North Hills (Raleigh)

North Hills is a mixed use development located in Raleigh, North Carolina that includes stores, restaurants, entertainment, commercial offices, residential living and a continuing care retirement community. There is a large outdoor commons area which features events such as live concerts, festivals, and a farmers' market. The development lies at the intersection of Six Forks and Lassiter Mills Roads, just to the north of the Six Fork Road interchange on I 440. Major anchors to the development include Target, the Rennaissance Raleigh Hotel, and a Regal Cinema 14 screen movie theater, as well as former anchor JCPenney, which closed in April 2020, with its site being redeveloped for a new anchor store, Restoration Hardware. The development is built on the site of a former shopping mall, called North Hills Mall, which was the first enclosed shopping mall in between Atlanta and Washington DC.

The site is divided into three districts by Six Forks Road and Lassiter Mills Road, known as Main District, Lassiter District, and Park District. Main District, lying south of Lassiter Mills Road and west of Six Forks Road is the site of the former North Hills Shopping Mall, and was the first to be redeveloped into the mixed use development. It features the Target, Regal Cinema, Renaissance Hotel, and the former JCPenney. It also includes a number of smaller shops and restaurants. Lassiter District, lying north of Lassiter Mills Road and west of Six Forks Road contains a residential tower known as the Alexan, and a number of smaller shops and restaurants, the most prominent being a Total Wine shop, formerly a Harris Teeter grocery store (before their move across the street to Park District). The largest of the three districts, and also the most recently opened, is Park District, which lies east of Six Forks Road and south of Dartmouth Road. Park District contains three large office towers, Captrust Tower, Advance Auto Parts Tower, and Bank of America Tower, as well as an AC Hotel, several residential towers, and a number of restaurants and nightlife locations, as well as smaller shops. The site is anchored by a large two story Harris Teeter grocery store.

North Hills Mall originally opened in 1960 and was converted to an enclosed mall in 1967. It was not only the first enclosed mall in Raleigh, it was also the first two story, air conditioned indoor mall between Washington, D. C. and Atlanta. It originally opened a few years earlier as a small strip center before being redeveloped into a mall. It had a simple rectangular design with two floors, the upper level opening onto Six Forks Road and the lower level facing a parking deck on Lassiter Mill Road. Anchors at that time were JCPenney, Ivey's, and Woolworth. At the opposite end of the mall from Penney, there was originally a large fountain, although this was torn down and the space became part of a restaurant, "Ragamuffin's", in 1979. A K&W Cafeteria was a popular destination at the south end of the mall for more than three decades. North Hills Plaza, a strip center across Lassiter Mill Road, featured The Cardinal movie theater and a Winn Dixie grocery store. Five years after North Hills was enclosed, the larger Crabtree Valley Mall opened two miles away, and began to draw shoppers. In April, the mall was torn down shortly after, except for JCPenney and the existing parking deck, to create a mixed use development featuring a new open air shopping center. The new North Hills officially opened in November 2004 with a Grand Illumination of holiday lights as well as performances by members of the North Carolina Symphony, North Carolina Master Chorale and North Carolina Theatre. A new underground parking deck was added, with the lower level flanked to the south by an entrance to JCPenney and to the north by a new Target. The Target featured the first shopping cart conveyor in the Carolinas—an escalator for shopping carts so customers could more easily transport purchases to a higher level of the parking deck. To replace JCPenney, Kane is replacing the building with a new mixed use structure that will contain a large Restoration Hardware store and will feature a third floor with outdoor dining, as well as additional retail, office, and residential space. Construction began in June, 2021, and is expected to be completed in 2023. North Hills Innovation District will have 700,000 square feet of office space, four residential developments, and 60,000 square feet of retail. Vine North Hills was the first apartment development to open, in 2020. Channel House opened in May 2023. St. Albans Lofts, announced in 2022, is expected to be finished by 2025. Tributary, another residential development, will begin work in 2024. The retail development is called Makers Alley, opening in 2024. The 17 story Tower 5 with 355,000 square feet of office space is scheduled to open in 2024.

Although the original mall has been demolished and replaced with newer buildings, longtime Raleigh residents still remember Memorial Day 1972, when a sniper opened fire and killed four people, while wounding seven others, in the North Hills parking lot. The shooter, 22 year old Harvey Glenn McLeod, hid himself between cars and methodically picked off innocent shoppers before turning his .22 caliber Ruger semi automatic rifle (that he had purchased earlier that day) on himself and committing suicide. Initially, law enforcement and the media thought the target of the attack was U. S. Senator B. Everett Jordan, who was campaigning at the mall that day. It was later determined that McLeod's rampage was an act of random violence, although Senator Jordan's press secretary was one of the victims.