Demolition is finishing up along North Harrison Avenue, where the Town has been clearing land for the future Downtown Cary Multi-Modal Center. The buildings that came down included a small strip of retail storefronts, and the building that included a gas station, The Neighborhood Sports Bar & Arcade and the Pure Gold strip club.
The former Pure Gold building.
Site cleanup is underway now, but we’re still a long way from construction.
Late 2028 at the earliest
Cary Transit Director Kelly Blazey told The Cary Report in an email that the Town is working through the final pieces of demolition and site cleanup. After that comes internal planning work and a round of public engagement next spring, both tied to the master planning effort for the site. Design work is not expected to begin until late 2027.
"We do not expect construction to begin until late 2028 at the earliest," Blazey said.
Cary Town Council settled on this site back in February 2020. The property covers roughly eight acres across several parcels between Harrison Avenue, North West Street and the railroad tracks. It was chosen in large part because it touches both the North Carolina Railroad and CSX lines and has enough straight track to fit passenger rail platforms.
Why Cary is building it
It was decided that the Cary Depot needs more room.
Local and regional transit service has outgrown the current station, and the Wake Transit Plan assumes a lot more of it is coming. That plan, adopted in 2016 by Wake County, CAMPO and GoTriangle, is also where the money for this project comes from.
The multimodal center is meant to pull everything into one place, including GoCary and regional bus service, a Bus Rapid Transit station for the Western Wake corridor, Amtrak, and future commuter rail.
The Depot is not going anywhere… yet
Blazey said the Cary Depot will stay in service until all of its transportation activity has moved to the new facility, and that will not happen all at once.
Bus service is planned to transfer by 2030 or 2031. Train service could take longer, depending on how the platforms and other rail infrastructure get built out in phases.
So there is likely to be a stretch where GoCary buses are running out of the new multimodal center while Amtrak passengers are still walking into the existing location.
What happens to the old depot
This is one of the big questions that has repeatedly been asked. No decision has been made as of yet.
Blazey said that while the station will remain in service until everything has transferred, the future use of the site will be handled through a separate planning process.
For now, the change residents will notice is the one on Harrison Avenue. The buildings are down, the dirt is getting cleaned up, and whatever replaces it is still two years away from breaking ground.