JeffC

per this Luke Decock column in N&O, Malik has partnered up with John Kane (strong Republican ties) to be able to offer the General Assembly a couple of new Kane-built towers to replace Archdale and Dobbs Building (which houses the Utilities Commission, and also has vacancy since Dept. of Insurance left for the newly renovated Albemarle Building across Salisbury). Article refers to fact that they were far along enough in discussions with STate Government to name this as the preferred site. I will say I have never seen this particular site used this way in any long term master plan document. I knew that McCrory had proposed selling off the State Government training center (drab building on Peace across street from SEaboard Station). The real tricky part of this proposal will be the parking, because it is already a bear down here when the Legislature is in session, and it looks like some major state employee parking facilities would be impacted (for starters, the underground parking deck that stretches from the basement of the Archdale Building all the way to the Legislative Building, and that houses the parking for most of the employees working in the existing State Government buildings you see in the rendering--Revenue Building in foreground, DPI building behind it, and the Legislative Office Building across Halifax mall from the DPI building). THose issues can easily be dealt with if there is lots of $$ and a fair amount of buyin from the Legislature. I hope they didn't make the mistake of only dealing with Dept. of Administration and the Cooper Administration, because Phil Berger and Tim Moore are the two folks who must be on board, or this is DOA.

The hideous 1970s vintage skyscaper is the Archdale Building. It was formerly the home of DEQ, but I believe all environmental stuff has moved up Salisbury to Green Square. I think that building may be partially vacant...Department of Public Safety is the only tenant, unless they've moved some odd agency group in there since DEQ decamped. I have heard that Archdale is in really bad shape(maybe bad enough that it was slated for demolition anyway,..)

Hard to tell much detail from that drawing, but the site is adjacent to an enormous State Government parking deck. Looks like they'd actually have to tear down half of it to get the stadium in there. They would also have to move the historic Seaboard Railroad building (the big red brick one with all the cast iron railings on Salisbury Street), but it's already been done once, so I guess they could do it again...

That parcel is big enough, but allowing anyone to build a stadium there without a 440 interchange should be grounds for immediate removal from office for any public official who approves such a scheme. I'm fairly sure the upper middle class neighborhoods in Quail Hollow and along Hardimont (just north of that parcel) will fight this tooth and nail. Plus there is a blue line stream (Big Branch) running right through the middle of the parcel and given that the city's spent millions remediating and preventing flooding upstream from there, more impervious surfaces along that creek would probably cause significant impacts downstream (particularly since Big Branch dumps into Crabtree Creek behind all those auto dealerships along Wake Forest Road that always flood whenever we have more than 3 inches of rain in a day...

re: soccer stadium, I've heard North HIlls mentioned as a site...but where in the world in NOrth Hills is there enough land to build an athletics facility of that size. And without it's own interchange with 440, the traffic in that area (already bad) would become a #$%^ nightmare...

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article120856513.html N&O article about brownfields agreement that article claims made this development possible...

Can you elaborate? What's the problem with the technology?

Jones, is the Kimbrell's building a beautiful older building that had an ugly 1960's era facade attached (like the Death and Taxes building)?

I was thinking how seedy that strip of businesses on Peace is between Boylan and St. Marys as I drove through the other day. I guess it was inevitable that it would become an extension of Glenwood South...

How does BRT work in built out urban corridors where you can't really add dedicated bus lanes? Does the bus sit in traffic with everyone else in that scenario? How is that an improvement?

^ Thanks. It looks like this "new" road will probably be built right on the original road bed of Avent Ferry. Thanks for the cross reference. I had always thought Avent Ferry was a crossing of Swift Creek. But if you look at Google maps, you can trace its path all the way down to the Cape Fear. You can see where part of Jones Franklin north and south of Tryon clearly used to be Avent Ferry.

is it just me, or does this road extension recreate the old "Avent Ford Road" that we see on really old maps of the area? (Avent Ferry being squared up with Merrill Drive is a post 1950's realignment--Is it Ashe Avenue up to Hillsborough that was the original Avent Ford Road?

One of the site diagrams noted the old road bed. Wonder when road was re-aligned?

BTW, I highly recommend the entire Crabtree Jones archaeology report if you are into history. The most interesting thing they found was over 10 cubic feet of discarded glassware and ceramics underneath the house, that was evidently all deposited at once at some point prior to the house's foundation being bricked in at some point in early 20th century. They can't figure out why, other than when guy who was grandson of Crabtree Jones died in 1915, his widow was 30 years younger than him, and they speculate that she "cleaned house" and got rid of lots of old/mismatched "junk" that now has yielded an archaeological treasure. But the mystery is, why did she throw it all under the house and brick the foundation up? Why not just haul off to the dump??

Hey Jones, re: the location of "Whitaker's Mill". Either there are two Mills given that name, or the 1878 Fendol Bevers map is wrong. I was looking at the archaeology report PNC commissioned for the move of the Crabtree Jones house: https://www.presnc.org/files/2013/12/crabtree_jones_archaeology_report_part1.pdf Look at Figure 3.1, which is a blowup of the part of the Fendol Bevers map showing that house. Whitaker's Mill on that map is about where Lake Boone was. The mill that Whitaker Mill Road would have led to is just labeled "powder mill" (the report discusses this mill extensively, and makes no mention of it ever being called Whitaker's Mill). What gives?

"the old Tarboro Road"= Route of Milburnie Road, at least inside the Beltline. Right?

Could that road leading to the Taylor farms and crossing Pigeon House Branch be the original Whitaker Mill Road? Or are we certain Whitaker Mill was on Crabtree Creek?

Jones, if you overlay google maps, you can see that the redoubt, based on the lay of the creek, railroad, and the Mordecai House, was at the southern end of Courtland, where it merges with Mordecai drive. The condos at the North end of Courtland appear to be beyond the fortifications, as laid out on that map. BTW, I have a friend and Civil War Buff who lives in that neighborhood, and he said folks have told him that there is some sort of remnant of fortifications behind that adult book store on Capital Blvd...But that is way off the north end of the fortification map...

looking back through the thread today, and, boy, am I glad I was wrong about the Ell building. I think they've actually done a pretty good job on it.

If you look at Google maps, Old Garner Road, which would have been the main road through Garner (did Garner exist in 1865?) and on to Smithfield, where Sherman was advancing from, descends into the Walnut Creek flood plain just south of Peterson Street (the road you turn off of Old Garner to go to Walnut Creek Wetlands Center) . That lines up well with the plateau between Walnut and Rocky Branch that you mention. Of course the bridge over Rocky Branch leading to the "Insane Asylum" is where General Logan turned back his own men as they marched on Raleigh to burn it after Lincoln's assassination. I guess the 150th anniversary of that is later this week, since today (tonight) is anniversary of assassination. Not sure exactly where that bridge was. " there was a huge redoubt at Courtland/WakeForest that when those townhouses were just built, a cut in the hill for a foundation revealed an obvious trench that had been dug out and filled back in with its own eroded embankment. " Did you take any pictures of the old trench revealed by the excavation?

How ironic is it that the area they designated as "Heritage Square" (two blocks bounded by Edenton, Jones, Wilmington and Person) they systematically bought, tore down everything, and those two blocks are parking lots to this day (except for Haywood House, whose owner told the State basically to shove it), and the recently completed State Bar building.

In honor of today being the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Raleigh to Sherman, I post this article that (for some reason) has been posted on the website for the Town of Clinton: http://www.clintonnc.com/news/news/3650306/Raleigh-surrenders-to-General-Sherman (Part 1) http://clintonnc.com/news/news/3650343/Raleigh-surrenders-to-General-Sherman (Part 2) Jones, we've all seen the historical marker in Mordecai on Wake Forest road about the fortifications north of the city...but where were those fortifications on Old Garner Road guarding the Southern approaches to the city that the article references? I'd bet money they were along the banks of Walnut Creek, but I've never seen any traces of them down there. Here is another story on General Logan saving Raleigh from being torched by standing down his own men at the bottom of Lake Wheeler Road, where it crosses Rocky Branch... http://wkrn.membercenter.worldnow.com/story/28783611/surrender-of-raleigh-saw-a-rebel-hanged-union-general-save-the-city

I used to attend meetings at this church (St. Johns), and they told us the house was basically off limits because it was in such poor shape. The church basically let it deteriorate to the point where it could not be saved.

Ugh, is there a higher concentration of bland, institutional architecture anywhere in the city? Is there a single building on that campus OTHER than the Hunt Library that anyone thinks will appear in coffee table books about Raleigh landmarks published 50 years from now (heck, even 20 years from now...)

Boy this thread has gone dead compared to 4 or 5 years ago...Bad economy I guess? Couple of questions: (1) what happened to the Raleigh Ale House that was supposed to go into Glenwood South in the old Pine State Office Building? (2) did Wilmore Cafe close? glad Ashley Christiansen is picking it up, but I really liked the Cafe and a shame it didn't make it (the fact that vagrants hanging out in the bus station courtyard that the place overlooked ruined any chances of customers using their outdoor dining area probably didn't help)