PHOENIX CROSSING MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT

Location: Durham, North Carolina
Status: In-Progress

Located in the Historic African American neighborhood of Hayti, the new Phoenix Crossing Center will become the gateway for the neighborhood and the Fayetteville Street Corridor. Hayti’s rich legacy of community and self-sufficiency will be continued with the new Phoenix Crossings. It will serve the surrounding community by providing apartments for seniors, while also providing retail space for community entrepreneurs who aspire to develop business rooted in and serving the Hayti community. This 250,000 GSF complex will provide senior housing, retail space, and a boutique hotel with structured parking for visitors of Hayti, downtown Durham, and nearby North Carolina Central University.

The Center’s massing responds to its context, stepping down in scale to the south to respect the lower-scaled residential area while opening up to provide views of downtown to the north. The rhythm established along Fayetteville Street recalls the vibrant economic activity that made Hayti the economic and cultural hub of the African American community prior to the neighborhood’s destruction via “urban renewal” and the insertion of the Durham Freeway.