Walk down Salem Street this week and you'll see two different stories competing for attention. Banners overhead promote Festa Italiana on September 19 and the Latino Arts & Culinary Festival a week later. At street level, a sign reads "Business Still Open" over a sidewalk narrowed to five feet, next to a construction fence where the west side of the road used to be. Both stories are true. What's easy to miss is that they're only compatible because the town stopped trying to run its festivals on Salem Street at all.
That's the part worth understanding if you live here and have been waiting for downtown to feel normal again. The two events drawing crowds this month succeeded by moving off the street that defines downtown Apex. The one event that can't move, the Apex Rotary Christmas Parade, is the one now facing real uncertainty. Same construction project, opposite outcome, and the reason has less to do with scheduling than with pavement.
Two Festivals, Zero Blocks of Salem Street
Festa Italiana runs Saturday, September 19, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the Latino Arts & Culinary Festival follows on Saturday, September 26, from 3 to 7 p.m. Both are staged on the Town Hall Campus and Hunter Street, not Salem Street. Festa Italiana closes Hunter Street to vehicles between Ambergate Station and Laura Duncan Road for the day, with the Galbani Culinary Stage, a cannoli-eating contest, and a kids' zone spread across the Town Hall grounds. It's the eighth year for the event, and organizers are directing a portion of this year's proceeds to ALS United North Carolina. The town's own event page even notes that the festival footprint sits outside the downtown Social District boundary, so anyone carrying a to-go drink from a Salem Street bar needs to finish or dispose of it before crossing into the festival area.
This isn't new territory. PeakFest, Apex's largest annual street fair, made the same move back in May, relocating its 45th edition to the Town Hall Campus with Hunter Street closed from Salem to Laura Duncan. The town has effectively built a second downtown venue this year, one that doesn't depend on the street currently under construction.
That workaround is smart planning, and it's also a tell. Three of Apex's biggest gatherings in 2026 have now been staged somewhere other than Salem Street, which only makes sense if Salem Street isn't ready to host them.
What's Actually Torn Up Right Now
The Salem Streetscape project broke ground in January as a $4.7 million overhaul meant to widen sidewalks, add trees and decorative lighting, and eventually create a curbless, pedestrian-first stretch between Saunders and Chatham streets. For months the public message was that it would wrap by October, ahead of holiday shopping season. That's what Mayor Jacques Gilbert told residents in April even as the project sat paused over electrical design issues.
It isn't October anymore, and the town's own numbers have moved. The Salem Streetscape project page, updated September 1, now lists the construction contract timeline as running through December. Crews finished underground infrastructure and pavers on the east side of Salem Street in mid-July and shifted southbound traffic onto that new lane so they could start tearing up the west side, where work now includes storm drains and soil cells for the street trees. Electrical and fiber conduit come next, followed by light poles and street furniture that are still on order.
Practically, that means the one-way southbound restriction between Saunders and Chatham streets, in place since January, is not close to lifting. The GoApex Route 1 bus detour that began January 27 is still running and is expected to continue into late 2026.
"It's been bad. It's been real bad."
That's Hue Delgado, who owns a barbershop in downtown Apex, describing the effect of the construction on foot traffic to a local reporter this month. He's not alone in wanting more clarity. Back in April, Larry Seiger, owner of custom jewelry maker Virtuoso Jewels, put his finger on what business owners actually need during a stretch like this: knowing when a slowdown in construction is temporary and when it isn't.
The Businesses Absorbing the Wait
Some of that uncertainty has already cost downtown a tenant. Alleyway Bookstore announced its closure this summer, citing a 64 percent rent increase on top of the pressure from months of construction. Anna's Pizzeria has reported sales down 10 to 20 percent and has cut employee shifts to match. Bella + Mauve, a boutique the mayor featured in a social media video, may face what he called difficult decisions tied to the broader economic pressure downtown is under.
Not every long-timer is struggling the same way. Cynthia Mollenkopf has owned Cocoon Gallery on North Salem Street since 2017, running a rotating roster of 70 to 80 local artists whose textiles and pottery fill the space. Her business model, built on a mix of foot traffic and online sales, has given her more room to absorb a slow season than a restaurant depending on walk-in dinner covers. That difference, between businesses that can flex around reduced sidewalk traffic and those that can't, is quietly shaping which storefronts make it to the ribbon-cutting.
What Opened Anyway
Not everything downtown has been on hold. Popovers Cafe opened this year at 219 N. Salem Street, run by Mustafa and Juliette Ozturk, serving sweet and savory popover pastries out of a space built around family recipes. A few doors down, Scratch Kitchen & Taproom continues to draw a crowd for its scratch-made Asian-American menu and patio seating, one of the anchor restaurants on Historic Downtown Apex's own list of what's open right now. West of downtown, Foxtail Coffee opened a second Apex location at Sweetwater Town Center on Richardson Road, giving the growing southwest side of town its own coffee stop instead of pulling everyone back toward Salem Street.
Downtown's merchant association has also leaned into the moment with the Peak Perks Passport, a new program that rewards shoppers for visiting participating stores with punches toward instant rewards and entry into a quarterly raffle. It's a direct response to the same problem Delgado and Seiger described: getting people to walk past the construction fencing instead of assuming downtown is closed. The town has repeated a specific number to make that case: about 67 cents of every dollar spent at a local business stays in Apex, supporting other local jobs, according to the town's own downtown messaging.
The Parade Problem
Here's where the two threads of this story meet. Festa Italiana and the Latino Arts Festival work on the Town Hall Campus because a festival footprint can move. Vendors, a stage, a beer garden, and a kids' zone don't require a specific street. They require open, closable pavement, and Apex has that on Hunter Street and the Town Hall grounds.
A parade is a different animal. The Apex Rotary Christmas Parade has run down Salem Street for decades precisely because that's the corridor with storefronts on both sides, a natural viewing gallery for the floats and marching bands passing through. You can't relocate that experience to a parking lot the way you can a festival footprint. Local reporting this month noted that the parade may see significant route changes or float restrictions this year because of the ongoing construction, and given that the town's own timeline now stretches into December, that's not a hypothetical wrinkle. It's the direct result of a west side of Salem Street that's still mid-demolition as the parade's usual date approaches.
If you've been planning your December around a normal parade route, this is the moment to hold that plan loosely. The same project that gave festivals an easy workaround has left the one event that actually needs the street without one.
How to Actually Spend Downtown This Month
A few practical notes for anyone planning a Saturday or two around all of this:
- Parking: The Saunders Lot expansion added 152 spaces downtown, a 40 percent increase in capacity, and it's the easiest option during festival weekends when Town Hall lots fill for the event itself.
- Transit: GoApex Route 1 remains on detour through late 2026. GoCary Route 9, which started serving Apex last November, has its own stop on Center Street beside the Historic Apex Depot and isn't affected by the construction.
- Festa Italiana, September 19: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Town Hall Campus and Hunter Street. Free admission.
- Latino Arts & Culinary Festival, September 26: 3 to 7 p.m., Town Hall Campus, 73 Hunter Street.
- On Salem Street itself: sidewalks and every storefront remain open on both sides, even where the roadway is torn up. Businesses are asking people to keep coming, not to wait for December.
Apex is still Apex in the middle of all this, just rearranged for a season. Salem Street will get its trees, its pavers, and its string lighting eventually. Until then, the town has proven it can throw a good festival somewhere else entirely. What it hasn't figured out yet is what to do with a tradition that only works on the one street currently under a construction fence.
If you're watching how a place like Apex adapts under pressure and thinking about what that means for its neighborhoods, that's exactly the kind of on-the-ground read Dana Cantrell Realty brings to every conversation about buying or selling here. Let's Connect.
