Roddy Jones, a longtime Triangle leader who was inducted into the Raleigh Hall of Fame in 2019, died Monday at the age of 88.
Jones was the son of Seby Jones, the president and chairman of Davidson and Jones Construction Company. Seby Jones cofounded the company in 1935 and was elected mayor of Raleigh in 1969, playing a major role in civic affairs in the region.
But his son, Roddy — smart, witty and engaging — made his own mark, both in business and in the community, and followed his father’s lead as someone with a deep commitment to the service.
In business, Roddy Jones shifted the company’s focus from residential to commercial building, a savvy move as the city was just beginning to rise.
The company led the construction of Crabtree Valley Mall (completed in 1972), the Raleigh Civic and Convention Center, the North Raleigh Hilton, Highwoods Business Park and the American Airlines terminal at RDU.
Jones was deeply involved in the launch of Highwoods Properties, which continues to play a major role in the city's commercial real estate scene.
While those projects are easy to take for granted now, Crabtree Valley was a gargantuan leap for a city with roughly 125,000 people at the time it opened and put a vast shopping area in what had been empty fields.
Jones' projects played a key role in lifting Raleigh from the small Southern town Jones grew up in to one that would play a leading role in the growth of North Carolina in the last half century.
And his smart, personable nature — and keen business sense — endured him to others such as Temple Sloan, Smedes York and Steve Stroud, who would play leading roles in the rise of the city.