Welcome to the Waverly Place Rezoning Hub. Here you’ll find updates and answers to your frequently asked questions. We hope this page keeps you informed and connected with what’s planned for our community.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are you rezoning?
Hines is committed to ensuring that Waverly Place remains a vibrant property that enhances our quality of life in Cary. As such, we have proposed rezoning a portion of the property to facilitate mixed-use development, including additional retail and housing. The retail will bring new, exciting concepts to the property, while the residents will help ensure the success of our small businesses. The housing will also satisfy a critical need for our community in a format where residents can walk to a grocery store, restaurants, retail, fitness, events, and employment.
Is the proposed rezoning plan consistent with the Cary Community Plan?
Yes. The Cary Community Plan designates Waverly Place, and the area surrounding the Tryon Road and Kildaire Farm Road intersection, as a Destination Center. There are only a few Destination Centers in all of Cary. These are places where the Town expects an integrated mix of commercial, office, and residential uses, arranged in a walkable pattern, with an active pedestrian realm, where buildings front streets.
Waverly Place currently meets many of the stated recommendations for a Destination Center, but the area to be rezoned lacks two key components – residential uses and connectivity. This rezoning request will position Waverly Place to become the true mixed-use center envisioned by our citizens, and deliver on the themes of the Cary Community Plan for this particular site.
What uses can be built on site today, by right, and what are you removing?
Uses permitted today without a rezoning include a nightclub, bar, convenience store, car wash, vehicle service, gas station, outdoor storage, crematorium and funeral home, among others. In our application, we are removing the ability to have those uses on site, because we believe that residential, along with restaurants and traditional retail, makes the best contribution to the property and the community over the long term.
Will the central greenspace be impacted?
The central greenspace will remain in place. The rezoning will allow for additional restaurants to fill the gap between Gonza and Enrigo, where the elevated walkway is situated today.
How tall will the project be?
There will be a height restriction of the lesser of seven stories or 85 feet.
Does this project fit the context of the surrounding area?
Yes. The 85’ height limit is below the elevation of WakeMed, which is approximately 95 feet. In addition, WakeMed’s ground elevation is approximately 422’ versus 405’ at the Waverly development site. Therefore, the total perceived height difference will be 27’ below WakeMed.
In addition, the rezoning area is separated by more than 600’ from the closest single-family residence. The 600’ gap includes a tree buffer and medical office buildings.
What will the noise impact from this project be?
The project will reduce noise. The source of existing noise on our property is through Waverly’s summer concert series and possibly from the loading docks. By constructing a building in the parking lot behind the bridge, the building will serve as a barrier and noise from the stage will be reduced. The same applies to the loading docks, which will also be screened by the new project, which will block noise.
How will the project impact stormwater?
The rezoning and redevelopment will improve the stormwater situation. Currently, when rain falls on site, it immediately runs off the surface parking lots and into the surrounding bodies of water, without any treatment. In our application, we are committing to reducing the runoff for a 25-year storm to an equivalent of a 10% reduction in impervious area from what is on the site today. Stormwater detention vaults and/or other infrastructure can be used to detain and then slow the release of stormwater, which will also reduce sediment and debris leaving the site. The design of these systems includes chambers or areas that capture sediment and debris that would otherwise be washed downstream. These improvements will only occur in conjunction with rezoning and redevelopment.
What is the traffic impact?
For rezonings over a certain size, the Town of Cary prepares a traffic analysis report (or TAR) to evaluate the traffic impacts of the proposed rezoning. TARs are performed by one of the Town’s third-party consultants in coordination with Town staff and the North Carolina Department of Transportation and are required to meet the requirements of the Town of Cary Land Development Ordinance.
The TAR for the Waverly Place rezoning was prepared using traffic count data collected at 19 intersections in and around Waverly Place in April of 2023, after the effects of the pandemic had subsided.
The TAR found that when traffic is distributed between the multiple access points that serve Waverly Place, the impacts to adjacent intersections are practically imperceptible. The redevelopment would result in an increase in traffic of less than 2% at the intersection of Kildaire Farm Road at Tryon Road in the AM peak hour (or about one vehicle per minute) and an increase of less than ½ of 1% in the PM peak hour, equivalent to only one vehicle every six minutes.
Ultimately, from a traffic impact perspective, this is one of the best possible places to build housing. This is a self-contained area. There is also no direct access from Waverly Place to any of the surrounding neighborhoods. There will be no impact to cut-through traffic on Lochmere streets, as all traffic from this property will use Kildaire Farm Road or Tryon Road. There is no reason for Waverly Place traffic to cut through the Lochmere neighborhood as it doesn’t provide a direct connection to anywhere and doing so would add travel time for these residents.
Waverly Place also has an extensive sidewalk network within the development, and the new residents will be able to use that network to walk to all of the existing restaurants, banks, and retail establishments within Waverly Place without adding vehicle trips to the external network.
Housing actually contributes less traffic than many of the uses, like a gas station, that can be built on site today by right, and that we are proposing to prohibit as a condition of the rezoning. And studies have consistently shown that residential units within a mixed-use development generate fewer external trips than when built in isolation.
With that said, we are also proposing improvements to facilitate ingress and egress to/from Waverly Place and improve existing conditions. In coordination with Town of Cary staff, we are proposing:
- Bicycle and pedestrian improvements including buffered bike lanes on New Waverly Place, additional crosswalks within Waverly Place, and wider sidewalks in redeveloped areas.
- A review of the internal intersection configurations at the time of development plan.
- Turn lane improvements on Tryon Road at Kildaire Farm Road and at New Waverly Place, where the existing left-turn lanes would be lengthened to solve the issue of traffic backing up into the through lanes. This is a public benefit that would not happen without this project.
Will there be enough parking provided?
Yes. Additional parking will be provided in structured parking garages in the redevelopment area. The upper surface parking lot and the surface parking lot in Whole Foods will not be affected. Parking requirements will conform to Cary’s LDO.
Additional Questions?
Please email our team at markfrederick@parkerpoe.com.
