By Christian Warren Freed
It’s no secret. There are reasons why shopping centers long entrenched in the local landscape fail to thrive. Remember the old Cary Village Mall (more recently Cary Towne Center)? That monstrous wasteland that was once a mall and is now the graveyard of a video game empire’s dreams? The glory days of the shopping mall experience are long behind us. If you weren’t around in the 70s or 80s and, to a small extent, the early 90s, you missed out. Malls were the place to be. Today they stand as decrepit skeletons of a bygone era. (Thank you, internet).
But all is not bad news for retailers and small businesses. A little fine tuning and rebuilding go far in helping breathe life back into brick-and-mortar stores. Let’s talk about two areas that could, once again, draw thousands of shoppers and foot traffic: South Hills Mall and Waverly Place. Suburban Living dug a little deeper into what’s in store for these shopping areas.
South Hills Mall
South Hills has been a staple in the Walnut Street area since the late 1960s when David J. Martin opened up his barbershop. (Did you know the original building contained bricks from an old torn down prison and the dormitory at Cary High School?) Almost a decade later the town of Cary rezoned the area from Raleigh into its limits and began developing the shopping center with names like Roses, Cary Furniture, Burlington Coat Factory, K&S Cafeteria, and Mitchell’s Hair Styling, to name a few. This was the town’s very first shopping mall and a measure of Cary’s growth. The decades have not been kind to the area, however. Many businesses left while others struggle on. A few draw regulars, like the Grand Asia Market and Baker’s Dozen Donuts. And let’s not forget the DMV location for renewing tags.
A few years ago, the town wanted to begin planning to turn the entire area into a sports venue and community center. The people spoke and voted against the idea. Stars aligned, however, when LODEN, the development company that owns much of the South Hills property, met the Carolina Ballet, whose Raleigh headquarters building was sold leaving them no choice but to lease elsewhere while looking for a permanent home. That home will soon be the 70,000-square-foot former car dealership at South Hills Mall, set to become Starline at South Hills.
Half of the space, owned by LODEN, will be retail shops, cafes, and the like. The half owned by the ballet will include office space, a costume and production shop, ample storage, five studios, a ballet school, and a black box theater expected to seat 300 guests.
The concept designs are dazzling. The public can watch rehearsals from a massive atrium through floor to ceiling glass walls and partake in live demonstrations, workshops, and events designed to give patrons opportunities to discover the artistry of the ballet from all sides. It is the hopes of the ballet directors that the combination of the move and new facility will spark renewed interest in an art form that has been around for over 400 hundred years.
We all know that renovation takes time, but instead of turning the area into a mirror of the former Cary Towne Center, the new owners plan on doing a phased tear down and build up, estimated to take up to a decade before the entire 44 acres is complete. The ballet expects to begin construction of their new Starline headquarters in early 2027 and open in 2028 as the centerpiece of this new South Hills destination, reigniting interest in an area desperately in need of rejuvenation. As time progresses, visitors can expect to see gathering spaces, public parks and greenways, a hotel, office and residential space, and more than 100,000 square feet of retail and restaurants incorporated into the final plans for this fresh beginning.
Excitement is already building, but you don’t need to take my word for it. More convincing are the words of four-year-old ballerina Miss Margo Levine, “I love ballet 1,800 percent!” How can you argue with that?
Waverly Place
Let’s head on over to the other side of town now and check in on the currently more vibrant Waverly Place. Built in 1988 at the corner of Kildaire Farm Road and Tryon Road, Waverly Place quickly became a popular site with restaurants, mixed-use spaces, and the CinéBistro movie theater anchoring the backside. Nestled across the street from WakeMed and Walmart, this 22.5-acre development adds flavor to this part of town by offering a multitude of dining and shopping experiences in a walkable setting that hosts live concerts in the summer and photo-worthy holiday décor.
Despite some rezoning opposition, a portion of Waverly Place has been approved for a new look and feel — specifically, an additional 30,000 square feet of retail space, 15,000 square feet of gathering space, and 750 multifamily residential units in buildings that could potentially reach seven stories, which matches the height of the hospital across the street. The area of redevelopment is the 7.75 acres now composed of the CineBistro and its parking lots.
While the potential increase in traffic is consistently a worry of everyone living in Wake County—we are, after all, one of the fastest growing populations in the country—developers plan on building a parking deck and creating a pedestrian-friendly environment. As with any development, the town uses third-party consultants to conduct a thorough Traffic Analysis Report (TAR). The report for Waverly Place suggests a traffic increase of 2% at the Kildaire Farm/Tryon Road intersection once everything is finished.
The outlook for Waverly Place is part of the town’s Imagine Cary Community Plan. Not only will new storefronts and housing be available, hopes are that the entire area will become a favored locale for vendors, visitors, shoppers, diners, and residents alike.
There is still a lot of work to be done on both developments, and it will be some time before either is fully complete, but these two longtime Cary shopping areas deserve the overhauls in store for them. Someday soon, the mention of South Hills or Waverly Place will elicit reactions even more enthusiastic than perhaps what they receive today.
For updates on the South Hills development and Imagine Cary, visit carync.gov/projects-initiatives/cary-community-plan/south-hills-development.
Learn more about the Carolina Ballet at carolinaballet.com.
For updates on Waverly Place, go to waverlycary.com/waverly-place-rezoning-hub/.
