New York-based Clarion Partners and The Residential Group of Atlanta announced plans today to develop a $37 million apartment complex in northwest Raleigh's Brier Creek area.

The project, called Crest at Brier Creek, will include 291 units and be located near ACC Boulevard and Glenwood Avenue.

It's one of several new apartment projects planned for the Brier Creek area.

Clarion said in a release that site work on the project began this month, with completion expected in June 2013.

In August, Clarion paid $15.7 million for Cary Park Town Center shopping center. The firm has more than $23 billion in assets under management.
 

WakeMed Health & Hospitals will open its sixth emergency department in the county on Friday in the Brier Creek area of northwest Raleigh.

The 50,000-square-foot Brier Creek Healthplex includes an emergency department with 12 private treatment rooms, diagnostic imaging, lab services and physicians offices, including a Wake Orthopedics office.

Friday's event will run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The first 500 visitors get a free first aid kit.

The center is located just off U.S. 70 at 8001 T.W. Alexander Drive.

Regal Cinemas at Brier Creek is celebrating the opening of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 3D" with several businesses and nonprofit groups, including Raleigh Recycling.

The celebration will take place Saturday, Dec. 11 from noon to 5 p.m. The Raleigh Recycling table will feature a prize wheel, where you can put your knowledge of the three R's to the test. T-shirts and reusable water bottles are among the prizes. Raleigh Recycling will also promote recycling of 3-D eyeglasses along with other items at movie theaters that should be recycled.

RMF Engineering is leaving Durham's Imperial Center for Brier Creek.

The firm has signed a lease for 13,500 square feet in the Brier Creek 6 building.

The new space is about 15 percent larger than RMF's current space, said CEO Duane Pinnix.

Pinnix said the company's space in Imperial Center is spread across two floors.

The move to Brier Creek, which is expected to be completed by April 1, will allow the company to consolidate on one floor and also will provide space for future growth.

RMF, which has its headquarters in Baltimore, employs 45 people in the Triangle. It has about $31 million in revenues and 200 employees in seven offices.
 

WakeMed plans to partner with a developer on a $25 million medical center and office building at Brier Creek that is expected to open in October of next year.

Last week the hospital system paid $2.9 million for nearly 13 acres at the southwest corner of T.W. Alexander Drive and ACC Boulevard.

Thomas Cavender, WakeMed’s vice president of facilities and construction, said the hospital system will put out feelers for development partners this summer and likely start construction in the fall.
 

Eric Blau will be stepping down from the Wake County school board's student assignment committee.

Blau said he's resigning because he's going to grad school in August and his wife will give birth in September. School board member Deborah Prickett said she nominated Blau to represent District 7 on the committee knowing he'd only be able to stay on for a short period.

Prickett has nominated Tracey Noble to replace Blau. Noble is a Brier Creek area parent who was actively involved in last winter's community engagement meetings that helped lead to the reassignment changes that impacted that part of northwest Raleigh.

With its purchase of the Hasentree golf community, Toll Brothers is making a bold bet on the long-term viability of the luxury home market in northern Wake County.

Tom Anhut, a division president in Raleigh for Toll Brothers, said the builder plans to offer lower priced homes than those currently for sale in the community. The exact price points of the new offerings haven't been determined, he said.

Hasentree includes 494 lots. Toll Brothers purchased 318 of them. The remaining lots had already been purchased by other builders or individuals.

About 55 homes have been built in Hasentree.

Anhut said Toll Brother's purchase is further proof of the company's commitment to the Triangle and its belief that the market here will bounce back.

"We're big here," Anhut said, noting the company's involvement in the 1,700-home Brier Creek development. "We like it here. It's a good market. It's down now. It will come back and we'll be ready for it."

He emphasized that the housing market, particularly the market for higher-end homes, remains soft and that Hasentree is a long-term investment for the company.

"I think we're going to be challenged in the upper end for a while," Anhut said. "We've got mortgage issues. We've got confidence issues. And I think there's some supply that still needs to burn off."

It's clear that a lot of people are upset about the demagnetization of Broughton High School.

But as noted in today's article, there are probably going to be a number of people who are happy as well. Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney said demagnetizing Broughton and magnetizing Millbrook High will have ripple effects.

First, Dulaney said someone is going to have to be sent to Broughton to help make up for the eventual loss of the 600+ magnet students. He said that group will now likely be the students from the Brier Creek area of the US 70 corridor in northwest Raleigh.

I'm going to try to hit some of the high points of the plan here.

First, the three-year plan affects 26,771 students. It starts with 8,162 students in 2009-10, 14,200 in 2010-11 and 4,409 in 2011-12.

Administrators are recommending unconverting Knightdale Elementary School for the 2009-10 school year. But it comes with a catch.

UPDATE

Click here for the link to the plan. Demand on Wake's site is high now so be patient.