By Wendy Lemus Staff Writer Picture this: You wake with the sunrise and head a few steps out your door for a morning coffee at the nearby café. Since you’re already in workout clothes you head straight to the gym a few doors down. You walk home to feed the cat and quickly shower before meeting a friend for lunch and a movie. On your way home you stop at the local big-box store for a few needed household items. You haven’t spent a dime on gas all day. The catch: If you like this picture of “new urbanism” at work in Morrisville, you’ll have to rent — for now. “The market’s not there yet” for homeownership to be included in a development idea in preliminary stages in Morrisville, said Connell Radcliff of 1st Carolina Properties based in Cary. Radcliff’s company has partnered with Casto Lifestyle Properties to transform the southwest corner of Cary Parkway and N.C. 54 — former site of a Bristol-Myers pill-processing plant — to a large-scale mixed-use concept they have named Park West Village. He announced the plans at an economic-development forum at the Embassy Suites in Cary April 24. “This is going to be a lifestyle community,” said Jodi Ann La Freniere, president of the Morrisville Chamber of Commerce, before Radcliff’s presentation. Last month the development partners requested a rezoning from the town on the nearly 100-acre property, from its current Industrial Management designation to Mixed Use, which requires a site plan be submitted, said Morrisville Planning Director Ben Hitchings. “The highest and best use is no longer a manufacturing facility. There’s a strong demographic concentration” in the area, Radcliff told the audience. Radcliff said some components of the initial plan will likely change as it makes its way through the development process. But a summary of the companies’ vision looks like this: n A “Main Street” concept with separate “districts” housing national retailers, boutiques, restaurants and a hotel. The main street would dead-end at a movie theater. n Apartments would be built above the boutiques in the “Main Street” area with additional multifamily dwellings in a separate corner of the development, a little farther from the activity center. n The rental housing will attract “someone who likes to be in with all the action, living over Main Street,” Radcliff said. Radcliff said mixed-use developments can take on many forms, and this “new urbanism” design is becoming more popular. It pushes the “lifestyle community” concept up a notch: People can live, work and play to an even greater extent than other mixed-use developments because of the inclusion of such amenities as a movie theater, a greenway trail and a greater variety of retailers, he said. The design would be enhanced with variation among the separate districts, giving the community the feel and character of having been developed over a period of time, Connell said. The preliminary numbers include 750,000 square feet of retail, 50,000 square feet of office, 140 hotel rooms and 425 residential units. “If all goes smoothly, we anticipate that the project may be ready for consideration by the Planning and Zoning Board in September or October of this year, with review and a decision by the Board of Commissioners by the end of the year,” Hitchings said. The community could be open by summer 2009, Radcliff said.

Contact Wendy Lemus at 460-2605 or wlemus@nando.com.