KNIGHTDALE — Developers are beginning to call for speculative meetings and pull building permits in a town where the construction of new subdivisions has diminished.

In 2007, single-family homes made up 78 percent of the total value of construction. In 2008, that number was 20 percent.

On the upside, says Planning Director Chris Hills, multi-family building actually increased in value with the addition of Berkshire Apartments, off Smithfield Road, and Alta Legacy Oaks, off Knightdale Boulevard.

And now, Hills says change could be brewing.

“There’s starting to be signs of life out there,” he said. And that’s good news in Knightdale.

Building permits issued in Knightdale fell 41 percent from 2006 to 2008 while in all of Wake County they fell 28 percent during that two-year period.

Those numbers were tabulated from statistics from the Knightdale Planning Department and the building report of the Wake County Revenue Department.

Building never even got off the ground in two subdivisions that were approved for development —-Cheswick, off Hodge and Panther Rock Roads, and the Langston Ridge subdivision, west of Hodge Road and south of Green Pines subdivision.

In Cheswick, that has just changed.

“Right now, they are just starting on a model home and a parade home,” said Lori Hopper of Ceragraphics Marketing, which represents Terramor Homes, the developer.

“They got a permit last week, and they are already pushing dirt. They are moving forward, especially on the Parade home because we have to have it ready by the last week in September.”

“It’s not that everybody’s running around saying, ‘Yeah, yeah, the market’s better,’” she said. “It’s kind of a positioning strategy. It’s a good time to buy land, prices are better.”

Hills said while developers quit coming to call about new projects, building never actually stopped in Knightdale. Take Churchill subdivision on the north side of Old Faison Road, bordering the south side of Planter’s Walk and the east side of I-540.

Building continued on the 540-home subdivision throughout the economic downturn, Hills said.

“There’s already about 200 homes in there, and there’s beginning to be talk about the next phase,” said Hills.

“There wasn’t one significant movement when everything just stopped,” said Hills. “Certain segments of the market did and others continued.”

He said building is going on in Mingo Creek, off Hodge Road and in Emerald Pointe subdivision. But a building permit hasn’t been issued for Princeton Manor, also off Hodge, in about seven months, Hills said.

Hopper said Knightdale’s right for the move-down buyer Terramor expects to buy many of the 1,600 to 2,200 square feet homes in Cheswick, with an average price of $180,000.

“You just can’t beat the location,” she said. “You can get everywhere from here.”

She said many empty nesters have children and grandchildren scattered across the Triangle, and Knightdale at the I-540 interchange is a good way to get to any of them.

But Shea Homes that planned 26 homes in its phase west of Hodge Road and south of Green Pines hasn’t budged. “We’ve got that project on hold,” said Michelle Scott, sales and marketing manager for Shea. “We’ve just tabled it for now.” Yet Hills is cautiously optimistic.

“I’m not an economist so I can’t say we’ve hit the bottom,” he said. ‘What it seems like is people are beginning to call us up and say I’m interested in pieces of property and I want to discuss it.” He said that hasn’t happened since the end of last summer. “We weren’t getting those calls anymore,” he said. “I would say those calls are coming back.”

ZEBULON — A steady flow of development has been taking place in the town despite the sub-par economic situation witnessed nationwide over the last two years.

New stores have opened in various corners of Zebulon, and more are either near completion or on the drawing board. On N.C. 97 in the east side of town, in the Wal-Mart shopping center, a USA single-bay car wash is being built behind the new Murphy USA gas station.

In the Triangle East shopping center, a Victory Lane three-bay oil change station and one-bay car wash is nearing its final stages of construction between the Smithfield’s Chicken ‘N BAR-B-Q and the McDonald’s restaurants.

Planning Director Mark Hetrick said the plans in the shopping center originally appeared to call for a straight strand of fast food restaurants considering the many that already line the strip through Triangle East, but that Victory Lane may be on to something.

“They might do pretty well considering people can drop their car off and go grab a bite to eat within walking distance,” Hetrick said.

Also in the center, an Aaron’s rental center is being built in the main structure just to the left of Food Lion.

Up North Arendell Avenue, where there has already been a change of scenery with the opening of a Sheetz gas station, a Sonic, and several banks, Hetrick said there is the prospect of construction of a joint WilcoHess gas station/Wendy’s restaurant at the corner of Hendricks Drive and N.C. 96.

Hetrick said this isn’t the newest news to the town — the joint-store has been in the air for a while, but the town has yet to receive construction plans for the site.

“The way the economy has been that’s how things are going lately — it’s slowing the processes down,” Hetrick said.

He said Zebulon’s seen a slow-down with the larger projects, but the town has been fortunate to receive as many single-site developments as it has.

“Walgreens is pretty much done — they should be close to turning the contract over to the owner — and AutoZone is about done too. There’s also a 3,000-square-foot out-parcel connected to AutoZone and the space is up for lease from Tricor, the developer of the property. All the buildings there are zoned heavy business, so the out-parcels could be occupied by any type of retail store, or office- or service-related store,” Hetrick said of the new businesses in the center of town.

On June 30 Zebulon held its first site review for a Bojangles, the Charlotte-founded restaurant whose construction is highly anticipated throughout North Carolina. The restaurant, which is set to be built just north and across the street from Sheetz on highway 96, is in line for site plan approval and rezoning, and then construction can begin.

Across the street from the Bojangles site, directly north of Sheetz, the town’s second ABC store is already well into the construction phase and back toward U.S. 64/264, also on the east side of N.C. 96, a new hamburger and hot dog eatery is being planned. Hetrick has been working with William McLean, co-owner of McLean’s Ole Time Cafe, with his plans to open a grill named Hillbillies. The grill is set to be built on the lot between BB&T bank and Sonic.

With so much going on in town, and with a good chunk of that development taking place in the north sector of N.C. 96, Hetrick said one thing will not changed — the need to keep traffic flowing smoothly.

“We just finished the 96 corridor study to basically be sure there’s a free-flowing street citizens will be proud to drive on,” he said. “We’ve been fortunate to see such development in such economic times. We’ve continued to see development and still have a good level of developmental interest in town, both commercial and residential.”