January 11, 2005

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            There is now a parking lot, the Green & Wooten insurance agency and a Laundromat on the Brooks/Owen site. An auto buying and selling business, DAB, occupies the Elm/Brooks site.

            In December, Craig Briner, one of the owners of the Wake Forest Plaza south of the DAB site, wrote to the Wake Forest commissioners urging them to choose the DAB site and offering several development proposals.

            If the town chooses the DAB site, Briner wrote, East Elm Partners would:

• “Move quickly to ‘reskin’ the existing shopping center buildings to give them a red brick appearance in compliance with downtown development standards.

• “Immediately announce plans for a three-story retail/office building.” It would be in the southeast corner of Brooks and Elm on vacant land.

• “Within six months, East Elm Partners [Briner’s limited liability partnership with Tejal Vyas] will bring to the town a site plan for its urban housing project.” Realtor and former mayor Dick Monteith said that plan would be for about 120 upscale, high density townhouses in the $175,000-$225,000 range.

• “In conjunction with the housing project, Brooks Street will be completed to Holding Avenue.”

            Briner also offered to sell the 3 acres next to DAB that the town would need for the new building at a reduced price of $2.64 per square foot.

            If the town hall is not built on the DAB site, Monteith said this week, “The office/retail building is scrapped.” They would try to upgrade the shopping center building, but they would have to consider building the townhouses in a lower price range.

            “We would like to have a higher-scale product, but with a used car lot across the street, that would really put a real hurt on the whole project,” Monteith said about the townhouses.

            “We will definitely consider the property they own,” Town Manager Mark Williams said of Briner’s offer. Last month, after the consulting architects, Little Diversified, presented the two sites, he said he prefers the Brooks/Owen site because of its proximity to other town buildings: the planning office and police department.

            “As far as the other promises [about the three-story building and Brooks Street], obviously we can’t hold them to them,” Williams said. “We would have to take what Craig and Dick are promising on faith. If the economy should tank, there’s nothing we can hold them to.”

            The town commissioners plan to make a decision about the site before the end of February. Williams said it may be discussed at the board retreat this coming Friday and Saturday, but the board will really get to the nuts and bolts at their regular meeting Jan. 17.

            The commissioners will hold a closed session then to meet with the appraiser to hear his preliminary findings about property values “and to consider their negotiating stance with the property owners involved,” Williams said. “It will be the first time for them to hear the values of the properties.”

            East Elm Partners purchased the plaza and a total of 14 acres in 2002 for $2.5 million. The land extends from South White Street down to Franklin Street.

            In the fall of 2003 Briner told members of the Wake Forest Area Chamber of Commerce about his concepts for developing the land, which then included several multi-story buildings with retail and offices on the lower level, apartments and condominiums above. The tallest building was planned for what is now the DAB site. He also planned single-family homes with townhouses for the eastern part of the tract.

            Briner has been busy with a South Carolina project, and then the town adopted the Renaissance Plan, which called for a town hall and town green at the DAB site and nearby.

            Also, Briner said in his Dec. 20 letter, the upscale development he planned was contingent on three events:

• “Franklin Street had to be connected to the bypass.

• The N.C. 98 bypass had to be completed to Capital Boulevard.

• The new Town Hall had to replace the used car lot on the corner of White and Elm Streets, as illustrated by the Renaissance Plan.”

            “We think this site is not more expensive” than the one at Brooks and Owen, Monteith said, “and it’s probably going to be less expensive than building on Brooks.” He cited the expense of buying five businesses there versus one at the DAB site.

            For more than two years, Monteith and Briner have been pursuing an arrangement with Wake Technical Community College to place the college’s Quick Start program in the old Winn-Dixie location. The county commissioners have refused to fund the $2.5-million program three times.

            Since they were turned down for the last time in June of 2005, Monteith and Briner have found two other possible tenants for the plaza.

            One would be an IGA grocery store for the Winn-Dixie location, and the other is a client who would install a telecommuting office center in the Maxway location and lease space to major companies in the Triangle whose employees can work from home or such a center. Monteith said Maxway has been on a month-to-month lease since December.

            The other major tenant in the plaza is CVS, which is one year into a five-year lease extension. The drug store does plan to move into a future building, approved by the town, in the northeast corner of White and Roosevelt.

            Dollar General owns both its building and the land it stands on.