Ed Wolverton, president and CEO of Wilmington Downtown Inc., joked during a recent event that the evening’s program could have had a slightly different, yet still catchy, name.

Instead of “Downtown’s Changing Skyline: A Six-pack of Projects,” the organizers at WDI could have used the words “pony keg” because of the amount of development going on, Wolverton told the crowd Nov. 19 at the Coastline  Conference and Event Center.

The audience that came out to hear developers talk about the “Six-Pack” during the session, the fall session of WDI’s Downtown Economic Series, showed how much interest downtown’s ongoing transformation has sparked, officials said.

“As we were putting this together tonight, we were hoping for 200 [in attendance], and we ended up last I heard today about 2 o’clock, with 361,” Wolverton said.

Lee Perry of Chapel Hill-based East West Partners, the company expected to redevelop the Water Street parking deck, revealed the name of the mixed-use plan: RIVERPLACE of Wilmington.

“Over the coming weeks and months, you’ll be seeing us roll out websites, advertising and kind of branding full scale for RIVERPLACE of Wilmington, which we’re really excited about,” said Perry, whose company is in the development agreement negotiation process with city of Wilmington officials for what will be a public-private partnership.

In addition to the moniker, Perry said, the firm is establishing a RIVERPLACE sales office downtown at 228 S. Front St. that it will share with Intracoastal Realty of Wilmington.

“We’re doing the finishing touches on the office now and plan to kind of have a grand opening sales and marketing promo … sometime in December,” Perry said.

He said Intracoastal Realty would be putting a general brokerage office downtown with eight to 10 full-time agents, while the sales office for RIVERPLACE will be led by the Jimmy Hopkins Team of Intracoastal.

Perry also explained details about RIVERPLACE, the plans for which have remained largely unchanged since city officials in February chose East West’s proposal.

“Where we are in the schematic phase of the project is we have two residential towers. What we call the South Tower is the tower we see at the corner of Chestnut and Water [streets]. Those homes are being planned as for-sale  condominiums. They will be larger homes, an average of about 1,800 to 1,900 feet across the homes. There’ll be 48 of them on levels four through 12 of the building,” Perry said. “Then adjacent to that, you’ll see what we call the Water  Street wrapper, which is the buildings that face out onto Water Street kind of directly in front of the Hilton.”

The parking garage sits behind and under the entire development, he said. Behind the Water Street wrapper is the project’s North Tower, which will consist of 115 units that are currently planned as rental units, Perry said.

“The concept is to have a for-sale component and then a for-rent component as well,” he said.

The company also plans to incorporate commercial space, including offices, stores and restaurants.

“At street level, where Chestnut hits Water Street, is kind of the main feature of the project,” Perry said. “We’ve got retail planned on that section of Chestnut and then wrapping all the way down Water Street down to where basically the Cotton Exchange starts. And so our goal here is to really kind of tie in what’s going on with the historic district and all the energy there and all the energy that’s moving toward the north riverfront, which we just heard about, and kind of tie all that in as opposed to what’s there now, which is a dark, kind of dead area that really is kind of a gap between all the great things that are going on between those great places.”

During his presentation, Tom Davis of City Block Apartments said the completed first phase of the apartment community at 814 N. Third St. was 83.4 percent occupied as of Nov. 19.

“We’re looking to start phase two with another 100 units on the same site, plus some retail, at the first of the year,” Davis said.

As part of his update, Brian Eckel, with GHK Cape Fear Development and a partner in Cape Fear Commercial,  announced the latest tenant in his company’s recently completed office building at 101 N. Third St.  

Smith Moore Leatherwood plans to move its Port City location this spring from 300 N. Third St. to about 9,200 square feet on the fourth floor of the new BB&T-anchored building. The fifth floor was still available for lease as of Nov. 19, and his company was in negotiations with multiple tenants for the space, Eckel said.

Symphony Properties LLC’s Blair Booth said he wants his project, Sawmill Point apartments, to convey a contemporary urban feel while also focusing on incorporated green space. The four-story, 280-unit project is under construction along the northern riverfront downtown.

Describing Sawmill Point’s hammock garden, one of many of the apartment complex’s amenities that face the Cape Fear River, Booth told the WDI event audience: “You can lay in a hammock, kick back and relax and watch the boats go by.”

Chuck Schoninger, managing member of Port City Marina development company USA InvestCo., said with the first phase of the marina in place and the start of construction on two restaurants on his firm’s northern riverfront site, the next on his company’s to-do list is a new hotel. The Hotel Indigo is planned to be a nine-story, 125-room project.

“We wanted to really bring a sexy-chic kind of hotel to Wilmington,” Schoninger said during the economic series talk. “We’re ready. We’re eager to get this thing underway and going.”

He said he hopes to have the restaurants – BlackFinn and Vida Cantina – done by the summer.

Another presenter on Nov. 19, Todd Saieed of DeWitt Carolinas, described his company’s development, Pier 33  apartments. Also along the northern riverfront and in front of the marina, the apartment community has been planned to include a mix of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units and roughly 32,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

“When we announced this project a year ago, the feedback we received – it wasn’t just regional or local. It was national,” Saieed told the audience.