Euphorius

111 Seaboard is being converted to retail. Article is here

The corner of Clark and Oberlin is where the sign for Cameron Village sits now. If they can integrate a really nice new sign with maybe a water feature background as a part of the retaining wall it won't bother me so much. It would add some visual interest at the street level and would definitely be better than a big blank wall. I seriously doubt they will make any significant changes to their plan though.

The newly refurbished color wall will be lit tonight at 8p.m. and will be lit every day from sunset to sunrise. You can check out the full story about it here

The first thing I thought of is stop referring to Cary as a town. I honestly don't think Cary will ever be anything besides what it is today, an overgrown and homogenized suburb with cul de sacs out the wazoo and parking lots within parking lots.

Did any of you guys happen to catch Gary and Tony Have a Baby? The surrogate is apparently from a rural area outside Charlotte. They showed the Charlotte skyline and the courthouse.

I thought this was an interesting article on spending. Raleigh comes in at #6. link

It's true. You can get food pretty late at night in downtown. Of course, if you don't leave the club until 3-3:30am pickings are pretty slim. The old Joe's Place spot would be perfect for a 24/7 diner. Second Empire is supposed to be opening a bake shop in the building next door. A good friend of mine is the asst pastry chef there and can't wait for the bake shop to open.

Legends has been open for 16 years and The CC has been open for 33 years. Flex opened after The Fallout Shelter closed a little before I moved here in '99. As far as I can remember the Alliance of Aids Services has been in the Warehouse District as long as I have been here, and White Rabbit wasn't too far away when they were still on Martin Street. Things used to be kinda wild in the Warehouse District back in the late 90's early 00's. I lived at the corner of Hargett and Boylan and seen lots of things go on that would certainly land you a front page spot in The Slammer now. It seemed like it was very rare to see police cruising the area back then. Wicked Smile, now 5 Star, almost always had a group of party kids either waiting to get in or just partying it up in the street. It was not uncommon to see transsexual or male prostitutes walking in the blocks around the gay clubs. Things have changed quite a bit since then. It isn't nearly as wild. The CC, which was a gay Country/Western bar when it first opened, has had several different reincarnations. For a while it was mainly the 30+ crowd, and now it is mainly a black and latino crowd. They have Hip Hop night on Thursdays and Latino night on Fridays with all the other nights being a pretty good mix of people. Legends has added on a couple times. First they opened The View, the video bar section of the club. The View was followed by the opening of the game room. Then, lastly, The Spotlight Theater opened as the new home for drag shows and bingo. Flex has pretty much stayed the same. They cater to the bears/leather crowd and have the popular Trailer Park Prize night with campy drag. Obviously The Warehouse District is no Castro, but it's a decent start. I just wish there were a few more late night eateries and/or coffee shops in the area.

I came across this story today and thought some of you might be interested. I'm 100% sure there are people of other religions than Christianity in Forsyth County. Link

I looked at the construction site of this development in SLC back in 2008 when I was there. Honestly, I don't like the plans at all. While it is a good idea bringing additional retail to their downtown, did they have to make it a pedestrian mall? That seems so 1970's to me. Charlotte could do way better than that! I think the main thing keeping major retail from locating in urban locations is the fact that there are plenty of air conditioned/heated indoor malls with an established client base that desire to keep the retail right where it is ....inside the malls.

I don't think anyone has posted this here yet. I was driving by The Wilmont the other day and noticed a sign about renovations. Here is the link.

Probably so Jones. The fact that they had over 500 complaints to the attorney generals office is just crazy. The personal training company that contracted with them was shady as well and also had tons of complaints to the attorney generals office. When me and my parnter went to cancel our memberships yesterday there were agents from Lifestyle family fitness all over the place letting people know that they were going to honor Peak contracts. It's sad that that space will be empty for a while. But surely something else will come along soon and fill it. It is a great building.

My old trainer said that they have been making money. They just haven't been paying their rent. They haven't paid their rent since October. Very poor business plan. I hate that there will no longer be a gym there. But, that gym had went to pot.

Charlotte is a nice place but it is hardly in the same catergory with Atlanta and Houston.

I think the estimate came in at 12.5 million and the actual bid that won was around 9 or 10 million. They definitely got a good deal. I am so happy that it is finally starting. I wonder how long it will be before the rest of the street gets a makeover. The section that is not getting the makeover is the section that needs it the most.

Oh no! I really hope the owners fix it up. I would hate to see that building get torn down. It has such charm.

While I was at the International Festival in the new convention center there was a booth that sponsered, I think, by the DRA. They had displays of future projects and the WYE was one of them. They had a massing of the buildings and what that general area would look like once the WYE is built. It was quite impressive. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find that image online, and did not have my camera there with me at the time to take a photo. The whole area around Hargett and West was full of 5-10 story buildings.

There are airplanes that use significantly less fuel than typical planes. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner uses 20% less fuel than similarly sized planes. You can read about it here.

Speaking of the Busy Bee...I just got a look at their menu yesterday. It is stuff that you could find at other places. But, with a twist. The head chef used to the chef for The Mint. Their interior space is awesome. The store front doesn't look like the old Busy Bee, which was in that exact same location, but it's cute.

The Raleigh Downtowner is reporting that there are now over 280 street level shops, restaurants, and service oriented businesses operating in downtown with 96% of those businesses being independently owned and operated. They also reported that there were 111 condo units sold during the 4th quarter of 2008. Those numbers sound pretty good to me considering that only a couple years ago Meeker was saying there were over 150 street level businesses in downtown.

Thanks for that tid bit Orulz. It is nice to know that an active developer owns that property, and even better that it is a local one who has done a boat load of good in downtown.

I live in Five Points and my partner has a part time job at Third Place. They started closing early because of several reasons. The night staff was giving stuff away to their friends, and the people hanging out there at night were not purchasing much of anything. They are talking about extending their hours again. Back on topic...I really wish someone would do something with that empty land around the Clarion. I would even be happy with a little pocket park. As it is now it looks really bad. Dawson is taking shape further south with Park Deveraux, Dawson on Morgan, and Hue. If that area by the Clarion were more attractive, and the big hole where the Reynolds' were hoping to build something had a project actually being built there, Dawson street would be pretty snazzy...even if people fly down that street.

I do think it is good that CTC is using their existing land to build outparcels. But, could the parking lots be any more confusing? It seems like each of the outparcels has it's own little parking lot that is divided from the rest of the sea of parking by little landscaped medians. When you couple that with the way people drive around there, it makes for a very unpleasant experience for me.