A walk through downtown Fayetteville shows the city’s former commercial heart presents a mixed picture of its health, but signs of growth.
A passer-by might find homeless people wrapped in blankets, surrounded by battered baggage filled with their belongings, snoring in the evening in a doorway.
A promised downtown anchor tenant development atop the Hay Street parking deck — at first planned to be a hotel and office tower, then set to be a 212-unit, $67 million apartment building — was going to be the tallest building in the city. The project remains unbuilt, and the city last year sued the developers, alleging breach of contract. The trial is scheduled for June 23. But the tower may be revived. “I’m hopeful that the project will advance in the next few months,” City Manager Doug Hewett told CityView on May 23.
The future of another downtown anchor tenant — a $145 million, 3,000-seat performing arts center and event space on Gillespie Street — has become cloudy. The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners in April decided to seek new cost estimates for the project.
The commissioners also hired an architectural firm to evaluate what it would take to renovate and upgrade the Crown Theatre and Crown Arena facilities several miles away. The new Crown Event Center downtown was supposed to replace the 57-year-old theater and arena facilities. The study has downtown advocates and business owners worried that the commissioners will cancel the downtown project and instead rehabilitate the old theater and arena.
Some Fayetteville residents refuse to go downtown. In conversations and on social media, they cite fears of crime (such as a shooting just outside the annual Fayetteville Dogwood Festival in April). Others complain that it’s too hard to find a place to park. Then they say they don’t want to pay to park when parking almost everywhere else in town has free parking.
On most any block, some of the storefronts and offices — even entire buildings — sit empty, with few signs of life. The Wells Fargo bank at 200 Green St. shut down its downtown location in May, The Fayetteville Observer reported. The bank building had been in operation since it opened as a First Union in 1978.
These challenges haven’t dissuaded property owners and new entrepreneurs from putting their hopes, dreams, money and sweat equity into the downtown area this past year.
They see opportunity.
They find opportunity not only in the crowds of Woodpeckers baseball fans at Segra Stadium, in the masses of people who attend the Dogwood Festival, 4th Fridays, and other downtown events and activities. They say opportunity lies in the families and friends, old and young, who regularly ply the brick and concrete sidewalks, even on non-event days.
The business owners are confident they will attract customers to a downtown that has battled to fully reawaken since the 1970s when Fayetteville’s commercial heart was transplanted from the Hay and Person Street corridor to the shopping district of Cross Creek Mall and other shopping centers surrounding Skibo and Morganton roads.
Jazz, books, an arcade, craft brews and more
Here are some of the new businesses that opened recently or that are coming soon.
Sol’s Arcade + Taproom. California native Cameron Carlotti and his wife decided to stay in Fayetteville after an injury led him to leave the Army. After nearly two years of work, his arcade bar on Maiden Lane across from Segra Stadium is set to open in June in what used to be known as the AIT building.
The Former Huske Hardware House Restaurant & Brewery. Huske on the 400 block of Hay Street was Fayetteville’s first craft brew pub, and it was one of downtown Fayetteville’s redevelopment pioneers when it opened in summer 1997. Huske closed in April 2024 when the landlords, the Baggett family, decided they wanted a new restaurant operator in the space.
Since then the Baggetts have invested a large sum in renovations. Co-owner Joe Baggett declined to specify a figure. The front of the building had been sinking, he said.
“We went in and put pilings in the front to kind of what they call ‘stabilize the building,’ and then you tie the front of the building back to itself, and that solves the problem,” he said.
The Baggetts last year planned to sell the Huske building and their five-story building next door. Now these are off the market.
“Two people are interested in the property, for leasing it for a restaurant/brewery,” Baggett said of the Huske brewery building. Once that is settled, the family is looking at putting apartments or condominiums in the five-story building next door, he said.
“We still are definitely investing money in downtown,” Baggett said.
Mondrell’s Social Lounge: Jazz and R&B
Fayetteville native Mondrail Myrick opened Mondrell’s Social Lounge in April at 226 Franklin St. Myrick describes it as an intimate live music club with a nostalgic feel, inspired by jazz clubs in New Orleans, Paris and other places he has been.
It’s aimed at people age 45 and older. Patrons can’t get in unless they are at least 30 and meet a dress code.
“I created a place that I would love to go to,” with a calm, old-school atmosphere about meeting people, he said. “We don’t have anything like it in Fayetteville.”
Why open downtown, vs. elsewhere in Fayetteville?
“I feel like what I’m creating fits into what they are — want downtown to be,” Myrick said, with live entertainment.
The county’s plan to open the performing arts center two blocks away was a factor in Myrick’s choice to open on Franklin Street instead of someplace else, he said. People walking to or from shows at the Event Center might hear a band playing in Montrell’s.
“Even if you don’t come in, just hearing that is an asset to downtown Fayetteville,” Myrick said.
The Gathering Place. This is another tenant of the former AIT building on Maiden Lane. According to its Facebook page and website, The Gathering Place offers office, event and meeting space suitable for a variety of uses, plus an outdoor patio for parties and other events and activities.
Chapter House Books. Independent bookstore Chapter House Books is preparing to open at 225 Franklin St.
Dad Bod Dive Bar. After Bright Light Brewing Co. at 444 W. Russell St. shut down last year, the Dad Bod Dishes food truck owners took over the space in November to create Dad Bod Dive Bar.
The Traveler bar. According to its posts on social media, craft beer maker Southern Pines Brewing Co. is nearing an opening date for its Fayetteville location, The Traveler, at 123 Hay St. It has been advertising for employees.
Two Two Six The Warehouse. The old Cotton Exchange antiques mall at 226 Donaldson St. was remodeled in 2023 and 2024 into a cavernous, two-level performance venue and event space called Two Two Six The Warehouse.
The Ammons Building. For the past several years, Stevie Ammons has been building a 9,000-square-foot mixed-use building on the 100 block of Donaldson Street. He plans a ground-floor retail space, a second-floor office space and a third-floor apartment with rooftop access — all surrounding a central courtyard. He said he anticipates he will finish it in the coming months.
What bodes for the future of downtown?
Downtown can be more, several advocates said.
“One of the challenges is that affordability to rent a space downtown,” said City Council Member Malik Davis, who represents downtown. “We’re seeing a lot of businesses go away, but then we also are seeing some businesses come in.
“But I think the city has to make it more inviting, because we have a lot of restrictions and things that we can’t do downtown, because of some of the ordinances that we have in place. So we have to be more friendly to business owners downtown to get things done and to do certain things.”
He described downtown as “breaking even a little bit right now.”
The non-profit Cool Spring Downtown District, funded in part with a special tax levied on downtown properties, strives to boost the downtown economy with events and other support.
“Downtown is in a good spot at the moment,” said Ashanti Bennett, the interim president and CEO of the Cool Spring district, with foot traffic rising to the small businesses.
“At this time there are not any major items of note to elaborate on in the District, but there are several projects in the pipeline that are anticipated to contribute to the downtown fabric, such as the continued construction of the multi-use center and the anticipated Black Voices Museum,” she said. “The Market House is currently undergoing necessary renovation, which will refresh and preserve that notable landmark.”
Property owners with space to rent have gotten higher rental rates, said Patrick Murray of the Grant-Murray Real Estate firm, due to a general shortage of space on the market across Fayetteville.
But those seeking to sell their properties need to manage their price expectations, he said.
Murray’s firm handles sales and leasing for several downtown properties, including the Baggett family’s Huske building, Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin’s Kress Building, the Downtown Executive Tower on Donaldson Street, and the Robert C. Williams Business Center on Hay Street.
“I think there’s a lot of buildings on the market that are overpriced,” Murray said. Property owners are overestimating how much the Crown Event Center will boost their property values, he said, similar to when Segra Stadium was built in the late 2010s.
“When that was announced, expectation was ‘That’s going to drive property values up significantly,’” he said. “It didn’t have a huge impact.”
The district’s success will be driven by people, Murray said.
“We need more residents downtown,” he said. “That to me is going to be the catalyst of what grows downtown. I mean, the commercial growth is definitely needed and good. But we need more residential type of development downtown and drive more full-time residents to live there. And that’s what’s going to drive more commercial development, retail and restaurants.”
Downtown real estate agent John Malzone said downtown was healthy when he arrived in Fayetteville in the 1960s. After Cross Creek Mall opened in the 1970s, and pulled away customers and stores, “it became a trouble spot, and we worked through that.
“We worked through crime. We worked through homelessness. We worked through a tremendous amount of problems and challenges,” he said.
Now Malzone is optimistic.
“People from out of state are looking at Fayetteville, and are looking at opportunities that they see now, which might in our marketplace seem crazy,” Malzone said. “But with their experience in other more mature markets that have undergone the regentrification of certain areas of their town, I think they’re going to see the opportunities that some of the locals do not see.”
He said he tells potential buyers, “We are on the precipice of really good things.”
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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