Downtown South advances, Raleigh eyes construction start by late 2026

At South Saunders Street and the I-40/I-440 interchange, the long-delayed Downtown South project is finally aiming for a construction start by late 2026, but Raleigh is still being asked to judge it against years of missed momentum, shifting plans and neighborhood unease. The $2.2 billion mixed-use development covers roughly 140 acres south of downtown and remains one of the largest pending projects in the Triangle.

Kane Realty has pitched Downtown South as a full district rather than a single building. Project materials call for residential and office space, 14 acres of open green space, greenway trail connections, experiential retail, adaptive-reuse warehouses and entertainment facilities. The company also says the project will include Raleigh’s first mass-timber office building and an entertainment venue to be leased and managed by AEG Presents.

What has changed most is the scale and role of the stadium piece. Earlier public versions of the plan centered a larger stadium concept, but city officials later put that component on hold. Recent reporting has described the sports venue as a 12,000- to 15,000-seat soccer stadium, a smaller but still significant anchor for a site that sits at the southern gateway to downtown Raleigh.

The path to that point has been slow. WRAL reported the project was held back by high interest rates and financing problems, and Axios Raleigh reported in December 2023 that Kane Realty was ready to start the first phase but still needed the money to come together. The delay has left Downtown South in a holding pattern even as land around it has been assembled and neighboring areas keep changing.

That broader corridor now looks very different than it did when the project was first pitched. The City of Raleigh approved a convention-center expansion in 2023 that will add more than 80,000 square feet and move Red Hat Amphitheater one block south. The city has also bought large tracts of land nearby and continued to invest in Dorothea Dix Park, adding public amenities even as private development pressure builds along Raleigh’s southern edge.

The project has also carried social and political tension from the start. Religious leaders warned in 2020 that the affordable-housing plan was not enough, and longtime residents said the development could price them out of the neighborhood. Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin has pushed for more involvement from minority-owned businesses and more affordable housing tied to the project, while a south Raleigh grease processor has fought the plan in court over lease issues. For Raleigh, the question now is not whether Downtown South is still alive, but whether the version moving forward matches what was promised when the city first started imagining a new southern entrance to downtown.