Will Waverly Place Reopen in 2009?

Cary Commercial Real Estate, Raleigh Commercial Real Estate, Durham Commercial Real Estate, North Carolina Commercial Real Estate.

Waverly Place owners,  Zapolski + Rudd of Durham, originally announced the transformation of the beleaguered Cary shopping center in August , 2006 into an intimate, upscale lifestyle center. The new design features 170,000 sq-ft of high end retail space, 80 condos, 150 luxury apartments and a 150 room hotel.

Whole Foods will continue to anchor the center but will relocate into a new, 55,000 sq-ft space to become the largest Whole Foods in North Carolina. Cary’s hometown Crescent State Bank bank will relocate it’s headquarters to the redesigned Waverly Place as well.

CARY - Raleigh’s high-end bedroom community is about to have its own version of the North Hills mixed-use development.

The beleaguered Waverly Place retail complex at the corner of Tryon and Kildaire Farm roads is on the verge of total transformation after being ignored for almost 10 years.

The owner of Waverly Place, Durham development company Zapolski + Rudd, is putting the finishing touches on a plan to redevelop the center in the mold of Raleigh’s successful North Hills remake - retail, but less than now; offices that were planned but never built; and the addition of residential.

A Whole Foods grocery store at the center will remain as the anchor tenant, sources say.

Todd Zapolski, president of Zapolski + Rudd, says he is a couple of weeks away from filing site plans for the center and would not confirm specifics until he has spoken with Cary town leaders.

“We’ve been talking with three different architecture firms the last year, and we’re really trying to do interesting things,” Zapolski says. “The challenge has been keeping the good people there knowing we’re going to have to do major surgery.”

Waverly Place was built in 1987 by a partnership led by Raleigh developer Harold Lichtin. Its design - stores facing inward toward an area where a multi-story office building was to be built - got rave reviews architecturally but never caught on with shoppers and retailers.

About 43 percent of the center’s 181,500 square feet of retail space is vacant. And the office building was never built. Zapolski notes other problems: “There’s a flat parking lot that no one uses and an escalator going up, and no one is using it.”

Ownership of the center has changed hands at least four times since it was built, with each new owner promising to revitalize it. Zapolski’s plan is the most ambitious yet.

Cary Mayor Ernie McAlister says he’s been getting his hair cut at a barber shop in the center since he moved to town in 1988. “It’s been such a troubled property for so long. I hate to say that about a property in Cary, but it never has really taken off,” McAlister says. “It’s always been the next owner would make it happen or the next group of tenants will make it happen.”

McAlister says he tried to convince officials with Wake Technical Community College to place their western Wake County classrooms at Waverly Place last year. Instead, Wake Tech chose a building at Millpond Village down the street on Kildaire Farm Road.

McAlister says he has not talked with Zapolski’s group about its redevelopment plans, but adds: “I’d say the sooner the better.”

Ricky Barker, associate planning director for the town of Cary, says Zapolski’s group met with city planners shortly after buying Waverly Place in January 2005 to discuss changes to the property. Barker says the town suggested making the 22-acre property mixed use and incorporating residential units.

The redevelopment probably would be done in two phases, sources say. The first phase would be changes to the half of the property across from the Whole Foods grocery store so that its service would not be disrupted. Whole Foods’ lease runs through 2010. After Whole Foods is moved to the newly constructed half of the property, the older half would be redeveloped.

Zapolski + Rudd, LLC is a privately-owned, fully integrated real estate investment, development and management firm with a geographic emphasis on the East Coast and Northern California. The company was founded in 1998 by real estate veteran Todd C. Zapolski and entrepreneur Leslie G. Rudd and has quickly become a highly-respected leader within its core markets.

 

 

 

 

 

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