By Mia Khatib
mia.khatib@triangletribune.com
RALEIGH — Montague Plaza, an entrepreneurial hub for minority-owned local businesses, will soon start welcoming customers in Southeast Raleigh. Located at 2718 Rock Quarry Road, the site will include a medical center, restaurant, salon, photography studio, event center and more.
The building’s exterior will be completed next week, with the ribbon cutting ceremony on Oct. 18. Developer James Montague said the first tenant will move in around December, and he expects the building to be fully occupied by next summer.
“I wasn’t really looking for national anchor tenants, I wanted people that are in the community to get a leg up and be able to grow generically,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that these are businesses that really add to the mix, and they will be a good fit with each other and within the community.”
Each business will have its own grand opening. Nurse practitioner Jimmena Huffman-Hall, who is opening Restoration Health and Wellness, said she’s seen the disparity in access to quality health care growing up in the community and wanted to help fill that gap.
“I feel like the experience that I’ve obtained over the years will be beneficial in me bringing these services to patients that are basically an underserved population,” she said. “That’s why I chose Montague Plaza, because I knew that’s where my heart was, that’s the area I wanted to be.”
The medical center will provide primary care services, limited acute care services, physical examinations, mental health support like group therapy and counseling, among other services. “We’ll take certain insurances, but we’ll also do self-pay with a sliding scale based on income,” Huffman-Hall said.
Similarly, it was a “no-brainer” for Southeast Raleigh native Morris Freeman Sr. to bring Duke’s Doggs and Ice Cream to the Plaza. The restaurant will operate out of a takeout dining hall and include two other vendors that also provide halal and kosher food, nonpork options that Freeman said the community needs.
“If you adhere to strict diets, this is your dining hall,” he said. “Instead of being in the food truck all day or opening a full-blown restaurant, this is an opportunity that I’m hoping to provide for other restaurant owners to start their initial restaurant business without all the mediating factors.”
And GlobalXperts Chief Technology Officer Neil Kumar, Montague’s partner on the STEM center, told The Tribune they will provide multitiered programming for everyone from high school and college students to veterans looking to enhance their skills.
“Southeast Raleigh has a unique opportunity for investment in the IT and technology trainings because of the very diverse demographics here,” Kumar said. “If you have local talent, it will attract a lot of business here, too.”
Training and instructional support will be catered to community interest, but initial program ideas include gaming, web development, drone technology and certification courses. Montague added that there will be a physical “Path to Prosperity” connecting the center to Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School.
“What we want to do is make the youth feel like they belong here and there are no barriers,” Montague said. “We want to say we’re included and ingrained in the community.”
Patricia Taylor, intervention specialist at the school, said they already have a grant from the Poe Center for Health Education for after school programming, and the STEM center could be a great extension to that. She thinks the additional resource will give students greater opportunities and increase accessibility.
“This is my community as well. So, with that extension, I’m hoping to get the word out and find some way that these students are not consumed by other activities and trying to push them in that direction towards bettering themselves,” she said.
Mia Khatib, who covers affordable housing and gentrification, is a Report for America corps member.
