Investment in Apex has been steady and is reflected in the growth of the retail market in and immediately surrounding Apex.  Beaver Creek Commons, a large shopping complex located in the Southeast quadrant of US Hwy 64 and NC Hwy 55, opened in the Fall of 2004 and is anchored by Super Target and Lowe’s Home Improvement. In addition to the anchor stores, Beaver Creek Commons includes tenants such as Linens N Things, Office Max, and PetSmart. A number of restaurants are also located in Beaver Creek Commons including Chick-Fil-A, Panera Bread, Chili’s, QDoba, and Firehouse Subs.  The Panda Express, which serves gourmet Chinese food, is the newest restaurant addition to the Commons.

The next phase of the Beaver Creek center is Beaver Creek Crossings which is currently under construction.  Although there is still a large amount of available retail space in the Crossings, the Beaver Creek Cinema 12, Dick's Sporting Goods, Borders Bookstore, Old Navy, TJ Maxx/Homegoods, Circuit City, Longhorn Steakhouse and Red Robin are now open for business. 

Located down NC Highway 55 from Beaver Creek, Haddon Hall Commons, which opened in March of 05, is anchored by a Harris Teeter Grocery Store.  The other tenants include Three Dog Bakery, SportClips, Salon Suzanne Marie, SOHO Hero, Bruegger's Bagels and Leapin' Lizards Coffee.

Our Historic Downtown Apex continues to attract merchants, artists, restaurateurs, and professionals looking for space in a unique atmosphere. Several of the downtown historic buildings are in process of being renovated to offer additional retail, restaurant, office and living space. Residents and visitors come down to the historic district to enjoy shopping at a variety of antique, furniture, home décor and jewelry shops and meet local artists who display and sell their work in our local art galleries.

In addition to shopping, the Historic Downtown offers a variety of dining alternatives. The most recent restaurant to open is CIAO! Osteria & Bar which offers dining on both the first and second floors.  The popular downtown destination, The Peak City Grill & Bar, provides both inside and outside dining on the first level and Salem Executive Suites on the second level. The Economic Development Office of the Chamber worked with the Apex town board to set up a downtown economic development grant for the purpose of attracting new businesses downtown. The grant will pay 75% of water/sewer capacity fees for a retail business locating in the historic downtown central business district.

The Economic Development Office at the Apex Chamber of Commerce has written a planning guide for new business development. It is our hope that this guide will help you with the sometimes overwhelming task of starting a new business. This document has been designed to be a reference to put you in contact with the numerous business resources that are available to help you. Since no single publication can address every business issue, we encourage you to research all issues thoroughly before making business decisions.

The Apex Chamber of Commerce New Business Guide document is available for download as an Adobe PDF document (148K). Click here to download the Guide and begin planning your new business.

If you do not have Adobe's free PDF reader, you may download and install it from www.adobe.com.