Whether you feel that Raleigh’s "midtown" is the Crabtree area, the North Hills area, or that the moniker is absurd, there are a couple of interesting rumors floating around about the two areas, nevertheless.
The much-discussed Soleil Center at Crabtree is shooting high, very high. We hear that the developers are beating the doors down trying to get a celebrity chef restaurant. That’s right; if they had it their way, there will be a restaurant by Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, or the like. Whether or not we rank up there with the cities that have celeb chef restaurants remains to be seen. We can’t fault the developers for trying, though.
Just up the beltline, North Hills sits as the nearly finished product of high aspirations. The original plans for the project included a 240-room Renaissance hotel (by Marriott). The hotel plans were later downsized to 229 rooms as the Gold’s Gym pool was upgraded to satisfy Renaissance’s demands. The 4-star hotel’s groundbreaking has been pushed back numerous times; June being the most recent. With the North Hills project approaching its second birthday, curious minds want to know why a gravel and weed garden sits in the middle of a burgeoning retail district.
One rumor we heard earlier this year was that Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse would be brought in as the hotel’s signature restaurant. Nothing solid has developed yet and Kane Realty will neither confirm nor deny this plan. However we are now hearing from a few sources that the Renaissance deal may not happen at all and that the hotel will have to be operated under another flagship chain name.
I don’t know if this is true or not, but I would hate to see an aspiring project like North Hills having to settle for something like a Hampton Inn, for instance. I distinctly recall my first impression with Charlotte’s Phillips Place,"You mean with all of this they could only reel in a Hampton Inn?"
Several things about be at work here. Perhaps slow rentals in the Alexan have complicated the financial picture for the Renaissance’s development. Perhaps Kane Realty is waiting for the City of Raleigh’s decision regarding Kane’s special funding request for the development of North Hills East. Perhaps Renaissance is waiting for one of the other luxury hotels planned in Raleigh to balk. So far only Cary’s 5-star Umstead is actually being built. Construction on the convention center Marriott has not actually begun. The planned 20 stories of Westin Hotel at the Soleil center remain to actually be built.
Whatever the matter is Kane Realty is being suspiciously mum, but it is our sincere desire to see North Hills completed with its planned Renaissance Hotel. Raleigh is embarrassingly short on quality hotel experiences. While the planned burst in supply might make developers nervous, the demand still exceeds their plans.
