Yard House Restaurants is opening a location in the Captrust Tower at North Hills.

The Yard House is expected to open later this year. The restaurant offers a large selection of draft beers, American cuisine and an emphasis on classic rock music. The chain has three dozen locations across the country, primarily in Southern California, and has plans to open a half dozen more, including this spot at North Hills.

The move means the Triangle and North Carolina are becoming a craft beer destination.

"It's an acknowledgment in some ways that North Carolina and the Triangle in general are a significant center for craft beer," says Tyler Huntington, owner of Tyler's Taproom, which has four locations in the Triangle. "It's getting noticed by some of the bigger players - that is guys like Yard House."

The 10,000-square foot restaurant is opening in the Captrust Tower, a 17-story building in the North Hills complex in North Raleigh.

With Yard House and World of Beer, a beer-centric bar that opened in the same complex last year, North Hills is becoming a destination for Triangle beer lovers.

Fink's Jewelers will open later this year in the North Hills corner retail space occupied by Jolly's Jewelers, which announced plans to close in December.

Fink's operates 17 stores in Virginia and North Carolina, including three locations in the Triangle area at Streets at Southpoint in Durham, Cary Towne Center and Triangle Town Center in north Raleigh.

"North Hills really is an incredible development, and we have admired what Kane Realty has done with this property," said Mark Fink, president of the family-owned company that was started in 1930.

Kane Realty manages the sprawling North Hills development.

Jolly's owner Frank Ragsdale announced in late 2011 plans to retire and close the family's jewelry store, which has been continuously operated in the Triangle since 1881. There is no set date for the store's closure.

Kane Realty and Concord Hospitality Enterprises expect to break ground any day now on a new Hyatt hotel on the east side of Six Forks Road in Raleigh's North Hills.

A joint venture between the two companies paid $2.89 million for a 1.15-acre parcel in North Hills East last month.

Developer John Kane said today that the project has secured a construction loan and will begin soon. The project is expected to be completed sometime in the spring of 2013.

The new hotel will be a 137-room Hyatt House, the new extended-stay brand that is replacing the Hyatt Summerfield Suites brand.
 

Concord Hospitality Enterprises, the Raleigh hotel operator that owns the Renaissance Hotel at North Hills, is relocating to a Wakefield office building that it acquired earlier this year.

The company announced today that by Christmas it expects to have moved all of its 95 employees to a 32,000-square-foot headquarters near the intersection of New Falls of Neuse Road and Capital Boulevard.

The company paid $2.5 million for the Wakefield building in January, and is spending another $4 million renovating it.

North Hills shopping center could one day become home to one of the region's most prominent solar energy farms.

The developers of the outdoor mall in Raleigh have been exploring the possibility of hosting a 250-kilowatt rooftop solar farm for about a year-and-a-half.

A project  fell through last year for lack of financing, but the mall's owners are looking at other options.

"We're out looking for other potential investors," said John Matthews, President of Baker Renewable Energy, the company contracted to install the system. "We just have to find people with money who will stick all the way through the end of the contract."

The developer behind Raleigh's North Hills wants to install a transit system within the development that would shuttle people around in elevated, battery-powered vehicles.

Kane Realty announced Tuesday that it is partnering with ULTra PRT on a feasibility study to see if the company's transit system could be used in North Hills.

PRT, or Personal Rapid Transit, uses 4-person vehicles on elevated tracks to transport people short distances. Users would be able to take the cars, on demand, to the station of
their choice within North Hills.

The system would address an issue that North Hills is likely to face as it continues to expand: How to conveniently and efficiently get people across Six Forks Road and to areas east where Kane hopes to expand in the future.
 

Triangle.com weekend photo recap: North Hills had its weekly Midtown Music Concert Series Thursday night with the band Sleeping Booty. We have 64 photos online now.

Friday night is the First Friday Gallery Walk in Raleigh. Photos from the event will be on triangle.com later tonight. Also, triangle.com photographers will be at the 2011 Strawberry Festival Saturday in Durham. Event is from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Old North Durham Park. Check the website later Saturday for photos.

We will also have graduation photos this weekend at newsobserver.com. Here's a rundown that I stole from a story that editor Richard Stradling is writing as we speak for Saturday's paper. (Thank you, Richard)

Peace College: 10 a.m. Saturday, College Green; speaker, Deborah Ross, state representative from Raleigh.

Shaw University: 11 a.m. Saturday, Dorton Arena; speaker, Bob Etheridge, former congressman from Lillington. 

These photos will go online Saturday afternoon.

UNC-Chapel Hill: Sunday at 9:30 a.m., Kenan Stadium; speaker, Edward O. Wilson Jr., biologist, writer and Harvard University professor, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

Meredith College: Sunday at 10 a.m., McIver Amphitheater; speaker, Sally Brice-O’Hara, U.S. Coast Guard vice admiral.

We'll post these photos Sunday afternoon.

There are a number of new retail and business tenants making their way to Raleigh's North Hills.

Many of them will be showcased in a media preview Thursday hosted by North Hills developer John Kane. Among the highlights is World of Beer, which will open this summer, in the "fountain park" outside the Captrust Tower, across from Zoe's Kitchen.

This will be the company's first store outside of Florida. World of Beer is known for a vast selection of beers that changes weekly and for including local breweries in its store mixes.

Click read more to view the full list of new tenants.

The N.C. Department of Insurance has requested more information from The Cardinal at North Hills, the proposed continued care retirement community that is seeking regulator approval to start construction.

"It’s my understanding that we’ve received some of what we requested, and anticipate the rest is forthcoming soon," said Kristin Milam, spokeswoman for the Department of Insurance.

The department was required to respond to The Cardinal's latest preliminary certification application by Wednesday.

No new deadline has been set for when regulators may make a final decision on The Cardinal's application.

"The sooner we hear back, the sooner we can move forward with our review," Miam said. "I know that completing the review process is a priority for us."

Construction of The Cardinal can't begin until the Department of Insurance approves its application, something the project's developers have been seeking since February.

The department has made a series of requests for more information from the developers, a process that the department says is standard when evaluating CCRCs.

The Cardinal is being developed by John Kane and David Falk Jr., a managing partner with the real estate firm Drucker & Falk.

Kane is the developer behind the revitalization of Raleigh's North Hills mall.
 

The Cardinal, a continued care retirement community planned for Raleigh's North Hills, is still waiting on the state Department of Insurance to give it the necessary approval to begin construction.

Earlier this year The Cardinal applied for a construction permit from state regulators.

Since then The Cardinal has been responding to regulators request for more information, said developer John Kane.

"It's a fluid process," he said. "When you file something there's always questions and clarifications."

The Cardinal submitted a revised preliminary certification application to the DOI on Sept. 13. The department has until Oct. 13 to review the application.