The developers of The Avenue, a luxury mixed-use development proposed near Mayfaire, recently cleared the site eyed for the long-awaited project.

Plans for the development include building a five-star Westin hotel and spa along with hundreds of apartments and retail space for upscale brands and restaurants on 11 acres at 349 Military Cutoff Road. The more than $300 million project has been in the works for more than eight years.

Greensboro-based development firm The Carroll Companies is behind the project. Roy Carroll, the firm’s founder, president and CEO, told the Business Journal last year that the company has spent at least $20 million on the site development, land purchase and plans for The Avenue.

Plans include a 234-room Westin hotel (a rendering of the hotel's lobby is shown below) with ample meeting space, a spa island connected to the hotel, more than 500 apartments and hundreds of thousands of square feet for stores and restaurants. There have been no changes to the project’s proposed uses, wrote Madison Carroll Snyder, Carroll Companies' chief of staff, in an email.

“We are excited about our progress on clearing the site, which shows what a perfect location this will be for our Avenue project,” Carroll Snyder wrote. 

The next step in the project’s development will be addressing the area’s “subsurface conditions,” which can be typical in coastal areas. “This will be accomplished by surcharging the building pads with engineer-prescribed weight for various periods of time to allow the weight of the fill material to compact the soil,” according to Carroll Snyder.

The development team will also begin working on the property’s storm system soon.

“These stages of work will take us through the end of the year,” Carroll Snyder wrote, “and we look forward to the community gaining excitement as they drive by and see what we are accomplishing.”

Correction: This version of the story corrects that The Carroll Companies has spent at least $20 million on The Avenue's site development, land purchase and plans.