Cary’s Standard Specifications and Details Manual is a valuable resource for Cary and its development community. Developers, designers, contractors and vendors routinely depend on it to plan and complete their work. In May, Cary staff updated this manual for the first time since 2017. Over the last three years, staff accumulated minor but important changes needed to keep the manual current. Utilities Project Manager Brian Drake took the lead on tracking these desired changes and worked with more than 40 people across the organization to build consensus. He was in the process of preparing an update later this year when Act 14 came along and proposed multiple changes to the manual to achieve public townhouse streets. Recognizing that a single update would be more efficient for staff and easier for users to understand, staff decided to take a OneCary approach by combining forces to work toward a comprehensive revision. As a result, Cary’s first comprehensive update of the Standard Specifications and Details Manual since 2017 was completed on May 15. 

While development plans, building permits and construction activity in 2019 and early 2020 focused on grading permits and retaining walls, the spring of 2020 marked the beginning of a new chapter for Fenton. A development plan that included 193,000 square feet of office, 368,000 square feet of commercial, which is over 60 percent leased, and 355 dwelling units, was approved on April 29. The plan approval represented the culmination of eight months of collaborative work between the developer and staff.  

Following approval of the Phase I Development Plan, staff conducted its first virtual preconstruction meeting for the public infrastructure portion of Fenton on May 1. Staff also formed a special multi-department Architectural Review Committee that is reviewing architecture, landscape and hardscape for compliance with the development’s design guidebook. At this time, final grading and retaining wall installation are underway on the site. The developer, who has reportedly signed a 20-year lease with Wegmans, continues to work full speed toward Wegmans’ building pad delivery in the fall of 2020. Vertical development is anticipated to begin in late 2020 with the first stores opening in late 2021.  

In May, the development plan for One Walker One Walnut, also known as the Academy Park Development, was approved. The project is located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Walker and Walnut streets, adjacent to Cary’s new parking deck, Wake County’s new regional library and the Downtown Park. The property is currently Cary-owned and will be sold to the developer in early FY 2021. Two mixed-use buildings are included within the project. The One Walker building, facing the Downtown Cary Park, will include 153 multi-family residential units with 21,195 square feet of retail along Walker Street. The One Walnut building will front Walnut Street with a mix of uses, including 83,800 square feet of office space above 15,000 square feet of retail. A preconstruction meeting was held in June with construction expected to begin this summer. Construction fencing has been placed around the development boundary and the majority of the park to accommodate the construction of the shared stormwater device.

In Q4, nine non-residential permits were issued for a total of 469,798 square feet. The three largest
non-residential permits issued were: 

• Fenton Parking Deck, 1025 Fenton Gateway 
  Drive: A two-tier, open parking structure with
  802 parking spaces. This parking deck will 
  provide parking for Wegmans and surrounding retail buildings. 
• Cary Plastic Surgery, 1608 Kildare Farm Road: A new, 3,500-square-foot office building for Cary Plastic Surgery and an additional 1,700 square feet of medical office space.  
• Batting Cage at USA Baseball National Training Complex, 7445 Green Hope School Road: A new 3,360-square-foot, open, covered batting cage structure at the training complex in Thomas Brooks Park. 
  

There were 123 non-residential alteration and addition permits issued in Q4. These projects include reinvestment into existing office, commercial and multi-family facilities. The three largest projects were: 

• Cato Research, 2000 Centregreen Way, Suite 300: The research organization is relocating to Cary. Alterations to the existing office building included constructing enclosed and open office spaces with meeting rooms and break rooms. 
• Marriot Residence Inn, 2020 Hospitality Court: Interior renovation to the public space and guestrooms.
• Wake County Public School System Administrative Offices, 110 Corning Road: Alteration work includes demolition of existing building components, new interior partitions, doors and frames, ceiling and finishes to the existing office space.
  

During Q4, there were 21 cases in the rezoning process; six cases were approved. 

Residential: 

• Rezoning the Ferrell Property to allow the property to be subdivided into six single-family residential lots. 
• Rezoning property within the Village at the Park PDD to allow up to 90 townhouses. 
• Rezoning the Southerland Gooch Property to allow detached, age-restricted dwellings and townhouses. 

Multifamily: 

• Rezoning Petty Farm to allow up to 350 multi-family residential units. 
• Rezoning in the Twyla Road South PDD to allow a mix of townhouses, multi-family units and non-residential uses. 
• Rezoning multiple parcels at the northeast corner of the intersection of Chapel Hill Road and Northwest Maynard Road to allow for a multi-family development and the conveyance of more than an acre of land for the Nancy Jones House. 

Forty-four development plans were approved in Q4, totaling over 707,000 square feet of non-residential use, 538 multi-family units and 139 single family lots. Included in these totals are the development plans for the first phase of Fenton and the One Walker One Walnut mixed-use project. Development plans for White Oak Townhomes and Daycare, which includes 30 new townhomes and a day care, and Dominion Estates, which includes 50 single-family lots in southwestern Cary, were also approved. 

At the end of the quarter, Cary’s population is estimated to be 170,287. During FY 2020 Cary’s population grew by 2,966 citizens, or 1.8 percent.