Spatula

It's a bit bland but it's better than the earlier render, which had very poor scaling between the outside details and the structure itself, that made the whole thing look kinda tacky. If nothing else, it will make a huge contribution to the perceived size of the city from the convention center.

I consider anything that's not a matchbox a victory these days. It's all relative.

10 is completely fine for the site. This building is pretty far-removed from the other skyline-contributing buildings. Anyway, no shortage of other spaces in the area for something taller. I'm pretty happy to see a building that's not a matchstick apartment and has some architectural gravitas to it. Also I think it's totally irrational to compare projects from after 2008 to pie-in-the-sky proposals preceding the 2008 crash.

Beautiful, and a good size for the spot imo. This will have quite an impact, since the first block of Glenwood is very sad at the moment, and that's the main "entrance" to downtown coming from Hillsborough.

I agree. It's a fairly pretentious statement. There aren't any stand-out awesome Starchitecture towers downtown but most cities don't have any either. The architecture still compares very favorably to some cities like Richmond, Baltimore, New Orleans for instance... cities with a contamination of brown boxes, and even more favorably to Jacksonville, Memphis and Las Vegas--very unfortunate cities with outright ugly buildings taking prominence in their skylines. Plus, every building downtown has a different style. Personally I consider the Capital Bank Plaza my favorite unique structure in downtown. Sadly, and it pains me to say this, I think the Skyhouse is the best looking building. The street presence, the materials, the shape, and the way it lights up at night are all very appealing. Unfortunately the same identical building is in many other cities, so it's not something we can claim.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/j-michael-welton/in-raleigh-newtall-and-lo_b_8930920.html Huffpo article on the project with more renders. It's a bit bulky but the design is pretty tasteful otherwise. Like an improved Progress II basically.

The irony is that many people in Wake County voted for McCrory originally because they thought he spearheaded light rail in Charlotte.

I think a ferris wheel in Chavis or Pullen could be pretty fun, as far as observation decks go. A greenway connection cutting through downtown is long overdue, as well.

There are limits but the kind of stuff I'm talking about is fairly moderate compared to the level of control say, Portland exerts on developers. We can't have urban growth boundaries because that requires state cooperation, and the politics at the state level are simply not there. There are other things I could've suggested--having a height to width ratio in all new developments, to cut down on monolithic apartment blocks and encourage smaller (or taller) projects. That sort of thing surely would be impossible in the current political system. I think what I proposed was fairly reserved and pragmatic. Much of the workforce in RTP also lives ITB. That's a fact jack. I think the Red Hat method of getting a company into Centennial Campus, and then leaving the door open for them to shift into downtown later, could be a plausible method for moving a few others into downtown. The workforce connected to NCSU are largely ITB so companies relying on engineering grads, for instance, would have good reason to locate downtown. Just as you said there are people who live in the suburbs because there aren't other options currently--but who would live in a more urban place if they could, there are companies that moved to RTP when it was the only game in town who might prefer a more urban setting as well. Raleigh should put feelers out there. Durham already is doing this quite aggressively. As for the Village Subway... what are you talking about with regards to sustainable profit? The property is already there, accumulating property tax. The cost of making it comply with fire codes is minimal. It'd be chump change to add another tunnel entrance and upgrade the ceilings/sprinklers/handicap access. Cameron Village is a deadzone after 9 pm. It probably would generate more money if there were businesses that catered to a night crowd there. I think the reason the underground isn't reopening is more likely to be a function of Cameron Village's politics--it doesn't fit in with the owner's aesthetic. Otherwise there's a ton of support for reopening the place.

Well for starters, if I were a SimCity god or something, I would probably ban new wood structures in the mixed-use or commercial areas downtown. I'd require ground level retail space in all structures that contain residential or offices. That's not something the "pro-developer" camp would approve of. I'd remove any remaining height restrictions. That's not something the "pro-neighborhood" camp would approve of. I would try to lure specific enterprises downtown, some companies from RTP, some retail forms to fill needed gaps, as well as negotiating with Cameron Village to reopen and renovate the Village Subway. Since we're just listing things off... I don't like the plans for Moore Square. It looks like change for the sake of change. Until we can think of a plan that looks better, I'd just give the block a facelift, improve the lighting and walkways on it, and spend the rest of the money on more important things like improving the streetscape of critical pedestrian areas (Glenwood South first and foremost, then W Dave, W Martin, S Harrington, S West in the Warehouse District, and N Person street as well). Fairly certain I'd be unelectable for that (Disregarding the fact that I'm already several shades of unelectable for other reasons). That doesn't seem to be what the people of Raleigh want.

Raleigh just seems to have an unusually high percentage of people who hate urban development living in it. NIMBYs on the left (Stephenson) and a prevailing corporate preference for suburbs on the right (Odom). It seems like a percentage of people living there came from parts of major cities where the city was such a trauma, they associate anything resembling a major city with slums, industrial decay, pollution, etc and see the suburbs as the solution to this problem. Then they move downtown and complain about there being anything over 5 floors there. In addition there are long-time NC families that want to see Raleigh as it was in their childhood preserved in amber for all time, and any change is destructive change in their mind. This type of mentality exists across the nation. We have a strange love/hate relationship with building tall and dense.

It's easy to say that... but let's be real. If any of these banks wanted to plant a 40-floor headquarters downtown we'd all be gung-ho for it. I think with sufficient time, North Hills will eventually become a funky interesting place in its own right. I'd like to see that happen for some neighborhoods in North Raleigh.

Some very unfortunate news for downtown Raleigh. Bank of America is leaving for North Hills. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article33403020.html The silver lining to this dark tale is that BoA only had a few people left downtown. They were already gone except in name anyway. This won't be a huge loss in terms of workforce. One good thing to come of this is that Allscripts, currently in a suburban office park in north raleigh will be relocating to north hills as well, shifting 1000 workers over to the more urban setting.

That is pretty ambitious. I'll certainly take North Hills style development over sprawl outside 540 any day.

http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/180-minutes-wandering-downtown-on-night-one-of-raleighs-outdoor-drinking-crackdown/Content?oid=4663642 An update on the situation regarding the sidewalk permit restrictions. Looks pretty bleak.

Ah, was about to post that. I actually find that structure completely depressing. No ground retail? Another wooden 6 floor apartment cube? That thing looks completely tacky, like it belongs outside the beltline. A huge step down from what R+R could've put there.

Agreed. Frankly I'd send the Charter Square folks back to the drawing board for their North Tower, were it up to me.

Bike lanes, better sidewalks, and traffic calming in general are needed, all throughout Raleigh inside the beltline.

Kane should be held to high architectural standards. The image in the Indy fits the description in Kane's proposal to the letter, unfortunately. And that is pretty much the level of quality Kane's other projects have had up to this point, architecturally. I think that kind of skepticism is good to have actually. You can't give developers carte blanche. Good architecture comes from butting heads with them. The height is good, everything else isn't. I'm glad Kane is making adjustments and the council is trying to keep him accountable for putting something quality there. Raleigh can't afford anything but the best in that spot. This is what we should get. This 'propaganda' image, I guess you'd call it, should be the level of quality the council holds Kane to. Putting the parking deck in the middle instead of the end (like Kane's proposal) is vastly aesthetically superior. Putting the office on the end instead of a setback is also better, though I think that was caused by stupid zoning on the city's part more likely (and I think the folks in the Dawson would push for a setback, even though it makes it worse).

In the long (long) term I could see a spoke following Person street northwards up to Wake Forest/Capital Boulevard up to Atlantic perhaps. Hillsborough is also getting a secondary spoke branching off from it along Oberlin, past Cameron Village. The gaps in that are quickly closing.

I think that got bumped up to 11 floors and it would be visible from that angle, I just forgot about it! Here's another with the same 4 buildings plus that Residence Inn.

Raleigh with the proposed buildings built - 22 fl - Charter Square North 19 fl - Edison Office 20 fl - The Dillon 20 fl - 301 Hillsborough 13 fl - Hilton Garden Inn

I'm not so fond of Stanhope. The height isn't the problem... everything else about it is. It's too monotonous and bland. The renders for the Dillon look great though.

Seems simple enough to work around. Light rail can be tied to some other form of tax. Of course if they tried creating a municipal income tax (which is what I'd prefer anyway) I'm sure the GA would go bananas.

My main fear is that they've scared enough people out of the state to permanently seal the fate of its politics. I know three people who left in 2014, and I heard UNC's faculty retention rate was unusually poor in 2013/2014. Reminder that Thom Tillis, the speaker of the house during those years, won a statewide election without any help from gerrymandering. North Carolinians saw what was happening those years and decided that's what they wanted. Sure, the youth vote didn't show up, but if what happened in 2013/2014 wasn't enough to motivate them nothing will be.