While the inventory of new homes and apartments increased in the Cape Fear region, redevelopment remained a key word in the city of Wilmington this year, with developers making room for new projects by demolishing old structures.
Such projects included the former Sears and Sears wing at Independence Mall, 3500 Oleander Drive, to create exterior-facing stores and space for new tenants, and the former movie theater building on Oleander Drive to build apartments.
At the mall, Lidl, which opened its first Wilmington store off Eastwood Road in December, is among several new tenants on the way.
Other new tenants include Blaze Pizza, which already has a location in Renaissance Market shopping center off Military Cutoff Road; First Watch, a Florida-based restaurant chain; Jersey Mike’s Subs, a New Jersey-based sandwich shop; and Five Below, a Philadelphia-based value retailer geared toward teens.
Also on Oleander Drive, near Military Cutoff Road, construction began this year on Bradley Creek Station (BCS), an 80,000-square-foot retail and office condominium building.
“BCS is steadily filling up with lease and purchase tenants,” said Steve Hall, partner with Maus, Warwick, Matthews & Co. “We are looking to deliver the shell building in the Aprilto- May timeframe with businesses turning the lights on soon thereafter.”
Another of Hall’s listings is commercial space that was under construction this year at Arboretum West, a mixed-use project on Military Cutoff Road that has replaced mobile homes.
Construction on Building 2, where a Port City Java location is planned, was expected to wrap up at the end of January to early February, Hall said.
“Building 1, where the restaurant will be located, is set to start construction during the first of the year and deliver the shell in a late March-to-April timeframe,” he said.
In another redevelopment example, student housing rose on the site of an old shopping center that was torn down on South Kerr Avenue.
New development in 2019 included the first office building in Midtown Park at Barclay, occupied by Wilmington Health, and new buildings at The Pointe at Barclay.
Some brokers feared a slowdown might have started this year, but others remained optimistic. Paul Loukas, broker in charge at Wilmington-based commercial real estate firm Cape Fear Commercial, said commercial real estate might look like it was slowing, but that’s not really the case.
“It seems the fundamentals for commercial real estate remain strong, but there are some inefficiencies in the marketplace right now,” Loukas said, “from buyers to attorneys to engineers and so on, everyone is so busy that deals are taking longer to materialize, which in effect has artificially slowed the market down.”
For a full list of the top stories of 2019, click here.
