After years of sitting dark, Durham's long-closed Northgate Mall is on track for a big-box revival, with Target set to anchor a major overhaul that would swap most of the old indoor mall for an open-air retail center. Developer Regency Centers plans to buy roughly one-third of the property and has laid out a project centered on a large anchor store, smaller shop spaces and a broad sea of surface parking. The mall has been vacant since 2020, and neighbors who spent years pushing for housing and green space say what they are seeing now looks a lot more like a throwback to car-centric shopping than the mixed-use hub they fought for.
Regency's plan: big-box anchor and parking
Regency's submitted site plan would clear most of the existing mall, the former Stadium 10 movie theater and a parking deck along Gregson Street, then replace them with six new buildings, according to INDY Week. The proposal features a roughly 140,000-square-foot anchor building, five smaller retail or restaurant spaces and about 760 surface parking spaces.
Chelsea DuDeVoire, communications manager for Regency Centers, told INDY Week that the company wants to "reactivate a long-vacant portion of the site and bring back essential retail and neighborhood-serving uses." In other words, the first phase is all about getting the lights back on and the cash registers ringing.
Target confirms it's planning a new store
Target has now put its name on the plan. In an email to Axios Raleigh, a company spokesperson said, "Target is planning a new store as an anchor for the project, and we look forward to serving this growing community." A spokesperson for Regency Centers also told Axios that there is not yet a set timeline for when demolition and construction will actually begin.
Neighbors pushed a different vision
Long before the Target news, neighbors and the Walltown Community Association spent more than a year working with city staff on a small area plan for Northgate that called for affordable housing, open space and better walkability on the site, according to the Durham Planning Department. Residents now worry that a retail-first project that fits existing zoning could make it tougher to land the kind of dense, mixed-use redevelopment they had envisioned.
What's next for the rest of the site
Regency is acquiring about one-third of the overall property and plans to brand its piece as "Ellerbe Square." The rest remains split among other owners: Northwood Investors still controls a large share of the site and Duke University owns the former Macy's parcel, according to Axios Raleigh.
That ownership puzzle matters. Regency's portion can proceed under existing zoning, with no rezoning required. Any new proposals for the remaining parcels, however, may need rezoning and a full public review process. That next round of plans will determine whether housing, additional green space and other community priorities neighbors have pushed for ultimately become part of Northgate's second act.
