Euphorius

Am I the only one remembering what was originally planned to go on this site? To me, this seems like another letdown.

It could be for the apartment tower. I just assumed it was for the new office building when I saw it. I also noticed how ugly the screening for the parking portion of the new BofA building is. Sucks for the people in Park&Market who have that view from their windows.

The new crane is for the Allscripts building.

The smaller residential building on the south side of Hargett is shown in this rendering. You can also see the tip top of the second residential building on the other side of Hargett in this rendering. It looks like they are both the same style, which is kind of lame.

And the downsizing begins. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article26705110.html Then there is this little nugget. This guy is really going all out. First he has an article written in the Indy, now he has made this video. https://vimeo.com/132927861

I think some of you are thinking the base of the apartment tower is a separate building. The roof of that base is what the courtyard and pool will be on.

I think there are ways to keep the industrial feel without limiting height to 5 or 6 floors. Kane just needs to keep the industrial feel at the street level. Look at Hue and Dawson. There is absolutely nothing industrial about either of those buildings. The Dillon warehouse that Kane wants to redevelop has an awful street level presence on Martin, and the West and Harrington sides aren't that much better. Is that really what people want to preserve?

The post about Kimbrell's building being sold has mysteriously disappeared from the New Raleigh Facebook page. Not sure what that means, but I'm thinking they either got it wrong or spilled the beans on something that was supposed to be kept secret.

I just hope they do something with the facade of the Kimbrell's building. That is one of the ugliest buildings on the street.

New Raleigh is reporting that the Kimbrell's building on Fayetteville St. has been sold and new retail is taking its place. Urban Outfitters is what they claim to be hearing. It seems like a big space for UO. Their stores are typically around 10k sq ft, and this building is 3x that.

I think BSC was approved as a master plan.

It looks like something that should be in Wakefield Plantation or Bedford @ Falls River. I saw an ad for these in a real estate new listings email the other day. They are asking $400k+ for these units.

I'm not misconstruing anything. I read the article. I'm not one of these basic people that read headlines then feel the need to comment on them. I think you are the one misconstruing what I'm saying. It seems like you are using the old zoning to justify the new zoning. I'm talking about the new zoning. Under the new zoning, developers can either build to the limits or face additional scrutiny. Yes, the additional scrutiny under the new code is the same approval process we see today. Yes, it will give developers more leeway on 4 downtown streets. But that's it. If a developer wants to build a tower outside of these narrow high rise districts or wants to exceed the height restrictions in the narrow high rise districts they will have to go through additional scrutiny, the same process they have to go through for anything over 6 stories under old zoning, which can drag on for months and months, and will be subjected to the NIMBYism we often see around here. It's about future potential. Most developers are in it for the money. They are not going to waste time going through a months long process when they could just build to code and get automatic approval. The cost of land in downtown is not so expensive that they will need to exceed these height restrictions. Until land values become so expensive that it requires them to go higher than allowed we will see very few if any buildings above these limits. But, like I said in my last post, that is probably not going to be an issue, because no developers are proposing anything taller than around 20 stories right now, and there has never been much interest in surpassing 40 stories around here.

I understood it to say the 20 story areas are only 2 blocks west of Fayetteville and along the downtown stretch of Hillsborough. And what happened to their idea of stepping down height on the lots in front of Duke Energy Center? If that is still in play, that wipes out 2 of the possible sites for a 40 story tower. Call me crazy, but I don't think developers are going to be willing to subject their projects to the additional scrutiny that will come with the special approval process. They will just limit the height of their projects to fit in with these restrictions. Wasted time is wasted money. Something tells me that the special approval process will be viewed as a waste of time by most developers. They would have to be dead set on building in downtown and dead set on exceeding the height restrictions to subject their proposals to the additional scrutiny and delays associated with a special approval process. At any rate, I don't think it's something to worry about. There has never been a building over 43 stories proposed in Raleigh, and that 43 story building wasn't even proposed for downtown. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

It would be absolutely tragic if Boylan Heights or Oakwood were demolished to make way for towers, but limiting the tallest structures to Fayetteville street seems like shooting yourself in the leg. A more appropriate high rise district would be from Wilmington to Harrington. That's just my personal opinion, though.

Do you guys think voters are going to approve dedicated BRT lanes on Capital and Western? It seems to me like most voters would feel like that is some kind of affront to their car obsessed world view, especially the voters out in the suburban and rural areas of the county.

But 2 of our 3 tallest are shorter than what this would allow, and the tallest is only 38 ft taller than the max allowed in the area designated for the tallest buildings. 500 ft will be allowed on Fayetteville without going through a special approval process, meaning these 500 ft buildings will not get extra scrutiny. They just have to adhere to the city's appearance guidelines. I just read the article again. I was mistaken in saying 40 stories/500 ft would be allowed on the 2 blocks west of Fayetteville. Those 2 blocks are going to be set at 20 stories. To me, this doesn't seem like common sense at all. There is absolutely no reason to restrict 40 stories/500 ft to only Fayetteville.

Sadly, the only developers that will be able to take advantage of this new 40 story approval process are developers with land on Fayetteville St. and only the 2 blocks west.

Rezoning of the old Reynolds tower site passed 6-2. http://www.wncn.com/story/28987390/city-council-approves-rezoning-could-allow-20-story-tower

Here's to hoping DHHS builds a new campus sooner rather than later.

I'm so glad something is finally being said about that.

This rapid rail concept is what has been studied here for 30 years. They're just using a different name to keep from pissing people off about wasting more money to come up with the same plan we've had for decades. Somehow I figured we would wind up back at this plan. All the planning experts here came up with this plan twice, and now Walker is promoting it. That seems to say it was a good plan from the start. This is almost the same plan that sat in Coble's desk for years without even being looked at. The only difference is that it now stops at Highwoods instead of going on up to Durant, which isn't really that much of a difference since TTA had pretty much signaled that they were going to cut most of the N. Raleigh stops years ago when they were trying to whittle down costs.

Saw this on the N&O site. They have a nice downtown housing development map with stats about each project. There is a rendering of West Apartments that I hadn't seen. It looks a little better than I was expecting. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article16508282.html

My perception of Charlotte has been formed from being a life long North Carolinian who grew up 45 minutes to an hour outside Charlotte. I've seen and heard the insults Charlotteans regularly hurl toward other cities throughout my entire life. I'm not just basing my perception off petty dislikes or one specific instance. It's been 34 years of hearing Charlotteans talk smack.

At least our newspaper doesn't publish such trash as the Raleigh bashing article that the Charlotte Observer printed. There is a reason people in the Triangle are defensive about that. 99% of the people I know in Charlotte are constantly bashing Raleigh. The last time I visited Charlotte was in 2008, and I will never go back. I was walking along Tryon, which was completely dead on a Saturday afternoon, when a woman and man came walking out of the Chamber of Commerce building. They were super nice at first... until the woman asked where I was from. I said Raleigh, and their whole demeanor changed instantly. The woman had the nerve to say "You couldn't pay me to live in Raleigh. It's a dump. I don't know why anybody would want to live there." That was just a snippet of all the things she said. I was flabbergasted, and immediately regretted the fact that I had just wasted my money on hotel nights, restaurants, and entertainment in a city where people have the nerve to say such hateful things to visitors. It would've been different if it had just been some random person on the street, but this was a situation with two employees of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. Not a good look.