SPECIAL

Downtown Wilmington’s 13-story development nears grand opening

Noah Johnson
njohnson12@gannett.com
Construction on the main tower of the downtown Wilmington River Place complex on Aug. 7, 2020. Apartments in the main building have started to let in renters, while businesses continue to fill in their spaces on the ground floor.

Downtown Wilmington will soon welcome the grand opening of a high-rise neighbor.

River Place, an $80 million, 13-story mixed-use development slated to contain residential, parking and retail space, has not only made strides in attracting commercial and residential tenants, but is almost finished with construction.

Lucien Ellison, Senior Managing Partner for East West Partners, who has worked with the city on the project, said the to-do list is “getting smaller and smaller.”

Get the news delivered to your inbox: Sign up for our free morning and afternoon newsletters

The building welcomed its first apartment resident last week, and more residents are expected to move in by the end of August. So far, 10 out of the 79 apartment apartment units have been leased, Ellison said. A majority of condo residents have already moved in with only 10 more left for sale out of 92 units.

Along with the influx of condo and apartment residents came the project's 403 parking spaces, which finished construction in May and is currently open to the public.

Meanwhile, the building’s commercial tenants - Axis Fitness, Bank of America, Mellow Mushroom, the Nutrition Spot, and more recently, Dollar General-owned DGX - are working on outfitting their spaces, with some expected to open in September.

Among the other completed projects are a multi-level staircase connecting Front Street to Bijou Park with Water Street. An access to Bijou Park that would re-connect Chestnut Street to Water Street is expected to be finished in the next six weeks.

The current focus is to finish up the roadwork around the building, including the portion of Water Street between Grace and Chestnut streets. This portion, which has been closed for construction since 2018, should be paved in the next four weeks.

Although much has been accomplished, Ellison said the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down the project’s completion, decreasing the amount of workers on the site by about 25%.

Hurricane Isaias didn’t help either. As a result of the storm, the building was left with water intrusion on the first floor, an issue workers are currently addressing.

Nonetheless, Ellison thinks the project could be fully completed within “the next couple months.”

“I was thinking we’d be way done by this point but we’re not so the timeline has changed so much that I don’t even want to speculate on it,” Ellison said.

Reporter Noah Johnson can be reached at 910-343-2364 or njohnson12@gannett.com.