A Beautiful City.
Affluent Business Climate.
Always Benevolent Community.
What do the ABCs of Cary really stand for?
Amtrak
Cary’s new full-service Amtrak station o ffers eight trains daily and is conveniently located downtown. Residents have a ordable daily travel options to 12 N.C. cities including Greensboro, Charlotte and Rocky Mount, plus direct daily service to Northeast cities including Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York. For travelers heading south, the station o ffers daily connecting service to Charleston, Orlando, Miami and many other cities across the Southeast. Coupled with RDU airport’s nearly 400 daily arrivals and departures, travel to and from the Triangle couldn’t be easier.
Bikers are a common sight on Cary streets. Cary took No. 24 on Bicycling magazine’s 2010 list of America’s Top 50 Bike-Friendly Cities. “Cary residents rode their bikes more and spent more money on cycling equipment last year than those in almost any other city on this list,” according to the magazine. See the Bike & Hike Cary map, available from the Town of Cary, to see established bike routes.
Community Centers have been bringing Caryites together since 1991, when the Herbert C. Young Community Center opened near Town Hall. The Bond Park and Middle Creek centers were added in the early 2000s. Together, the centers offer fi tness and lifestyle classes, gymnasiums, meeting and event space for town events.
Daze bring tens of thousands of people to Cary every year — the popular Lazy Daze and Spring Daze Arts and Crafts Festivals, that is. Lazy Daze, which sets up on the streets of downtown Cary each August, consistently earns praise as one of the most esteemed arts festivals in the Southeast. Spring Daze, which celebrates North Carolina artists in Bond Park every April, will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2013.
Extraterrestrials are alive and well in Cary’s Area 51 — also known as the Herbert C. Young Center. The Cary Invasion professional basketball team is playing its second season in 2012. In its inaugural year, the team won the Continental Basketball League Championship.
Fog, or fats, oils and grease, don’t need to end up in Cary’s sewer system thanks to the town’s Residential Waste Cooking Oil Disposal Program. Residents can collect used cooking oils, animal fats and greases in plastic or metal containers of at least half a gallon (a 2-liter soda bottle works well), then arrange for a free curbside pickup by calling Public Works at (919) 469-4090.
Greenways are all around us, with 35 found in Cary. From the American Tobacco Trail to the White Oak Greenway, the trails in Cary total more than 40 miles of space to run, bike and otherwise enjoy the outdoors. The town also boasts an impressive 29 parks.
Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative, established in 2004, helps maintain Cary’s high standards for a safe, healthy community. Top standards the program targets include abandoned and junk vehicles, home and yard maintenance, graffiti, road obstructions and other aesthetic concerns. The Neighbor to Neighbor program allows community members to volunteer to provide construction, maintenance, cleanup or other services to those who need assistance due to age, disability or other hardship.
Infrastructure improvements are important to maintaining quality of life, which is why more than $500 million has been budgeted for Cary infrastructure since 1999. The total includes $159 million for transportation; $101 million for parks, recreation and cultural resources; $10.5 million for fire; $87 million for sewer; and $135 million for water.
Jobs are solid here, with Wake County taking the No. 15 spot on CNN Money’s list of U.S. counties with highest job growth in the last decade. Wake County jobs increased by 35.9 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to Census data.
Koka Booth Amphitheatre welcomes up to 7,000 patrons for events ranging from food festivals to concerts to private functions. The N.C. Symphony Summerfest will call the venue home every Saturday from May 26 to July 7, presenting selections from Romeo and Juliet to Fables for Families. Movies by Moonlight, May through September, turns the amphitheatre into a screen under the stars, where attendees are welcome to bring picnics and make themselves at home.
Living healthy is important to Caryites, which is why the Town of Cary offers a vast array of fitness & wellness classes through the Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources department. Kettlebells, martial arts, aerobics, yoga and aquatic fitness classes are just a few of the selections available to residents at Town facilities.
Music has been a part of Cary’s summer scene for years, but this summer offers more options than ever. Two new concert series in downtown Cary will be introduced for 2012. The Downtown Performers Series, select Fridays and Saturdays May through June, will set up across from the Cary Arts Center and at the Page-Walker Arts & History Center. The Seven O’Clock Rock Series will close off the streets of downtown on May 24 and June 21 for a block party and even dancing — including lessons before the show. The new selections join the ever-popular Starlight Concert Series at the Page-Walker gardens. See townofcary.org for more information on all concerts.
North Carolina’s smartest city, Cary ranked seventh on American City Business Journal’s national list, which ranked 269 cities nationwide by their brainpower.
Oasis program donations from Cary utility customers help those who have fallen on hard times keep utility services active in their homes. Donated funds are routed through Dorcas Ministries, which allocates funds to those who need a little assistance.
Public art is scattered all around Cary’s open spaces and public buildings, thanks to the work of Cary Visual Art. The organization has placed more than 50 works of art since its inception in 1996, including both permanent installations and temporary loaned sculptures. Projects range from large sculptures to artist-designed park benches and brick path inlays.
Quality of life is tops here, with Cary, Morrisville and Apex taking the three top spots, respectively, on American City Business Journal’s 2011 list of North Carolina cities.
Real Estate
Raleigh-Cary earned the accolade of the No. 1 U.S. real estate market to watch in 2012 from Inman News, a real estate news leader. The value of single-family homes rose by 7.3 percent from the third quarter of 2010 to 2011. The median home price in the market was $224,300, the highest of any city on the top 10 list.
Schools ranked high on Newsweek’s 2011 list of 500 of America’s Best High Schools. Green Hope and Panther Creek in Cary made the list, as did Apex High School. All three schools boast higher than 90 percent graduation and college bound rates, according to the listing.
Third Safest City in America was Cary’s rank on the CQ Press 2011-2012 City Crime Rankings list for mid-size cities. It was the only North Carolina city in the top 10.
Umstead Hotel and Spa isn’t just a luxurious place for visitors to stay. Locals, too, can enjoy its Forbes Five Star, AAA Five Diamond restaurant, Herons; a 14,000-squarefoot spa; 6,000-square-foot outdoor lawn for weddings and other events; 10,000-plus square feet of meeting space and much more.
Volunteers make the town go ’round. Friends of Page Walker, Friends of Hemlock Bluffs and the Sister Cities Association are some of the best-known volunteer organizations in town, but they are just a fraction of the total volunteer base in Cary. In all, Cary has more than 7,500 volunteers! Citizens Assisting Police team members support Cary police at public events, writing reports and other tasks, while the Community Emergency Response Team trains citizens to deal with the aftermath of a disaster event. A number of councilappointed boards and commissions cover everything from recreation to land use. The Cary Teen Council gives middle and high school students a chance to get in on the good will, too.
Wink brings traffic information to Cary citizens at the blink of an eye. An area map at wink.townofcary.org monitors incidents, construction and special events in real time, and links to camera images at key intersections that relay current traffic conditions. A Wink rush hour program runs from 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays on Cary TV. Embedded road sensors are planned to connect to the map in the future in order to provide a look at traffic flows on high-traffic roads.
X-Treme Sports even have a place of their own at Sk8-Cary Skate Park in Godbold Park. The park entices skateboarders, in-line skaters and BMX riders with 12,000 feet of ramps, rails and ledges to challenge any alternative athlete.
Youth Theatre gives Cary’s younger citizens another chance to enjoy the perks of the town while supporting the arts. Applause! Cary Youth Theatre offers theater programs for ages 4 to 18, ranging from classes, camps and workshops to two mainstage productions per year. Perseus Bayou will run from May 18-20 at the Cary Arts Center.
Zygnemataceae: You’re more likely to know what that is if you live here. Raleigh-Cary was No. 10 on U.S. News & World Report’s 2011 list of the 10 Most Educated U.S. Cities. And the Triangle is so great that Durham-Chapel Hill took No. 4. (If you’re curious, it’s a type of algae.)
