A look at explosive growth near Dix Park ahead of Raleigh's July 4 festivities

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Hundreds of millions of dollars in new homes and retail — essentially an entirely new neighborhood — are rising right next to Raleigh's destination park.

ABC11 got a glimpse of the booming new town south of downtown.

Much of what's coming next and what's new south of downtown Raleigh is just a few steps up from Dix ​​Park.

“This is what I call the center of what’s to come in Raleigh,” said Stacey Buescher, director of general operations for Kane Realty.

Buescher led our tour through the Raleigh real estate giant's massive new investment that will soon become the city's new southern gateway, with an urban greenway that will serve as a new link to Raleigh's Rocky Branch Trail.

“All the apartments are here, you have a leasing office here. There’s 18,000 square feet of commercial space here,” Beuscher said as he led us through the busy construction zone on South Saunders Street.

The neighborhood is called Rockway Raleigh. Once the three buildings are completed, 1,000 new luxury apartments and convenience stores will be added to this once-sleepy part of the city, which is quickly brightening in the shadow of the massive Dix Park redevelopment.

Buescher said Dix Park is a major selling point as they market the property to renters.

“1,000 percent,” she said. “(Dix Park) is part of what we sell because it’s part of what this community grows. And a lot of parks have four ways to grow around it and ours really has one. So we try to bring as much as we can to that side of Dix Park.”

Dix Park executive director Kate Pearce has her hands full managing the transformation of the 300-acre park: The stone houses are complete, including a new visitor center; the $67 million Gipson Playground is set to open next year.

Investments in the park stimulate economic development adjacent to Dix.

“I think right now there's over $700 million of new development going on right across the street from the park,” Pearce said.

And not just Rockway. There’s The Weld, two 20-story buildings across the street that are currently under construction. The Mira Raleigh and Capitol Square apartments were built or are under construction along the park.

“It’s great to have strong boundaries around parks. If you think about some of the big urban parks in the country, they’re surrounded by a lot of people living next to them. And that’s what we’re hoping for for Dix Park,” Pearce said.

It also means modernizing the main road leading into Dix: adding sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks and roundabouts to Lake Wheeler Road.

But transforming an old Wheeler Lake country road into a modern transportation route requires space. And for residents who live next door to Dix, it will take up a lot of space. The stakes in the ground of their front yards represent the land that would be swallowed up by the project.

“If you actually look at the stakes they have in people’s yards, they extend all the way to their porch,” said Kelly Gould, a Wake Elementary teacher who rents a house just off Lake Wheeler Road.

Gould and her 11-year-old daughter are excited about the park, but she worries about traffic, property loss and potential displacement as higher-income residents move in and property values ​​rise.

“There's a lot of good things that come with (the Dix Park development), but I think what they're going to do is communities like this are going to end up pushing people out of the area,” she said.

Pierce said it's a concern the city is working to address.

“I know a lot of people are worried about being priced out of the market. Is the owner going to sell my house because they got an offer from a bigger developer?” Pearce said. “And I think that’s where the city’s affordable housing policies are trying to step in and fill the void.”

Meanwhile, work continues in and around Dix Park. Rockway Raleigh will begin welcoming residents later this fall.