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Official Wake Campus Development Thread

Biff Ochocinco Tannen said:
No, it's not. Construction costs are sky high and banks don't want to lend for speculative office construction due to vacancy rates. Every city is different though in terms of inventory.
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Winston's vacant office space inventory is high. BB&T and Wells basically leaving town opened up a ton of floors in downtown buildings. Anything going in Whitaker Park almost certainly is primarily manufacturing and/or warehouse space.

However the rental housing inventory in Winston seems to still be red hot.
 
Yeah, Whitaker Park is an industrial area, not office. The food bank building is new and there's another new warehouse/logistics building, 110,000 sf, over there on Reynolds Court.

The Deacon Blvd project shouldn't include any industrial space. But to support a bunch of retail development, They're going to need daytime workers to frequent the area, or a ton of apartments, or both.
 
An article in today's WS Journal states that Cook Medical has decided not to move to Whitaker Park. In its place, a Winston-Salem based Mexican food company called Purple Crow will buy the property and consolidate its operations there.

journalnow.com

Major Whitaker Park change: Cook Medical bowing out, Purple Crow stepping in

A major renovation project is set to proceed on the former Whitaker Park manufacturing campus, but with a new owner-occupant with Cook Medical bowing out and Purple Crow preparing to
journalnow.com journalnow.com

A major renovation project is set to proceed on the former Whitaker Park manufacturing campus, but with a new owner-occupant with Cook Medical bowing out and Purple Crow preparing to step in.

Cook confirmed Wednesday plans to sell its 850,000-square-foot section on the massive production campus.

Although Cook did not disclose the buyer, Purple Crow chief executive and president Dan Calhoun said his group has a contract in place to purchase the property.

“Steps, such as incentives and due diligence, are progressing ahead of schedule, and closing will take place as soon as those matters are resolved,” Calhoun said Wednesday.

“We’re fortunate to have found a potential buyer that is interested in the property and supporting the Winston-Salem community.”
Cook paid $4 million in July 2021 for the section that features 39.3 acres after announcing in January 2019 its high-profile plans to acquire the property from Whitaker Park Development Authority Inc...

...Purple Crow said the brand “remains distinctive among the competition for providing ‘deeply authentic’ Mexican products, and the sole image on our expanding line of fresh cheeses, creams, meats, yogurts and snacks.”
 
Wonder if "deeply authentic" is a shot at another Winston company's Green Mountain Gringo brand.
 
Does that mean it's going to smell like freshly made tortillas by the stadium? Cuz I'm cool with that. Better than the waft of tobacco that used to permeate the city.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Does that mean it's going to smell like freshly made tortillas by the stadium? Cuz I'm cool with that. Better than the waft of tobacco that used to permeate the city.
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Man, that drying tobacco smell when the wind blew just right was low key one of my favorite things about Wake.
 
I'm not in the same boat in terms of tobacco-smell nostalgia, but I get it. I have the same reaction to that smell that hits you upside the head in Asian grocery stores or in the fish section of an H-Mart. It's nasty, but takes me back to my youth and is soothing somehow.

IMO, they need to open that entire section between Deacon Blvd and Baity St and make it pedestrian oriented with businesses. You want to throw mixed use shit on there? Fine, but limit it to only a couple of stories. We don't need 5 stories of mixed-use shit with a 70% vacancy rate. Pedestrian walkway over University is a must because you want the Wake kids to be the basis for injecting life into this area, and you want them to be able to get there and back with ease. Parking for the area 99% of the time can be had at LJVM or Groves (parking for the mixed-use tenants would be separate, obviously). Hell, I say throw a walkway from LJVM over Deacon Blvd to the pedestrian area too. It's all about making the area easily accessible at all times, open, welcoming, and interconnected with the venues and the mixed-use space.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Hell, I say throw a walkway from LJVM over Deacon Blvd to the pedestrian area too. It's all about making the area easily accessible at all times, open, welcoming, and interconnected with the venues and the mixed-use space.
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There's already a tunnel.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Does that mean it's going to smell like freshly made tortillas by the stadium? Cuz I'm cool with that. Better than the waft of tobacco that used to permeate the city.
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The tobacco smell is still present, though not as often. It was strong at the WS Open on Wednesday.
 
Any way we could raze the Reynolds factory and that decrepit empty water fountain. Man that whole area is a dump.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Any way we could raze the Reynolds factory and that decrepit empty water fountain. Man that whole area is a dump.
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WE who ? Wake doesn't own that. RJR doesn't even own that.

The only thing Wake owns on Reynolds Blvd is the Pepsi office building and the woods next to it and the entrance road to the parking lots. That's it.

Aside from that, those buildings aren't close to worthless.
 
As noted in the WS Journal article from this week: "Not included in the [Whitaker Park] donation is the central property in between, where Reynolds continues to operate tobacco-processing and warehousing operations. Those consist of 18 buildings and 100 acres."

I think the buildings still belonging to and being used by Reynolds are the ones between areas "W" and "E."

So Reynolds still owns and uses a lot of the Whitaker Park buildings, though Reynolds does not have many employees on site. I haven't heard about any potential tenants for the main factory buildings in area W.

Whitaker.jpeg
 
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CaptRenault said:
As noted in the WS Journal article from this week: "Not included in the [Whitaker Park] donation is the central property in between, where Reynolds continues to operate tobacco-processing and warehousing operations. Those consist of 18 buildings and 100 acres."

I think the buildings still belonging to and being used by Reynolds are the ones between areas "W" and "E."

So Reynolds still owns and uses a lot of the Whitaker Park buildings, though Reynolds does not have many employees on site. I haven't heard about any potential tenants for the main factory buildings in area W.

View attachment 5104
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No, that's not quite right. We're facing north, so west to east it's:

601-11 is Vitacost
601-010 is Cook Medical
The buildings between W and E and north and northwest of the Red Lot are RJR
E is where all the redevelopment is going on (605) with vacant development sites, Food Bank, and Loft apartments (2-2). The County owns 605-10 and 605-7.
T 630-2 is another Whitaker Park Development Authority building, similar to the stuff in E
 
what kinda stuff does Pepsi use this office for? is that a throwback to Wayne Calloway's tenure there?
 
BarcaDeac said:
what kinda stuff does Pepsi use this office for? is that a throwback to Wayne Calloway's tenure there?
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That was donated to Wake years ago.

Originally the world headquarters for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, RJR Nabisco donated this more than 500,000 square foot building to Wake Forest University in 1987. Now called the University Corporate Center, this building is located on Reynolds Boulevard near Wake Forest’s Campus.

Current tenants include Pepsi, Alight and Wake Forest University.
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properties.wfu.edu

University Corporate Center - Wake Forest Properties

Originally the world headquarters for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, RJR Nabisco donated this more than 500,000 square foot building to Wake Forest University in 1987. Now called the University Corporate Center, this building is located on Reynolds Boulevard near Wake Forest’s Campus...
properties.wfu.edu properties.wfu.edu
 
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