Hub RTP update: Park’s first apartments coming soon to planned urban campus
Hub RTP is kicking off construction this year on new labs, offices, retail space and — in a first for the campus — an apartment building.
With the projects, Research Triangle Foundation President and CEO Scott Levitan hopes to elevate the experience in the booming region beyond the 9 to 5.
“When COVID started, we all feared it was the end of the world for us,” Levitan told the Durham County Board of Commissioners on Monday, laying out recent area investments by companies like Apple and Eli Lilly totaling over $4.7 billion and promising thousands of jobs. “This bodes well.”
First to break ground next month is the first phase of apartments, a 366-unit market-rate complex expected to be finished in 2023.
The average one-bedroom apartment in Durham rents for over $1,500, according to Rent.com’s July report.
It’s being built by MAA, a national developer with three projects already under its belt in Durham and a dozen more in Wake County. The foundation says 1,200 multi-family units are ultimately envisioned.
“More than bricks and mortar, these highly designed, fully amenitized luxury apartments are tailored to the needs of couples, families and everyone in between,” the website proclaims.
In October, crews break ground on Horseshoe, a mixed-use project aimed to create an urban center at the center of Hub RTP.
Horseshoe is a U-shaped trio of buildings with 100,000 square feet of space, plus 25,000 square feet of retail on the ground floors.
The structures overlook a grassy plaza with wide steps leading down to a splash pad. Renderings show patio restaurant seating giving way to benches and umbrellas surrounded by trees and flowers under white string lights
Charlotte-based development firm White Point Partners was hired for the project.
Hub RTP is a public-private partnership
The Hub RTP is a sprawling 100-acre campus that will ultimately contain over 1 million square feet of offices and labs and 50,000 square feet of retail space. It’s located in the center of Research Triangle Park, surrounded by Interstate 40, N.C. 54 and the newly built Interstate 885.
The $105 million development was largely funded by the foundation, though Durham County supplied $20 million to help extend roads, bike paths and utilities into the campus, and pay for a central park and green spaces woven through the grounds.
The paving, planting, pipe-laying and utility work are scheduled to be finished this month.
“We are almost at the point where we are completing the infrastructure,” Levitan said.
A large parking deck is in the final state of design, and the foundation aims to tie its opening to Horseshoe’s in late 2023. A speculative life sciences tower will be built in 2024, followed by a 250-room hotel in 2025 and more high-rises in the next decade.
Frontier RTP, a flexible coworking space aimed at startups, and Boxyard, a collection of painted shipping container restaurants and breweries, both opened in 2021.
Levitan said Boxyard has been successful as a live music venue and event space, though one of its tenants has already closed. Carrburritos, a fast casual Tex-Mex restaurant with a Carrborro location, cited trouble with staffing and supplies when it left in May, The News & Observer previously reported.
County commissioners praised the regional and forward-thinking vision of the project at Monday’s meeting, as well as statistics presented by Hub RTP reporting 42.5% of their firms were owned by women and minorities.
This story was originally published August 2, 2022 at 8:26 AM with the headline "Hub RTP update: Park’s first apartments coming soon to planned urban campus."
