in the Triangle. The massive introduction of retail opportunities, especially those offered by Streets at Southpoint , presented Crabtree Valley Mall with their biggest challenge yet. Six years later, the mall is making giant strides toward the high end and the ability to attract regional shoppers.
TBJ reported last week many interesting developments at the mall. New stores coming are Try Sports , Diamonds Direct , Clarks (which will stock children’s shoes as well), Ticknors , Lush , and Teavana . Crabtree & Evelyn will relocate while Coach , American Eagle , Buckle , Foot Locker , Wet Seal , Oakley , Zales , and GameStop are redesigning their stores. In fact, American Eagle’s new design will be the second location using a new prototype.
I am intrigued by the remodeling of Coach. One of my favorite things to pass the time in fine malls has been to step in the Coach store and just smell it. The leather in all of those stores is incredible and the scent takes me back to my beloved baseball glove on hot summer days as a child. Coach opened their Crabtree store in a space adjacent to the Kanki, and sadly, the store has always smelled like Japanese food. I love the Kanki, but I don’t want to smell it in a leather store. When Coach decided to remodel, they moved to a temporary location next to the Disney Store. Unfortunately, their plan is to return to their old spot, right next to the Kanki. Hopefully the new store will have a better ventilation system.
The most interesting aspect of the TBJ article, however, is the revelation by sources that the mall has been in talks with Neiman Marcus . The mall currently has no space for the store. Could this mean that Sears , one of the mall’s few remaining original tenants, is on its way out? Quite possibly. Since the merger of Sears and K Mart , the long-term plans for the company have been muddy . It appears that the company wants to emphasize its free standing Sears Grand and Sears Appliance & Hardware stores, and move away from mall settings. The store does not necessarily jibe with Crabtree’s high-end approach, too.
Another interesting recent development is the redesign of the Crabtree Place development. The birds-eye rendering was pulled from Weingarten Realty’s website, and a very vague street-level rendering is now posted. At one point there was a proposal for Crabtree to expand to the south, bridging its second level over Crabtree Creek to a fifth anchor store. Nordstrom was the subject then, but could Neiman Marcus be in the cards for a connected Crabtree Place? Nothing would surprise me. When Neiman Marcus was added to Atlanta’s Lenox Square mall, the mall grew over to it. I have to add, though, that Neiman Marcus would have been a perfect free-standing anchor for my proposed Crabtree overhaul . (cough cough).
Crabtree will welcome three high end chain restaurants this fall on the parking deck extension between Belk and Barnes & Noble . McCormick & Schmick’s , Brio Tuscan Grille , and Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar will be joining all-star tenants Cheesecake Factory, P.F. Chang’s and Kanki on the Glenwood frontage. Rumors still abound about the vertical expansion of Barnes & Noble. A two story store actually appears in the artist’s video rendering of the project.
While Crabtree has made some inefficient decisions in recent years, their ability to remain as one of the most highly sought-after malls in the South deserves much praise. They have faced the challenges of newcomers well, and the future looks bright in the valley.
Edwin Flythe, 94
The N&O reported today the death of
Edwin Flythe
, founder of
Flythe Cyclery
on Peace Street. The store is one of the last-standing piece of old-Raleigh retail, and its German facade has always added to the character of downtown. Flythe Cyclery is now its third generation and is one of the few bike stores around with friendly, humble help.
Flythe battled prostate cancer for many years, but finally succumbed last week. He was 94.
Durham to Get Tesla Dealership?
Durham has apparently made the very short list of cities that may get a Tesla dealership. The first dealership for the all-electric sportscar opened on Thursday in Los Angeles.
According to Autoweek
, the next wave of stores will come to Menlo Park, CA (Silicon Valley), New York, Miami, Seattle, and Chicago. The third wave, however, mentions Washington, Boston, and Durham.
The Tesla is the first wide production all-electric sportscar. It boasts acceleration of 0-60 mph in under 4 seconds and tops out at 125mph. Delivery time is currently 15 months for the $109,000 cars.
Cherry (Store) To Close Its Doors
Cherry Modern Design
has decided to close shop in late May. The modern furniture store moved from Glenwood Avenue to Cameron Village just over a year ago. While many browsers were wowed by the selection, ultimately (and unfortunately) the market in this area is just not that keen on the modern look.
Word is that frequent customers got wind of the news and bought up a lot of good stuff in the last couple of days…but there is still some left! Carlton & Co. will move to the space currently occupied by Cherry.
"Noodle Store" Coming To Cameron Village?
I heard a rumor today that a “noodle store” is going to open in the former Grape spot in Cameron Village. Anyone heard more? Soup? Fresh pasta??
AT&T Store at North Hills Opens
The AT&T store in North Hills is now open in its new location, between the escalators and The Q Shack, near the theaters. The store was formerly next to ArtSource, facing Six Forks Road.
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