Greensboro billionaire Roy Carroll is going to be in a good spot to guarantee that his latest development proposal won’t be “chintzy,” as some nearby homeowners fret.
Carroll Cos.’ founder and CEO says he plans to relocate his corporate headquarters to the second and third floors of a building in the mixed-use project near the Friendly Center shopping development. One floor higher, he and his wife, Vanessa, would downsize from elsewhere in Greensboro and move into an apartment occupying about half of the fourth floor.
“If I’m going to live here, I’m going to make sure it’s done right,” Carroll said earlier this week during a community meeting of homeowners and Greensboro leaders organized by law firm Tuggle Duggins. “I’m not going to build a $200 million development and then do something to chintzy it up.”
Some attendees had objected more than a decade ago when another developer proposed putting a Trader Joe’s store on the same property. Opposition reflecting traffic congestion and other concerns prompted the California-based grocery chain to select another Greensboro location. After buying the nearly 7 acres in 2019, Carroll solicited ideas from residents and invited people back this week to hear about his proposal for the site. Unlike a lot of
For nearly an hour, Carroll dove into the weeds, answering questions such as the likely location of garbage dumpsters in his project. Others wanted assurances that he wouldn’t build a space taller than five stories, as he now proposes.
Carroll countered a homeowner who questioned whether surrounding property values may decline. “I don’t think this is going to run people away; I think this is going to attract people,” he says.
The Greensboro native reiterated that he builds and retains ownership of his apartments and other properties. Asked whether he’d be willing to sell any of the residences as townhouses, Carroll says he prefers apartments so he, not a homeowners’ association, dictates how he operates.
Forbes has estimated Carroll’s net worth at $2.9 billion, comprised real estate assets that he owns with low or no debt, according to the developer’s profile on the company’s website.
Some homeowners grilled Carroll about his plans to put a Bee Safe Storage and Wine Cellar on the property. He explained he’s proposing to sink two of the three stories of the storage building and an adjacent parking deck underground, essentially creating a retaining wall to level the sloping site for other buildings proposed for the corner of West Friendly Avenue and Hobbs Road.
Next to the Shoppes and Friendly and its 68-year-old predecessor Friendly Center, Carroll says his site is zoned for more of the same: “a strip shopping center with a big asphalt surface parking lot.” That’s not “a legacy” worthy of “our last great infill site probably in this area,” he says.
Carroll and his lawyer, Mike Fox, say they plan to weigh residents’ suggestions before completing an application asking Greensboro to rezone the property for planned unit development. If approved, further planning would require about two years and construction would take another two years, Fox says.
As proposed, most parking would be limited to the garage, requiring people to walk to restaurants, shops, offices, apartments and an approximately 80-room hotel fetching around $300 for nightly accommodations.
“We think it’d be the highest-end hotel in Greensboro, mostly suites,” he says.
Carroll’s properties would compete with several others nearby, such as Hawthorne at Friendly apartments and the O.Henry and Proximity hotels and their attached restaurants Green Valley Grill and Print Works Bistro.
Carroll says his project is “going to be very boutique-ish. I can’t accentuate enough that we want this to be very walkable. It’s certainly not going to be a Trader’s Joe and it’s not going to be drive-through windows.”
