Kane Realty plans nearly 500 homes in two Cary mixed-use projects

Cary’s next growth test is landing on two Kane Realty sites that together would add 488 homes, new retail and a narrow slice of affordable housing, while pushing more traffic toward Chatham Street, Old Apex Road and Weston Parkway. One proposal would rise in the West End near downtown; the other would replace an aging office building on Cary’s west side.

Flatiron is planned for about two acres at 602 W. Chatham Street and 523 Old Apex Road, across from Vicious Fishes Brewery and South Line Brewing Co. Kane Realty says the seven-story project would include 213 apartment homes and 5,659 square feet of restaurant and retail space, plus structured parking and outdoor patio seating facing Old Apex Road. CRE Market Beat reported the plan also calls for an attached eight-level parking deck with 312 spaces. The site is now an unpaved parking lot and a small warehouse that would be demolished.

The second project, 7001 Weston, would convert an older office property on Weston Parkway into roughly 275 apartments with ground-floor retail. Kane Realty is working with Highwoods Properties on the redevelopment, which nearby residents have already met with mixed reactions, especially over traffic. The Weston plan also includes an affordability component, with about 5 percent of the units targeted at households earning 80 percent of area median income for at least 30 years, a modest set-aside that would amount to only a small share of the nearly 500 homes under discussion.

Taken together, the projects show how Cary is trying to absorb Wake County’s growth in two very different ways: by packing more homes and retail into downtown-adjacent land and by reusing an aging suburban office parcel that already has roads, parking and utilities in place. Wake Housing Data says Wake County has more than 1.2 million residents and is projected to grow by more than 25 percent over the next decade, a pace that helps explain why housing pressure keeps surfacing in Cary. Town estimates put Cary’s population at roughly 179,000 to 182,000 in 2024.

The town’s own planning framework points to why these proposals matter so much. The Imagine Cary Community Plan, adopted in 2017 and updated in 2024, looks ahead to 2040 and places land use, transportation, affordable housing and open-space protection at the center of local decision-making. Cary says rezoning neighborhood meetings notify property owners within 800 feet of a project site before formal public hearings, underscoring how closely these projects will be watched by nearby homeowners and business owners alike.

Kane Realty, founded in 1978 and headquartered in Raleigh, has already remade parts of the Triangle before, most notably at North Hills. Cary’s two proposals would extend that playbook westward, and if they move forward, the town will be deciding not just how many homes to add, but where Wake County’s next wave of traffic, rents and growth pressure will land.