State of Downtown Durham Event (April 21st)

https://downtowndurham.com/event/state-of-downtown-durham-summit/

Came across this event today and wanted to repost here because they will have a ton of development-focused content as part of the program. There is a nominal cost to attend. I’ll plan to take detailed notes and summarize here for those who are not able to attend.

Here are my notes from today’s event. Some interesting info.

300/500 Main

Total of 310 LMI housing units and 210 market rate units wrapped around lots of parking. Construction has started on parking deck portion of 300 Main project. Residential construction to begin late 2021/early 2022. Will include a child care center that the county will operate. 500 Main project to start Q4 2021 and will take approx 24 months.

555 Mangum/Van Alen

Delivered 555 building right in the midst of the pandemic. Currently ~40% leased but seeing lots of inbound interest from out of market (common theme from all presenters). Northwood has extensive retail operations and starting to see encouraging rebound there. No mention of Northgate at all. Disappointing but I’m sure they are gearing up for a full marketing campaign on that.

ATC West

This project will be gigantic if it comes all the way to fruition. Will contain 15-20 food and beverage operators, grocery store, hotel, 600+ residential units and a total of 1.5MM square feet of office. Everyone has seen the renderings and details for Phase 1 by now I assume. Construction to begin early 2022.

Brightleaf

Asana owns Brightleaf Square and ~200k square feet in the surrounding neighborhood. View this as a multi-phase, multi-year upfit and redevelopment project. Current work on main part of Brightleaf will be completed in May which includes new streetscape on Main as well as improvements to central courtyard. Close to being able to announce 4 (!) new tenants for the neighborhood. Asana invests in the top 25 growth markets in the country and seeing tremendous interest in Durham, as much as any other market.

Durham ID

This project is way under the radar given the size. Total master plan includes 1.8MM square feet across 27 acres (including existing building footprint). See lots of opportunity for lab space downtown (another common theme) and are retrofitting former WeWork space to be delivered late summer/early fall. Site at Morris/Morgan will be 190k of lab and office space. Construction starting soon.

One City Center/Five Points

Incredibly bullish on future of Durham and like to invest in downtown core. Residential occupancy temporarily dipped during pandemic but have seen significant uptick since April 1. Five Points! Working very hard on moving project forward and hope to share more detail by end of May. Will be 27+ story tower with residential/retail focus. NO OFFICE. Project will be two phases with the large tower being the first. Looking at temporary use for other portion of site on the meantime, no real detail on what the second phase would be.

GeerHouse

Have an approved site plan and construction docs for Phase 1 which will be the shorter building. Expect to submit for construction permit in June. Includes 13k square feet of new retail on all 3 streets (Geer, Foster, Rigsbee) as well as incorporating existing Motorco footprint. Plans include a community corridor 40’ wide running between the two buildings which will connect Foster and Rigsbee. Sounds like some retail may go in there also. Great idea to create more community space and connectivity. Construction planned to start this fall with 24 month timeline. Unclear if the high rise piece is totally separate from that.

Really appreciate you taking the time to attend and write this us.

I guess I am most intrigued by Five Points.  I assume this is still Austin Lawrence Partners?  I have heard a rumor of another building similar to One City Center in the works, and I guess this is it!  Do they have zoning approval for that height?

My pleasure. Yes, Austin Lawrence is still the developer behind the Five Points project. It has long been rumored to be at least the height of One City Center and the representative from the firm today specifically said “27 stories or a few more” depending on how the final design plays out. So I would assume zoning issues have been addressed or they have a high level of confidence around obtaining approval at a minimum.

27+ floors, holy moly! Hope it ends up as planned!

Edit - I assume this is the South Bank lot and not Old Five Points?

That’s right — South Bank/Five Points property.

27 floors and no office? Wow. Any idea how many floors of One City Center are office?

Thanks for sharing.

Re: SouthBank - Pretty amazing to think about how many more people could be living in the downtown core with 27+ stories of residential space.

One City Center has office space on the 3rd (Duke,) 4th (WeWork), and 5th (also WeWork) floors. I believe originally the lower floors above the offices (starting at the 6th) were largely the rental apartments and the higher floors were the condos. Not sure how things might have changed since they opened/COVID.

One thing that could impact actual capacity of the building is how much parking they have and how it is incorporated. Like the building I worked in occasionally at North Hills is “18” stories but the first 7 are entirely parking. Guess we will have to wait for the renderings on that piece. Regardless, you are absolutely correct that the number of new people living downtown in the next several years will be astounding.

There is another tower (again, sorry I can't say where) that was in early design in this same height range; it's possible you heard about that one. It was also going to be residential, and progress is stalled, so who knows if it'll make it.

I saw renderings of the 5 points tower a few months ago and it was more in the range of 15 floors; glad to hear they've scaled up!

Thank you for the details - this is great news.

On the ATC West project, any details on building height? Number of residential units?

The first phase is two office buildings, one 6 and one 7 stories, and a 14 story residential tower. If they end up completing the subsequent phase(s) that seems like it could involve significant vertical development as the renderings show a tower that looks to be in the range of 30 stories plus an additional residential building similar to the first. The future phase(s) seem like they would incorporate the hotel and significant additional office space. 350 apartments and 313k square feet of office space in the first phase. 600+ apartments possible in total.

Could be. Always great to here of more possible development. I heard it from my friend who was talking to someone who worked at one of the other Austin Lawrence properties.  And the pointed in the direction of Five Points, NC Mutual.

Between the Five Points, ATC2, old police station, , Geer St., and the rumored YMCA tower we could see quite the change to the skyline in the next decade or so.

Thanks for the the detailed notes. Very exciting to see new developments and things continuing to have momentum.

Do you by chance know the Golden Belt update?

There wasn’t much too the Golden Belt update honestly. The speaker gave a general overview of the campus and talked about how some of the tenants have made improvements during quarantine (eg — The Cotton Room overhauling some of their event spaces). They mentioned two new recent retail additions, pizza place Cugino Forno and bubble tea spot Yaya Tea, but otherwise it sounds like the campus is mostly leased.

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I'm curious about building 7. I've seen some activity there for the past couple of weeks, but it could just be maintenance. I know they're trying to attract office tenants and have been using renderings showing the potential for a roof terrace overlooking Main St.

Not sure if this is the place to ask, but I was wondering if there was a website or accurate data anywhere detailing the occupancy rate (percentage of actual, leased apartments ) for the newly constructed apartments, condos, & high-rises in downtown Durham?

In a post from April above on this thread it said that the Van Alan was at 40% occupancy at that point.  I'm curious where that info came from and if there are also records available  for the occupancy rate of other similar new apartments in the area.  I'm mainly thinking about residents living there vs. businesses leasing commercial space.

thanks

I don’t think I can help with your question but did want to clarify that the 40% occupancy figure was specific to the 555 Mangum office building. The Van Alen residential portion I’m sure is much higher than that.