Cary’s downtown park already is enticing developers. Here’s what else is being built.
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Over the past 20 years, Cary has cemented itself as a leading Triangle destination.
But the Raleigh suburb has long found itself bereft of one critical component: an engaging downtown.
“When I started as mayor, when it got dark, downtown was completely empty and businesses were starting to leave,” said Harold Weinbrecht, Cary’s mayor since 2007. “We realized if we didn’t invest there no one else was going to either.”
So began a renewed effort to revitalize Cary’s dilapidated downtown.
“The oldest part of Cary is downtown and it needs redevelopment,” Weinbrecht said. “Our hope was if we built a really nice park, people would develop.”
Town leaders first proposed the idea of a central park in 2001, but the initiative sputtered. After two decades of sporadic progress, the downtown park broke ground in June. Most of it should be complete in 2022 with a ribbon-cutting in 2023.
The park will cover seven acres between South Academy, East Park, Walnut and Walker streets. The nearly $70 million project will include a “grab-and-go market,” a dog park, a children’s play area, an elevated Sky Walk and a performance pavilion. Combined with a one-acre Town Square built in 2017, the park will be unique among Triangle municipalities, according to Weinbrecht.
“We don’t want to be like anything else,” he said. “I think this will not only attract people to the region but be known nationally.”
Several businesses and property owners have already followed the town’s lead, completing aesthetic enhancements to buildings along Chatham and Academy Street — downtown’s main intersection — in the last year.
“And it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Weinbrecht said. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet and the downtown park was the start of that all.”
Downtown’s park will anchor several development plans across Cary in 2022.
The Walker, a development surrounding downtown’s parking deck, will include 153 apartments and 100,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and office space. Construction of phase one is scheduled to finish this spring.
Cary’s colossal Fenton development on Cary Towne Boulevard between I-40 and Maynard Road is scheduled to open its first block on April 1.
And South Hills Mall on Buck Jones Road, known as “Cary’s oldest mall,” has new ownership and will likely undergo dramatic change. The 60-year-old complex could become a $193 million sports complex.
“We’re going to see all these projects and more start or finish in the next year,” Weinbrecht said. “I expect a lot of announcements coming over 2022.”
News & Observer readers: Click here for 5 Signs of Change: Part Three.
Durham Herald-Sun readers: Click here for 5 Signs of Change: Part Three.
This story was originally published January 23, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Cary’s downtown park already is enticing developers. Here’s what else is being built.."
