🏢 Top Five 26.17
👋Welcome to the Top Five, a weekly newsletter by Jed Byrne that demystifies Raleigh development. If a friend sent you this email, you can subscribe below!
Good morning!
There is a lot to update you on this week!
Library Kiosk
I’ve been thinking about this idea as a small-scale and incremental way to spread library access for a while, and I’ve finally seen one in real live. While in Elm City, NC yesterday I noticed a pick-up kiosk outside of their library branch. In Raleigh, I’d love to see pick-up kiosk and return drop boxes placed across the city. The idea would be to help spread library access. You could go online to place a hold on a book and request a kiosk location nearest your home. Then you’d get an alert with instructions when it’s time to pick up your book! Can you let me know if you’ve seen other places use this strategy?
Library Circulation
In the next month or so you’ll be able to check out a copy of Start Small Selling at any Wake County library. I was informed last week that I was accepted into the “Local Author” program, and I dropped off the library copies at my local branch!
Events: UNC Conference, Marbles, Crooked Hammock
Crooked Hammock Now Open
Last week, thanks to my friends at Highwoods Properties I was able to check out Crooked Hammock during their soft opening week. As of yesterday, 4/20, the brewery is officially open. I appreciate that they have fantastic outdoor space and half-pour options for the beers (allowing you to try a greater variety). They had a range of food options, and everything I tried was delicious.
Marbles Ground Breaking
At Marbles, I also attended the groundbreaking for the Futuropolis expansion. I can’t wait to see the progress at the new two-story space!
UNC Real Estate Conference
Last but certainly not least I saw a bunch of you up at Chapel Hill for the 25th Anniversary UNC Real Estate Conference. It is one of my favorite events of the year, and this one did not disappoint!
Podcast Update
The podcast has been on a hiatus for the past few months as I finished the book project. However, yesterday I noticed a spike in the stats. It seems that this month will set a record for most downloads, even though I haven’t promoted the podcast or released a new episode.
I don’t exactly know why this happened, but it seems a lot of people were interested in the episode with Paul Zarian from Hines, and then went on to download and listen to many more interviews.
If you haven’t checked out the Dirt NC podcast before, you can see all episodes at the main feed: https://dirtnc.buzzsprout.com
Best Regards,
Jed Byrne
Advisor & Broker
Oak City CRE, LLC
On to the Top Five! ⤵️
1) Raleigh Office Rebound?: Despite a large amount of vacancy and sublease space, office leasing in Raleigh seems to be on the rebound. Since there has been very little new space built in the last few years, this trend could catch the market up quickly if it continues.
2) 10M Homes Short: The national housing shortage was recently estimated at 10M homes. We build far fewer homes than we did 20 years ago.
3) NC Rents: This infographic shows rents across 100 US Cities. Charlotte, Durham, and Raleigh all fall below average for the sample.
4) No Townhomes, Please: An 8+ acre property is for sale in Raleigh, and the seller doesn’t want townhomes to be built. I recently gave a presentation where I shared my 3 Criteria For Development: For a development to happen the development needs to be 1) Legal 2) Feasible and 3) the site needs to be Available.
5) Coffee Shops: This is a great roundup of coffee shops in Raleigh, with 40 shops listed. Have you been to them all?
