Village District
Village District, was the first planned community to be developed in Raleigh, North Carolina. Development was started in 1947 when J.W. York and R.A Bryan bought of undeveloped land two miles west of downtown Raleigh, near the North Carolina State University campus. The "village" was to consist of a shopping center, apartments, and single family homes. The area was renamed to Village District in 2021 to distance itself from the slave owning Cameron family, who owned Stagville Plantation, that it was originally named after.
History
The shopping center opened in 1949 as Cameron Village, and quickly became the premier shopping area in Raleigh. It is also considered the first shopping center to be built between Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. The shopping center is an open-air shopping mall, but unlike a strip mall, the stores are divided into blocks with some on two levels. Several parking decks were built in the 1960s, although most of these were removed in later renovations.Cameron Village grew quickly, and by 1950 the community had 65 stores, a movie theater, more than 600 homes and apartments, and over 100 business/professional offices. Downtown Raleigh, which had been the primary shopping location in the Raleigh area, started to see a decline in business as consumers gravitated toward the convenient parking of Cameron Village.
The Occidental Life [Insurance Company Building] was added to Cameron Village in 1956. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
On January 28, 2021, Cameron Village shopping center was renamed to Village District, after 71 years to avoid celebrating the plantation owner for whom the center had been named and who held people enslaved to operate the plantation.