Leadership, placemaking, and why Raleigh's best years are still ahead

In this episode: the story behind North Hills, Smoky Hollow, and the Innovation District straight from the CEO building them, plus Mike Smith's take on leadership, community, and where Raleigh is headed over the next 20 years.

If you have spent any time in Raleigh over the last two decades, you have experienced Kane Realty's work, whether you realized it or not. North Hills. Smoky Hollow. The Row at Dix Park. The North Hills Innovation District. These are not just developments. They are the places that have helped define what modern Raleigh feels like.

In this episode of Best of Raleigh, host Gretchen Coley sits down with Mike Smith, CEO of Kane Realty, for an honest conversation about leadership, community, placemaking, and why he believes Raleigh's growth has not even started yet.

From Investment Banking to Building Raleigh

Mike's path into real estate was not a straight line. After business school, he spent about six years in investment banking, working on deals across the country.

But something was missing.

He found himself in church pews, grocery store lines, and carpool lanes, never running into the people he did business with. He also realized he wanted to be on the operator side of the business, the side where the burden is on you to make it work, not just to deliver a service.

Raleigh gave him both. A place where you run into people you work with in everyday life. A company where he could build, not just advise. Kane Realty became the answer to both.

The Culture That Built Kane Realty

When Mike joined Kane Realty, it was small enough to count the employees on one hand. Today, the company has grown to more than 300 team members, and the culture is intentional from top to bottom.

Kane hires for character first, ability second, and experience third. That order matters.

Their core values include:

• Excellence through thinking outside the box, not just following a procedure manual
• Long-term relationships over short-term wins
• The Golden Rule, treat people the way you want to be treated, not the way you were treated

That last value is the one Mike comes back to again and again. Most workplaces operate on the principle of "I had to do it this way, so you do too." Kane flips it. If people are kinder and more generous at home than they are at work, something is off. The Golden Rule at work changes everything, and it works long-term every time.

North Hills: The Community Inside the Community

Twenty-five years ago, North Hills was a dying mall and a name that held a negative association for much of Raleigh.

Today, it is one of the most recognizable addresses in North Carolina.

Mike credits the team's obsession with placemaking. Not just building buildings, but creating gathering places where people actually want to be. He points to the decision to pull back from filling every available square foot with rentable space and instead leave room to breathe. The lawn in front of Chick-fil-A. The ledges at Restoration Hardware that just happen to be the perfect height to sit on. Midtown Green. The farmer's market on Saturday mornings.

The philosophy is simple: create the waterfront, and people will come to the waterfront.

And they have.

North Hills is now the place where executives recruit new hires, where families bring out-of-town guests, and where residents say they have their "own" North Hills. The farmer's market crowd. The Beach Music crowd. The boutique crowd. Each person builds their own routine inside a place that works for all of them.

The Innovation District and Makers Alley

The newest chapter is the North Hills Innovation District, and it is intentionally different.

More nature. A stream running through the center. Mature trees the team built around rather than removed. And a financial model reimagined from the ground up so that first-floor rents could support something most developments cannot: hyper-local merchants.

That is how Makers Alley came to life at the base of Channel House. White-boxed spaces so creators do not have to spend $200,000 on a build-out before they sell their first candle. Local brands like Ky's Kandles, Green Rabbit Plants, and Dose Yoga + Smoothie Bar that might not survive in a traditional retail pro forma now have a home.

Coming in May: The Standard and Benchwarmers, both set to open as the Innovation District officially comes into its own.

It is a one-story building in a skyline full of towers. And that is the point.

Smoky Hollow, The Row, and the Kane Approach

North Hills is not the only Kane story.

Smoky Hollow takes its name from the historic neighborhood where laborers once lived near the rail yards. The team leaned into that history rather than erasing it.

The Row at Dix Park is now home to Campo, Benchwarmers, Sunflowers Cafe, and a Pilates studio, with the skyline view thrown in for free. Food, fitness, and park access in one walkable footprint.

Each project starts the same way: what is already here, what is this community's history, and how do we build with it rather than on top of it.

The Leadership Gift of Listening

Ask Mike about his leadership style and he will point to his dad.

His father was a natural relationship person who led by listening. That is not the trait most people name when they think of leadership, but it is the one Mike works on hardest. Listen first. Process.

Then figure out how to help.

His personal priorities stack in this order: faith, family, work, community. And he has learned the hard way that it is easy to flip that upside down.

One piece of wisdom he took from a mentor years ago: when his kids were in middle school and high school, he stopped doing evening things so he could be home when they were home. It shaped his life.

Why Raleigh's Growth Has Not Started Yet

Here is the line that stopped the conversation cold.

Raleigh tops every best-places-to-live list in the country. Seventy people move here every day. And Mike's take?

Growth has not started.

He believes the next 20 years will make the last 20 look modest. The job for Raleigh, and for its leaders, is not to debate whether growth will happen. It will. The job is to decide what kind of growth we want.

Mike's vote is for density over sprawl. For mixed-use neighborhoods where cars sit still and people walk. For public investment in infrastructure like the proposed pedestrian bridge over Lassiter Mill and the larger bridge from Barrett Drive over to Midtown Exchange that could relieve Six Forks congestion and reshape how people move through the area.

For the record, in 25 years of North Hills development, there has been no public investment in the district. Every dollar spent has been private capital. That is a fact most Raleigh residents do not know.

Fitness, Margin, and the 10 Percent

Mike is an avid cyclist, golfer, and CrossFit devotee. But for him, fitness is about more than staying in shape.

It is where he solves problems.

His theory: most of us try to work at 110 percent. But if we can pull back to 90 percent and leave a 10 percent margin for thinking, that is where the best ideas come from. The next relationship to lean into. The better solution to the problem you have been chewing on for weeks.

The margin is where leadership lives.

What's Next for Kane Realty and Raleigh

Kane Realty is not slowing down. Neither is Raleigh.

When Gretchen asked Mike what impact he hopes to leave, he deflected the way humble leaders always do. He pointed to the team. He pointed to the place. He pointed to the fact that Raleigh's story is still being written.

And then he said this:

We have not started yet.

If you live here, work here, or are thinking about moving here, that is the line to hang onto.

Rapid Fire with Mike Smith

• Favorite spot in Raleigh right now: The North Hills Innovation District
• Best way to spend a weekend: North Hills Farmer's Market on a Saturday morning
• Go-to workout: CrossFit
• One word to describe Raleigh's future: Hasn't started
• Development trend he is excited about: Placemaking

Why It Matters

Mike Smith and Kane Realty have done more than build buildings. They have built a city's identity piece by piece, with intention, humility, and a deep belief that community matters more than square footage.

If you want to understand where Raleigh is going, start by walking through North Hills, Smoky Hollow, or The Row. Then come back in five years. The place will be different. And that, according to Mike, is the whole point.

Want more conversations with the people shaping Raleigh?

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