GREENSBORO, N.C. — A 270-unit apartment project broke ground Friday at Friendly Center in Greensboro, where developer Hines plans two five-story buildings on the old Sears footprint near Whole Foods.
The community, branded Pembroke at Friendly Center, will mix studios with one-, two- and three-bedroom homes. Builders aim to finish in the second quarter of 2028.
Friendly Center is already a major east-west retail and dining corridor connecting the shopping district to eastern Greensboro, so the new housing sits next to groceries, restaurants and other daily errands.
Hines, a global real estate firm, hosted the groundbreaking. Shoppers and nearby residents have watched the former Sears pad sit empty for years while the rest of the center stayed busy.
City leaders have pressed for more housing near jobs and transit, and a mid-rise complex inside an established mall-style center fits that push without opening a brand-new greenfield site.
Until the towers rise, construction fencing and crews will reshape the pad beside Whole Foods. Leasing details and rents were not part of Friday public remarks.
For neighbors, the project means hundreds of new households walking to stores that already draw traffic from across Greensboro. For the shopping center, it replaces a long vacant box with residents who can support those shops after hours.
Friday ceremony photos showed hard hats and shovels on the pad where Sears once stood, a visual marker that the retail core is shifting from a single big box toward mixed housing and shopping under the same Friendly Center brand.
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