Cape Fear Habitat for Humanity is expanding its ReStore capacity in the Monkey Junction area.
 
The current store, at 6331 Carolina Beach Road, opened in July 2020, in response to demand in that area. But even at that time, it was seen as a temporary location. Officials said at the time they expected to remain at that store for two-to-three years while they negotiated the purchase of a nearby vacant parcel where a much larger facility could be built.
 
That has happened right on target, thanks to the involvement of a developer who purchased the land and built the facility, ReStore Director Brent Byers said Thursday.
 
“We will lease the building from the developer,” Byers added.
 
The new facility, at 6381 Carolina Beach Road, should open by early summer, and none too soon, he said. Thanks to the volume of donations, ReStore is about to outgrow its current 9,000-square-foot store. Its replacement will boast 20,660 square feet of space, all under one roof.
 
“We’re hoping to carry more building supplies, like flooring,” Byers said.
 
Cape Fear Habitat operates two other ReStores: one downtown at 1208 S. Third St. and one at 7330 Market St. in Ogden. The revenues are extremely important to the organization, its director of development Christina Ferris said Thursday.
 
"Revenues generated by our ReStores offset our administrative costs so that all general donations to this Habitat affiliate go into our home building programs," she said.
 
News of the impending opening coincides with Cape Fear Habitat’s biggest fundraiser of the year: its annual UpScale ReSale, in which a bevy of local designers, using donated items from the three ReStores, create distinctive interior looks. The event takes place on Saturday, with a Friday Preview Party, at Hotel Ballast. 
 
Interviewed in September 2020 about the importance of ReStores to Habitat affiliates, former Cape Fear Habitat director Steve Spain likened their functions to the three legs of a stool.
 
 “The stores bring in funds to enhance our mission of building and financing homes, but they serve a mission in themselves to make household goods, building materials and supplies available at affordable prices,” he said. “And the third leg of the ReStore stool is keeping items out of the landfill. It’s making the connection between someone who has something they would like to give away and someone who needs it.”