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Yep, especially considering the (a) time value of [borrowed] money, and (b) the risk involved.
The town had really pushed them and Fenton for more office space here, even though the office market is obviously stronger closer to RTP. (Over the past decade, a lot of the office-park parcels on Jones Franklin, from Dillard to the 440 exit, have been developed as apartments instead. Regency Park has similarly sold*office-zoned land for residential.) So now, they're getting what they asked for.
Carolina Yards faced considerable lease-up risk with the retail and office portions. Most any growing retailer who wants to be in the Cary market is already at Crossroads or Park West (which stole a bunch of CTC's shops), and most new-to-Raleigh retailers would rather join Fenton or the North Hills expansion.
Yep, especially considering the (a) time value of [borrowed] money, and (b) the risk involved.
The town had really pushed them and Fenton for more office space here, even though the office market is obviously stronger closer to RTP. (Over the past decade, a lot of the office-park parcels on Jones Franklin, from Dillard to the 440 exit, have been developed as apartments instead. Regency Park has similarly sold*office-zoned land for residential.) So now, they're getting what they asked for.
Carolina Yards faced considerable lease-up risk with the retail and office portions. Most any growing retailer who wants to be in the Cary market is already at Crossroads or Park West (which stole a bunch of CTC's shops), and most new-to-Raleigh retailers would rather join Fenton or the North Hills expansion.
This could all be true – or – maybe they they purchased CTC at a great low price and made all these great plans – then Covid19 struck, Downtown South is suddenly becoming a real threat in addition to Fenton, Epic Games had deep pockets and needed (wanted) the space, and bam – they flipped the property for an enormous profit.
I don’t know if JLL is managing their property full time or not.
In the case of the Crossroads Blvd. expansion, they were apparently brought in as a construction manager for the project, working under JDavis. Many large architectural firms offer this service in house, while others may outsource this function. My experience has been that the project architectural firm has also handled the construction management (for an additional fee of course).
Many do. However, my experience (I have have a good number of years in commercial construction project management and development as well) has been that few Architectual firms actually manage things to the extent that a firm like JLL will as far as the day to day. Also, in situations where there are entitlements to be obtained, the architect will certainly be involved, but that is often the primary reason why a developer is brought in as its outside all but the largest A&E firm’s skill set and someone needs to coordinate the various partners over a process that takes a long period of time. It all depends on the particular deal. And Epic is in a different situation than most for sure. Flush with cash, but not super huge people-wise but potentially having a site that is fully entitled. But I’d be surprised if they have much in the way of construction management expertise on staff. Also, even if they have someone, the high level management of a project like this is a full time job for a couple of years for several people. More so when it starts coming out of the ground.
And I’ll agree I was never super bullish on the Carolina Yards plans. Feels like too much office saturation in that area with Fenton. Honestly, I still think an IKEA would have been a good way to kick off something on that site, but hey, it ain’t happening.
Noticed that the Carolina Yards website has already been taken down...just redirects to Turnbridge now.
I also see the development plans in process with the town for Carolina Yards Phase 1 infrastructure, Phase 2A multifamily, and Phase 2B retail, as well as the building permits for the small retail building that was to abut Belk have all been closed out.
Whatever Epic is going to do will obviously require all-new development plans, even if they're adhering to some of the existing entitlements.
With the current zoning, the entitlements are tied to the master plan spelled out in the PDP, are they not? In order to get the entitlements to build 1.2msf of office, they have to adhere to the specified street grid, building envelopes, use mixes, etc - or is there something I'm missing here?
Or can we expect Epic to come back to the town with a new master plan that still asks for 1.2 million square feet of office, but calls for a SAS-like security checkpoint at every entrance with a perimeter fence built 6 inches inside the property line? (And we can expect the town to kowtow, because that's what they do?)
At any rate, 87 acres is an extremely large amount of land to be taken up by one company in a location as central and prime as this. This sucks, it really really sucks. I appreciate the economic impact that a company like Epic brings to the region, but you won't get me to believe that they wouldn't have just as much of an economic impact if they were situated on a 10-acre campus and housed in a couple high rises.
This feels like a repeat of SAS, whose campus occupies ONE THOUSAND prime acres for their 5,500-strong local workforce - a paltry 5.5 jobs per acre!
If you want, or need, a 90 acre single-use office campus, then, go to RTP - that's what it's meant for.
Yeah, it should all be tied to the PDP, which makes no sense as a corporate campus, so I don't understand the claim about being able to use the existing entitlements.
SAS, whose campus occupies ONE THOUSAND prime acres for their 5,500-strong local workforce - a paltry 5.5 jobs per acre!
One wonders, over time how Goodnight's intentions might have changed from making shrewd investments in land to actually building out his campus. In any event, he had the cash to buy at market prices. I think the Town of Cary would have had a difficult time constraining his buildout after he acquired the property.
No empire lasts forever. IBM, Nortel, GSK etc have all shed property as their needs diminished (or, in the case of Nortel, when it went bust).
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