Raleigh real estate developer John Kane and entrepreneur and sports team owner Steve Malik believe their investment in downtown Raleigh and their plan for a sports, entertainment, retail and residential complex there that is being formally announced Tuesday will earn public support in two ways.
They believe Triangle residents will get excited about a 20,000-seat multi-use, open-air stadium with highway access and hundreds of events each year. And they think decision-makers who manage the county’s Room Occupancy and Prepared Food and Beverage Tax fund will be impressed with their bid to build in an area of Raleigh targeted for renewal and development.
A formal announcement is scheduled this morning at a press conference. Details and renderings about the project were published late Monday evening at a website about the development.
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“It is a transformational development,” Malik says. “The survey results we’ve gathered from all of Wake County shows support in the 80 percent range. When people find out we’re willing to make a private investment of $1.9 billion, the support goes up even more. So this is the best use for a public-private partnership to drive future benefits for our region.”
They are calling it Downtown South, a.k.a. Downtown Raleigh Entertainment District, pledge surround the stadium — which would be the new home for Malik’s North Carolina FC and NC Courage — with 55 acres of commercial space, to include over 125,000 square feet of street-level retail space and 1,200 hotel rooms, and over 1,700 multi-family residential options at a variety of price points.
Downtown South (rendering by Gensler) of a proposed sports/entertainment multi-use complex for Raleigh
“We are the project that aligns with the eight strategic priorities of the Destination 2028 study done by Jones Lang La Salle [JLL] for the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau,” Malik says. “We check every box. We provide economic equity to an area of town that very much needs that investment, to participate in the growth that the rest of the city has enjoyed. We’re working with that community to make this project impactful for that part of town. We just completed an economic impact analysis and we’re estimated to bring 5,900 new jobs. We’re partnering with Wake Tech to put programs in place so that those are not empty promises, that we provide a range of jobs that, in large part, can go to people in that community.”
Last week, the inter-agency review group headed by the managers for Raleigh and Wake County issued funding recommendations that included PNC Arena, the convention center, a Cary indoor sports facility and several smaller projects, but no funding specifically earmarked for Kane and Malik’s project. Instead, Downtown South would have to vie against other competitors for a total of $42.1 million tapped for “medium projects.” The final decision on interlocal funding rests with the Raleigh City Council and Wake County Commissioners, who could vote on final appropriations in August or September.
A steadfast Malik cites the results of a recent independent economic impact study commissioned through Economic Leadership, LLC that concludes Downtown South would generate $3.8 billion in economic activity over 15 years for Wake County. Malik contends that without interlocal funding, Downtown South “doesn’t happen on this kind of scale. No investment has happened in that area [of Raleigh] like we are talking about, and we need a catalyst to make it work.”
Downtown South economic impact proposal, provided by NCFC
Kane told Wake County Commissioner Sig Hutchinson he expects the project to create 6,000 jobs.
Michael Haley, head of economic development for Wake County, said last week as details began to emerge about the project that he expects “office jobs, entrepreneurs, entertainment and service jobs.”
That jobs number is four times as many positions promised by the Amazon distribution project being built in Garner. The project also is 10 times the value of the Amazon investment which was the largest development deal announced in Wake County last year, according to North Carolina Department of Commerce data.
“The project represents an exciting opportunity for the community and the region,” Haley said.
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“A development of this scale would support a variety of jobs throughout the development and construction phases (plus indirect and induced jobs) as well as once the development is fully realized — office jobs, entrepreneurs, entertainment and service jobs. I am excited about the opportunity this development could bring to our community and the impact it could have.”
It is that level of excitement that Kane and Malik need to leverage to make their plan a reality.
