If you have driven Salem Street since January, you have driven it southbound only. You have watched pavers stacked in pallets, orange fencing shift block by block, and the GoApex Route 1 bus reroute onto Center Street because the corridor between Saunders and West Chatham has been a construction zone for nine months. That version of downtown is ending. According to Mayor Jacques Gilbert, the Salem Streetscape project is on track to be completed by October, with two-way traffic returning at that time.
Here is the part most residents have not thought about yet. The block that reopens in October is not the block that closed in January. It is a different kind of street, designed to be walked more than driven, and the fall events already on the calendar are the first live test of whether Apex treats it that way.
The October handoff, in order
A few dates worth keeping straight if you are planning around downtown between now and the holidays:
- Late September — Apex Latino Arts Festival returns to downtown, with the streetscape crews still finishing furnishings and lighting. Expect the last stretch of active fencing.
- October — Physical construction wraps. Two-way traffic returns to N. Salem between Saunders and West Chatham. GoApex Route 1's detour, in place since January 27, ends.
- October 24 — Witches Night Out. This is the first evening event that will really populate the new sidewalks.
- October 25 — Goblin's Groove Family Dance.
- October 29 — Spooky Tails at Apex Nature Park.
- First Friday in December — Tree Lighting at the Town Hall Campus and the kickoff of the Snowman Stroll passport week, which runs about a week across participating downtown businesses.
- First Saturday in December — Apex Rotary Christmas Parade, the only nighttime holiday parade in Wake County, marching down a Salem Street that will look nothing like it did during last year's parade.
That last one matters. Parade night is when most of Apex sees a change like this for the first time, all at once, at dusk, with the new decorative string lighting on.
What "curbless" actually means when you walk it
The Town of Apex committed more than $4.7 million to this project, and the phrase that keeps appearing in the plans is "curbless design." It sounds like a small thing. It is not.
On the current Salem Street, the curb tells you where the car space ends and the pedestrian space begins. On the new one, that line is gone. The travel way and the sidewalk sit at the same height, separated by pipe bollards and a change in paver pattern. When cars are present, they move slowly through what reads as a pedestrian zone. When the street is closed for a parade or festival, removable bollards come out and the whole width becomes plaza.
A few of the specific changes worth watching for:
- American Elm trees installed on both sides of the street, planted over an underground soil cell system that gives the roots the volume they need to actually shade the block in ten years rather than struggle in compacted fill.
- 19-foot decorative light poles with a mix of single and double lamp fixtures, banner arm mounts, and brackets built to hang catenary string lighting across the street.
- New street furniture — benches, tables, trash and recycling receptacles — that turns the sidewalk into a place you can sit, not just walk through.
- The Saunders Gathering Space at the corner of Salem and Saunders, a dedicated plaza with a pergola, seating, outdoor games, and a digital information kiosk. This is the piece that did not exist before in any form.
The parking math changed too. Some on-street spaces on Salem itself were removed to make room for the wider pedestrian zone. To offset that, the Saunders Lot expansion added 152 new spaces, boosting downtown parking capacity by about 40 percent. If you have been avoiding downtown because you could never find a spot near Anna's on a Friday, the arithmetic is now different.
The businesses that held on
Nine months of one-way traffic and pedestrian-only sidewalks have not been quiet on the businesses along Salem. Steven Perticona, a manager at Anna's Pizzeria, told WRAL in April that sales were tracking down 10 to 20 percent during the pause in construction. Larry Seiger of Virtuoso Jewels, the custom jewelry shop, said what most owners on the block have been saying in different words: the ask was for better communication about the schedule, not for the project to stop.
They are still there. So are a lot of the names that make downtown feel like downtown:
- Anna's Pizzeria and Doherty's Irish Pub on the north end
- The Provincial at 119 N Salem
- Salem Street Pub, Scratch Kitchen & Taproom, and JD's Tavern
- Serafina Ristorante and Mamma Mia Italian Bistro
- Daniel's Restaurant & Catering at 320 S Salem
- Oaklyn Springs Brewery, HighCraft Beer Market, Peak of the Vine, and The Exchange Cocktail Bar & Lounge — the anchors of the downtown Social District where you can carry a drink between them
- Rose & Lee, Moon and Lola, Bella & Mauve, and Antiques On Salem Street on the retail side
Two openings are worth flagging as bets on the after-picture, not the during-picture. Popovers Cafe opened at 219 N Salem Street, Suite 103 on March 13, in the middle of construction. And Groovy Duck Bakery is moving into the former Cranky Yankee Bakery space at 101 N. Salem Street. Both of them signed leases knowing exactly what the block looked like this summer. They opened anyway because they know what it will look like in November.
Fall calendar, planned around the new block
A few honest suggestions for how to use the fall:
Witches Night Out on October 24 is the first evening the new Salem Street will get a costumed crowd. String lights will be on, the pavers will be clean, and the Saunders Gathering Space will host whatever a couple hundred people in witch hats want it to host. Park in the expanded Saunders Lot and walk.
Goblin's Groove on October 25 and Spooky Tails on October 29 are the family-and-dog bookends. Spooky Tails runs at Apex Nature Park, not downtown, so build in the drive.
The First Friday Tree Lighting at Town Hall Campus in early December runs 4:30 to 7 p.m. The Snowman Stroll launches the same weekend. Passports are picked up at the Apex Depot Welcome Center, and participating businesses along Salem decorate with snowman-themed displays. This is the first year the Stroll will happen on a curbless, string-lit street. It will feel different at 6 p.m. than it did in December 2024.
The Rotary Christmas Parade on the first Saturday of December is the ceremonial reopening whether the Town calls it that or not.
"We want every person, visitor, resident, to feel like they're welcome here in The Peak of Good Living," Mayor Gilbert has said of downtown.
The streetscape is the physical version of that sentence.
What this actually changes for people who already live here
Downtown Apex has always been a place residents walked to for a specific thing and then left. Coffee. Dinner reservation. A gift at Rose & Lee. The design change matters because it lowers the friction of lingering. When the sidewalk is wide enough for a bench and a table and a tree, people sit. When people sit, the block behaves differently at 7 p.m. than it does at noon. That is the actual reason the town spent $4.7 million.
None of this is permanent in the sense that nothing about a downtown ever is. The Peakway bridge to Towhee Drive is scheduled to open in 2027. Downtown parking will keep shifting as Saunders fills up. But this fall is the moment the change is visible for the first time, and the events between Witches Night Out and the Christmas Parade will decide how quickly residents update their mental map of the block.
If you own a home in Apex and have been quietly curious about what your neighborhood is worth in a market where downtown is actively upgrading, Charles Christiansen at Coldwell Banker HPW would be glad to walk you through it. Start with an instant home valuation, or reach out through the Apex neighborhood page for a conversation that starts with the block you actually live on.
