Who Even Owns Downtown?

👋 Good Morning, Apex! Today is Thursday, June 11, 2026 and this is the 75th weekly issue of The Peak Weekly.

Seventy-five whole issues of The Peak Weekly are now in the books.

To celebrate, I want to share some reasons why 75 is a great number.

First, 1975. The year segregation ended in Apex. Prior to ‘75, Apex High School was on Moore Street (now Apex Elementary). It was established in 1922 and only catered to white students. Black students had to attend Apex Consolidated High.

But in 1975, the new Apex High opened up on Laura Duncan road and allowed all students to attend, officially marking the end of segregation in Apex.

Also in 1975 - the slogan, “The Peak of Good Living” was officially adopted following a public community contest. The slogan was a clever nod to the town's quality of life and its history as the highest point on the Chatham Railroad.

See what I mean? 75 is a pretty great number in Apex!

Speaking of the Chatham Railroad, here’s a train roaring through Apex in July 1960 en route to Hamlet, NC. Which train is that, you ask? That’s SAL train #75 of course!

Miscellaneous Info:

🚀 Launch Apex
The Town is looking to partner with current small business owners (brick and mortar or home businesses) who would benefit from the combination of business and financial resources and training that LaunchAPEX provides. Entrepreneurs with great new business ideas will also be considered. Apply here.

🏞️ Choose Your Own Adventure
Wake County is encouraging residents to explore and experience its parks, preserves and programs in a new way with its Choose Your Own Adventure Challenge. This activity, part of the Parks, Recreation and Open Space 50th anniversary celebration, rewards participants for achieving different goals. Visit 5 participating parks and win a prize!

🔌 What Powers Apex?
The Apex Chamber will be hosting its Peak Summit Series: Part 1 on Wednesday, June 24 from 11am-1pm. Join for a lunch-and-learn exploring the topics of energy & infrastructure, centered around the overall question: What Powers Apex? Featuring presentations from industry experts from Duke Energy and Enbridge, as well as a Q&A about the Salem Streetscape Project with Councimember Shane Reese. Free for Chamber members, $15 for non-members. Register here.

👩‍🌾 She Farms Apex
The She Farms Apex Farm Tour invites you to step onto working farms, where you'll connect with nature, meet some friendly animals, and discover the heart of sustainable farming. Perfect for families, foodies, or anyone curious about where produce and other commodities come from. It takes place Saturday, June 20th from 9am-2pm. Information and tickets here.

🌀 Hurricanes at Sweetwater
Watch Game 5 on the lawn at Sweetwater tonight. Event starts at 7pm. Bring your own chair - no offsite alcohol - no coolers.

📱 The Peak Daily
Did you now that The Peak Daily is the #1 rated app that gives daily updates about Apex, NC in the world? It’s been available in the app stores for a week now and over this past week, we made several bug fixes, some major UI updates and even added a few more tools. You can download it here.

Things to Do This Weekend in Apex:

Today, June 11

🐝 Gardening for Wildlife / Pollinator Garden Maintenance
5:30pm - 7:30pm | Apex Nature Park Pollinator Garden

🏃‍♀️ NCRC Bottle Theory Weekly Social Run/Walk
6:00 PM | Bottle Theory

🎸 Jake Hughes/Jim Morgan Dual Show
6pm - 9pm | Oaklyn Springs Brewery

🏒 Lawn Chair Party / Hurricanes Viewing
7pm | Sweetwater Lawn

Friday, June 12

🛍️ Mabopane Marketplace
7am - 12pm | 3913 US Hwy 64W

🎸 YMNB at Backyard Bar
8pm - 11pm | The Backyard Bar NC

Saturday, June 13

🧑‍🌾 Apex Farmers Market
8am - 12pm | The Depot

🏃‍♀️ Run Club Apex
Meet at 9am | Foxtail Coffee

🌿 Invasive Plant Removal Workday
10am - 12pm | Kelly Road Park

🐢 Hoppy Herp Hike
10am - 12pm | American Tobacco Trail

👕 Mabopane Marketplace
10am - 1pm | 3913 US Hwy 64W

🛍️ Apex Underground Market
11:00 AM | Sweetwater Town Center

🧢 Summer Movie Matinee: Field of Dreams
2:30pm - 5pm | Eva Perry Library

🎸 Live Music: Sam Trebing
8pm - 10pm | Southern Peak Taproom (Sweetwater)

🔀 "Freakier Friday" Movie [Rhythm & Reels]
At Dusk | Nature Park Amphitheatre

Local Business Updates

🦆 Groovy Duck is Hiring
Groovy Duck Bakery is now hiring bakers, cake decorators, and cashier/baristas. No opening date yet, but this means it’s getting close!

🍪 Burney’s Sweets and More
Opening soon in Sweetwater. No official date yet but their final inspections are taking place this week. Will be at 2701 Lawnview Ln, Suite 110.

📚️ Alleyway Bookstore is Closing
As you have probably heard already, Alleyway Bookstore announced this week that they will be closing their doors at the end of their lease in a few months after learning that their rent would increase by 64%.

There have been a lot of discussions about this online since that announcement. Is this corporate greed? Market correction? What can we do about it? Who will replace them that can afford the rent?

While I don’t have all of those answers, it did lead me to a starting point:

Who even owns downtown Apex?

• There are 85 tenants in 32 buildings, owned by 27 individuals or private companies.

• One single entrepreneur has a total of 14 tenants and holds 26% of downtown’s assessed value.

• The company which owns the Alleyway Bookstore building (that includes 3 other businesses), purchased the building in 1989 for $76,000. Its current Wake County assessed value is $2,128,262.

• 36% of the building owners are registered to an address outside of Apex.

• The average building sale price by decade:

Want to know more about every downtown building and its ownership/tenants?

🚜 The Peak Weekly Farm Series (Part 11/17)

👩‍🌾 Hidwell Family Farm

This article was written by The Peak Weekly’s amazing content contributor, Susan McGrath

Hidwell Family Farm, located at 7621 Blaney Franks Rd in Apex, has been a part of the community since 1988. It was founded by Ann Ogilvie and began as a place where local children and families could take part in farm camps, 4-H programs, field trips, and farm tours.

Once Ann’s children were grown, they built their own houses on the property and raised their families on the farm, too. And now, thirty-eight years later, Ann’s grandchildren are running the Hidwell Family Farm and preserving the farm experiences she created.

Hidwell is home to lots of furry animals! They have alpacas, sheep, bunnies, quail, turkeys, chickens, peacocks, and more! Be sure to follow them on Instagram for the latest information on new baby bunnies and sheep and other animal news.

Their farm tours, birthday parties, and other special events are offered throughout the year. For children’s birthday parties, the event space includes a new 40-foot by 20-foot pavilion, a corn crib, spool horse swing set, sandbox, and picnic tables. And guests get to pet and feed the all the animals. To book a birthday party or another event, or to find out more information, check out Hidwell Family Farm’s website.

For farm tours, you can email them at [email protected] or fill out the form on their website.

Hidwell also offers farm-fresh eggs from their chickens and quail, and fresh peaches from their peach trees, which are not sprayed with any chemicals. June is peach month, which means you can stop by to pick your own peaches or buy a pre-picked basket anytime during the entire month.

For more information about farm tours, special events, birthday party bookings, or peach-picking, visit the farm’s website and be sure to follow them on Instagram at @hidwellfamilyfarm for the latest farm news.

Civic News:

💰️ FY27 Budget Approved - What it Means for You

On Tuesday, council passed the revised, recommended budget. The budget totals $264,079,150 for all Town operations, capital improvements, and debt service requirements. This is a 6.55% increase over the last fiscal year’s budget.

• The newly adopted Apex property tax rate is set at 37.35 cents ($0.3735) per $100 of assessed value. This includes the final 1.75-cent town increase.

• But don’t forget - Wake County also tacked on a 2-cent increase. Combined, Apex homeowners are looking at a total property tax hike of 3.75 cents per $100 valuation.

• For a $400,000 home: an extra $150 per year. For a $600,000 home (Apex average): an extra $225 per year.

• In addition to that increase, your electric rate base charge is up $1.75; energy usage charge ticks up by 6.25% (additional $10.26/month for the average resident).

• Yard waste collection fee jumps from $7.83 to $10.88 (additional $3.05/month - a 39% hike for grass and limb disposal)

• Water & sewer base charge increases ($0.26 water / $0.49 sewer) and consumption rate rises 4% (approximately $1.50-$3/mo increase).

The Bottom Line: When you pile the town and county property tax hikes on top of the average $15 monthly utility bump, a typical Apex household will need to budget roughly $30-$35 more per month to cover the cost of living in Apex. New rates go into effect on July 1.

The Mayor’s Proposal:

Mayor Gilbert presented a path to a 0% increase in property taxes, which, frankly, looks to have pretty significant support from the community.

His proposal was to defer a few non-urgent projects. For example - the hockey rink addition, Kidstown Playground (to pursue a public/private sponsorship to save money), and a couple of downtown projects (with the current state of construction and delays, might be smart to do anyway). He’s not against those projects - he’s instead saying let’s not raise taxes and revisit them next year. It also recommended cutting some things from the General Fund until next year, like the Town Facilities Generator Study, and Smart Cities.

The result of the Mayor’s proposal would have been:

• Zero Infrastructure Cuts

• One additional Police Corporal

• Six additional police officers

• Four additional vehicle replacements

• 0% property tax increase

The Town Council rejected the Mayor’s proposal and unanimously approved (5-0) a budget with infrastructure cuts, less police officers and a 1.75-cent per $100 valuation on top of the utility and yard waste collection fees.

What disappointed me, probably more than the unnecessary tax hike, was watching Mahaffey read his prepared statement.

This was a public hearing. With public comment. With a new option presented. How do you have a speech prepared before hearing these things?

I’ll tell you how. When every single move is extremely coordinated. When everything is planned. When you don’t care about what people are saying. When you’re more focused on running a system to build a database of people in Apex. When you treat individuals like data points rather than people. When you spend more time building algorithms to control what people see and post 20 times a day on Facebook to pretend like that’s transparency. When you don’t comment on Flock to protect your image while throwing your colleagues under the bus. When you’re more focused on covering for the Town Manager’s illegal $61M commitment of taxpayer money rather than holding him accountable.

That’s how you prepare a speech.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 75 times… Terry Mahaffey is hands down the biggest threat to the Town of Apex. And I have nothing to gain from that. Absolutely nothing - other than hoping you’ll start to see it and we can start making better decisions for the people of Apex.

Just saying.

You can see the Mayor’s denied proposal and his statement here.

And you can see your increased rates reflected on your August utility bill and your next property tax bill.

📹️ Flock Program Overview & Update

The other notable discussion on Tuesday was around the police departments use of automated license plate readers. Chief Johansen took some time to walk through a status update. It was a very lengthy presentation (about 1 hour, 6 minutes). If you want to watch it in full, you can do so here. If you do watch that, I would also recommend watching this response to the presentation during public forum (about 9 minutes).

This short of it is - the ALPR technology has helped solve crimes and remove criminals from our streets. APD takes its use of this software and our privacy very seriously. Good things have resulted from the Flock implementation, no doubt. It is, indeed, a crime solving tool that benefits the Apex Police Department and our community.

But, as expressed by some council members and others in the community, the concern isn’t APD. The concern isn’t cost or tools in general that assist with crime solving and crime prevention. The concern is specifically about Flock - a company riddled with controversy, privacy issues and history of data sharing with federal agencies such as ICE. Many municipalities around the country have been terminating their contracts with Flock for these reasons.

The contract with Flock will renew unless canceled by December. The Chief is now looking into other vendors. The meeting ended with a unanimous (5-0) vote to refer further policy development and updates to the Public Safety Committee.

Upcoming Meetings:

Saturday, June 13
Ask Me Anything with Manager Vosburg
1pm - 3pm | Mama Bird’s Ice Cream

Monday, June 15
Culture and Arts Advisory Board
6pm | Town Hall

Tuesday, June 16
Board of Adjustments
6pm | Town Hall

Tuesday, June 16
Town Council Work Session
3:30pm - 5pm | Town Hall

A Look Ahead:

June 18
Learning Lunch - Pollinators | Apex Senior Center

June 24
Peak Summit Series: Part 1 | SpringHill Suites

June 20
SuperFun Saturday | The Halle

June 20
Juneteenth in the Peak | Town Hall Campus

June 20
She FARMS Apex 2026 | Cloer Family Vineyards

June 25
CommUniversity: Parks Planning | Town Hall Campus

June 27
Afternoon in the Garden | Apex Nature Park

June 27
Clean Jordan Lake Cleanup | Seaforth Boat Ramp

June 28
Classical Concert Series | The Halle

June 30
Invasive Plant Removal Workday | Apex Community Park

July 2
Learning Lunch: Peak into the Past | Senior Center

July 4
Fireworks Frenzy | Hunter Street Park

July 10
Art Reception - Susan Parrish | The Halle

July 11
Summer Fun Dance | The Halle

July 17
Pickleball Palooza | Apex Nature Park

A Final Note:

Thank you for taking time out of your day today to read this week’s edition of The Peak Weekly.

As always, if you have any ideas of how to make this newsletter better, want to nominate a local business or organization to be featured, or anything else, please respond to this email or email me directly at [email protected]

See you next Thursday... 😘