Most Triangle suburbs grow by building outward — a new corridor, a fresh anchor tenant, a strip of national chains on the newest stretch of road. Wake Forest is doing something different in spring 2026, and it's happening inside the buildings that have been sitting in plain sight downtown for decades.
That distinction matters. It changes the character of what's arriving.
A Food Hall in an Eighty-Year-Old Shell
The corner of East Roosevelt Avenue and North White Street has been a construction site long enough that most residents have stopped looking. That changes this year.
Alliance Group NC spent 2022 beginning the redevelopment of the former S&W Chevrolet dealership, and the Wake Forest Food Hall is the result: nearly 20,000 square feet of local and regional food concepts inside an eighty-year-old building. Behind it, almost three acres of greenspace are planned for concerts, events, and the kind of casual gathering that happens when there's actually somewhere to gather. Stanley Martin Homes is collaborating on residential units as part of the same block.
The developer's own description, from January 2026, calls it "the kind of development rarely seen in suburban downtowns in this part of the country." That's not marketing copy for a shopping center — it's a pitch for what a working food hall inside a historic shell, with greenspace attached, actually represents in a town this size.
The specific food concepts haven't been announced at full detail yet. That's fine. Go find where this building is. Walk past it. The scale of it, sitting at the northern edge of downtown, tells you something about how much room there is to fill.
Two More Addresses You'll Want to Memorize
Two blocks from the Food Hall site, Gym Tacos is preparing to open at 216 East Roosevelt Avenue — the former Hardee's location, according to Triangle Food Blog. This will be the chain's seventh location. The choice of address is worth noting: a taco concept choosing a defunct fast-food building in downtown proper, not a new pad site on Rogers Road, signals something about where foot traffic is expected to flow.
Meanwhile, at the northern end of downtown, renovation is nearing completion on the historic Wilkinson Building. The redevelopment — known as Hatch Lofts — will add co-working and dining options to a stretch of downtown that, until recently, had little reason to pull anyone north of the main White Street corridor.
And across town, Canastas Chicken is already open at 911 Gateway Commons Circle, serving Pollo a la Brasa, ceviche, and lomo saltado. The menu is a practical indicator of how Wake Forest's population has shifted: Latin American comfort food, executed well, in a town that a decade ago had few options in that category.
At Grove 98 — the commercial development anchored by Wegmans at Ligon Mill Road and Dr. Calvin Jones Highway — Firebirds Wood Fired Grill has signed a lease and is targeting summer 2026 for its opening. That's the national-chain corridor doing what it does. What's different in 2026 is that downtown is finally giving it genuine competition.
Joyner Park Has Been Doing This for Thirty-Two Years
Residents who arrived in Wake Forest during the growth wave of the last decade might assume the outdoor concert series at E. Carroll Joyner Park is a recent amenity, something added to make the development feel livable. It isn't.
Six Sundays in Spring, sponsored by ARTS Wake Forest, is celebrating its 32nd anniversary in 2026. The series runs on consecutive Sundays from April 26 through May 31, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Joyner Park Amphitheater, 701 Harris Road. Free admission. Bring a blanket. The band lineup will be announced closer to opening date.
Thirty-two years. The series predates Wegmans, predates Grove 98, predates most of the neighborhoods whose residents will spread out on the grass this spring. It predates the park itself — the land was donated by E. Carroll Joyner in 2009, but the concert tradition was already old by then.
That continuity is worth something. A free outdoor concert series that has run for three decades doesn't survive on novelty — it survives because the town keeps showing up. If you've been here a few years and haven't made it out yet, this is the spring to go.
Meet in the Street: Its 44th Year
The same logic applies to Meet in the Street, which returns to downtown on Saturday, May 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The 44th annual edition, powered by Ting and organized by the Wake Forest Area Chamber, will stretch across the downtown streets with more than 100 artisan booths selling handmade goods, dozens of food trucks, live music running through the day, and a children's village.
Forty-four years. The festival is older than most of the people who will walk through it.
There is a version of this post that treats Meet in the Street as a bullet point in a list of spring events. That version misses the point. An arts festival that has persisted for four and a half decades in a town that has changed as dramatically as Wake Forest has doesn't just survive — it anchors. It's the reason the downtown street grid matters. It's why the Food Hall is being built where it is, and why Gym Tacos chose a downtown address over a strip center.
Joyner Park Through Summer
The outdoor calendar at Joyner Park continues well past Memorial Day. Family Movie Nights begin Saturday, May 16, at 8:30 p.m., with pre-show activities starting at 7:15. Future showings are scheduled for June 13, July 18, and August 1. The film selections for the 2026 season are still forthcoming.
The Easter Eggstravaganza on Saturday, March 28 — two weeks from now — is the immediate anchor. This year the town is again running the Bunny Trail format, open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., rather than a timed scramble. The Egg-ceptional Zone for children with disabilities runs separately from 9:30 to 10 a.m. Both are free. The event draws from surrounding neighborhoods by foot — QR codes at park entrances direct walkers to the Bunny Trail starting point based on where they enter.
The park itself is the connective tissue for all of this. The 117-acre property at 701 Harris Road was donated by E. Carroll Joyner — an NC State alumnus and entrepreneur who bought the Walker Farm in 1982, renamed it OK Joy Farm, and partnered with the town in 2009 to convert most of it into public land. The amphitheater, the walking trails, and the community center that hosts the movie nights all sit on land that was working farmland within living memory. That history doesn't make Joyner Park more scenic. It makes it specific in a way that most suburban parks aren't.
What This Spring Is Actually Telling You
Grove 98 is expanding. Firebirds is coming. That's the predictable story, and it's fine — a full-service restaurant with a wood grill is a reasonable addition to a town this size.
The less predictable story is on Roosevelt Avenue. A former car dealership and a former fast-food building are being converted into dining destinations with greenspace and co-working attached. A historic building in northern downtown is becoming Hatch Lofts. The free outdoor concert series that started before most of the current housing stock existed is heading into its 32nd year. The arts festival that predates everyone is happening on May 2.
Wake Forest is not building its identity around its newest commercial corridor. The identity is being reinforced in the oldest parts of town, in the buildings that have been there long enough to earn a history.
That's the spring worth paying attention to.
Whether you've lived in Wake Forest for twenty years or two, Hodge & Kittrell Sotheby's International Realty has spent decades following this town's growth at the street level. If you're curious what your home is worth in a neighborhood that keeps finding new reasons to stay, request your instant home valuation — and we'll bring the local knowledge.
