North West Cary Expansion and Growth

Northwest Cary Expansion

The Town of Cary's Northwest Cary Area plan is off to a roaring start. With the new Panther Creek High School, massive Amberly housing development, established Cary Park development, Trammel Crow's apartments off of McCrimmon, and the pop of residential down Davis Drive and Morrisville Carpenter Road. It seems as though the housing recession has hardly put a dent in Cary's growth.

With strong established residential communities, promising future residential growth, the new I-540 interchange, and an RTP commuter route like 55 NW Cary is a Commercial Real Estate dream come true. But the price of land does not come cheap. Properties in the Alston Activity Center area are being sold for unreasonable prices. Tax Values on the land have risen to over $243,000 per acre.

For a hot corner on McCrimmon and 55 a Florida developer paid as much as $600,000 per acre. But McCrimmon and 55 will be the heart of NW Cary in several years. On an adjacent corner, Lincoln Harris has a Medical Office site that backs up to Trammel Crows new multi-family apartment community. The Medical Office site will also include room for a few "build-to-suit" retail and office outparcels.

Cary Park Towne Center was the first Commercial Real Estate Retail Development to venture onto the western side of HWY 55. The 120,000 SF Neighborhood Shopping Center, anchored by a Harris Teeter, is located in northwest Cary at the intersection of Green Level to Durham Road and Carpenter Fire Station Road. Lincoln Harris identified the site in 2004 as an opportunity to develop a grocery anchored neighborhood center to serve the rapidly growing population of northwest Cary. Joining the Charlotte-based grocery store this year will be Amberly Dentistry, Carini's Italian Restaurant, Planet Beach, Lee Day Spa, Kids being Kids and J&F Gemelli Hair Salon. Notable outparcels will include CVS Pharmacy, First Citizens Bank and Wachovia Bank. Cary Park Town Center is located adjacent to the Cary Park, Amberly, Cameron Pond and Stonewater communities, all of which are in various stages of development. Upon completion, these neighborhoods will include up to 16,000 residential units.

Available Land in the area is hard to find. Small 1 acre parcels are popping up here and there, but the highly desirable 5-10 acre retail tracts don't seem to be on the market. However, that doesn't mean they are impossible to find, it just means you need to be the first one in the door when the property owner decides it's time to retire. As they accumulate another 25-45,000 new neighbors, I am sure they'll find a reason to sell.