A week before Christmas, Logan’s Garden Shop is filled with Raleigh locals taking advantage of last-minute sales on evergreen wreaths, vivid red poinsettias, and carefully crafted ornaments. It’s a warm oasis on a chilly winter day, as neighbors exchange greetings, ask after the kids and pets, and sip hot chocolate.
Although Logan’s won’t be emptied of its thousands of plants, trees, and flowers until late February, some longtime customers are already reminiscing about the good old days at Seaboard Station.
“The little café was my favorite place to come when I was working downtown, because you could relax with a nice lunch and you were surrounded by all these beautiful flowers and plants,” says longtime Raleigh resident Linda Povlich, now retired. “That was always real special.”
Like many local businesses, Logan’s is feeling the impact of new construction and growth, which came to its aging historic neighborhood in 2022. Many upscale businesses have opened around Seaboard Station since the garden shop first moved into the old train station in 1991, but two years ago, Hoffman and Associates began a major redevelopment project to finish the transformation of the once-derelict district into a “downtown destination.”
Since 2022, developers have built three new apartment buildings and a hotel with a rooftop bar in the area, catering to residents who want to live upstairs from the dessert shop selling gluten-free macarons and the fancy new fitness center open seven days a week. Once Logan’s moves out, construction is slated to start on two more apartment towers up to 20 stories tall.
When it became clear that Logan’s long-term future was in jeopardy, third-generation co-owner Joshua Logan chose to sell his family’s nearly three-acre property and look for opportunities elsewhere rather than fight what would likely be a losing commercial battle. Although it was nerve-wracking facing such uncertainty, Joshua’s faith that “everything happens for a reason” paid off, he says.
In 2023, more than a year after Logan’s started looking for a new home, Joshua got word that there was an opening at the State Farmers Market—in a circular building behind the Farmers Market Restaurant that most recently housed another garden center, Market Imports.
“It was not by design … [but] we are returning to our roots with this move,” Joshua says, explaining that Logan’s first opened at the original Farmers Market on Hodges Street in 1965.
“My grandfather actually worked that deal out the way deals used to be done, by a handshake with Jim Graham,” he adds. “Logan’s was the first-ever permanent, year-round vendor at the Farmers Market.”
Now, 60 years later, Logan’s relocation to the new Farmers Market is the start of a new chapter for the legacy business. In the past year, the garden shop has opened two new branches, in Fuquay-Varina and Knightdale. And, just across the street from dozens of stalls selling fresh produce, Logan’s new Raleigh location will be a seamless addition to the landscape—likely to become an essential stop for the thousands of people who visit every week.
“People kind of make a weekend project out of a visit to the garden center,” Joshua says. “She’s got a garden project, and he’s got a home improvement project. We want to provide a destination where people can visit as a household and check everything off their list.”
As a part of that effort, Joshua is adding basic hardware and around-the-house tools to the garden shop’s inventory. The equipment will surely be a welcome addition for couples and families who already prioritize a visit to the garden shop every Saturday, like longtime customer Eleanor Babb and her husband, Ken.
Where Eleanor is the gardener of the family—buying bedding plants in the spring, vegetables in the summer, and bulbs in the fall—Ken is the “laborer,” he interjects with a chuckle. Both are happy the doors of Logan’s Garden Shop will stay open, even in a new location.
With renovations and improvements ongoing, the garden shop’s shiny new building is expected to welcome its first customers at the beginning of March, although there’s not a set date because construction could be subject to weather delays, says Joshua. The big move-out process is set to start after Valentine’s Day, he adds.
Although uncertainty has loomed over the business in the past few years, the year ahead is looking as bright and hopeful as the first blooms of spring.
“Change is a part of life,” Joshua says. “As a plant person, if you observe nature, if you observe living things, they adapt. We feel like businesses are much the same. It all comes down to a choice. Do you resist change and wither, or do you accept change [and grow]?”
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