By Cliff Barnes – Contributing writer
Triangle Business Journal
The trend of buying separate parcels of land and assembling them is continuing near N.C. State University as developers squeeze new projects into a fast-growing area.
This time, a new commercial real estate firm in Cary has joined forces with a 37-year-old Raleigh real estate development firm to purchase 1.72 acres on the corner of Hillsborough Street and Turner Street in Raleigh.
Hillsborough Street in Raleigh is undergoing dramatic change.
CityPlat, founded in Cary last month by Blue Sky Services alums Pat Moore, Vincenzo Verdino and Nikita Zhitov, has partnered with White Oak Properties of Raleigh, founded by Roland Gammon in 1982, to acquire six properties for a combined $1.7 million.
The developers received approval for 93 luxury condominiums, that was to be named The Turnhill, but now they plan to put 180 apartment rentals on the property instead. There is no groundbreaking date set yet.
The property has been rezoned from NX-3 to NX-5, allowing a 5-story building to be developed at the site, which runs from 3411 Hillsborough St. around the corner to 18 Turner St.
The land is roughly three blocks from Meredith College and the plans would continue the rush of new apartments along the Hillsborough Street corridor and the blocks not far from N.C. State.
John Kane opened the 6-story, $80 million The Stanhope on Hillsborough Street in 2015. The Velvet Cloak hotel was demolished in 2017 to make room for the 150-unit Signature 1505, an upscale apartment complex.
And earlier this year, a student housing developer has closed on a complex land deal that involves multiple owners and nine parcels totaling 2.5 acres on Hillsborough Street. CA Ventures, of Chicago, bought the properties for $12.2 million, with plans for a 243,000-square-foot apartment building.
The CA Ventures complex will rise three stories along Hillsborough Street, between Dixie Trail and Daisy Street. Construction is expected to wrap up by the summer of 2020, according to the company.
In the CityPlat and White Oak Properties deal, the accessed land value of the combined property is $1.2 million. All but one parcel also have buildings on them, valued at $539,000, that will necessarily be razed to accommodate the project.
It’s not the first project for the new CityPlat firm. A couple of weeks ago it partnered with White Oak and the Center Studio of Durham to purchase land in downtown Durham for a 6-story, 43-unit condo project to be named City Port. There will be a groundbreaking ceremony this summer for those condos, which will have options from the high $100,000s for a studio to the upper $500,000s for a three-bedroom unit.