Most likely by the time you read this, the buildings in this stretch of Hillsborough Street will be demolished. The Community is watching this take place and reporting in that the demolition work needed for downtown’s next residential project, named 501 Hillsborough at this time, is underway. These very nice, but almost always empty, storefronts should make way for new retail spaces plus hundreds of new residents above them. Let’s review.
The location is along the West Street corridor between Morgan and Hillsborough streets. About half the block is surface parking and the former location of Wilson’s Outdoor Equipment. In addition, a row of single-story storefronts facing Hillsborough Street have been empty for some time in recent history. Probably the most notable was the Montgomery Violins shop, located at 509 Hillsborough Street, who, I believe, was the last one to leave the area after being there for over 35 years. It’s possible that Flex, a bar and club a few doors down, could have been here longer. I’ll have to look into that sometime. Either way, both have found new homes and are still open today.
It’s not too exciting but it is more urban and continues to add to the downtown resident pipeline. 501 Hillsborough will have about 230 apartments with some ground-floor retail space facing Hillsborough Street. The homes will wrap the building on all four sides with a parking deck on the inside. This is a typical formula for urban developments these days which is why I saw it’s nothing exciting.
This is the part that always gets me nervous as demolition does not equal development as other projects in downtown have razed buildings only to sit empty for years without any shovels in the ground. Let’s hope that’s not the case here. It’s a wonderful location!