Merthecat

How extensive are you thinking the improvements between Raleigh and Morehead City would need to be? Seems like street running in New Bern may be a barrier to expanding service unless there is a plan to reroute away from downtown.

So the sales tax was placed on the ballot, and voters rejected it 53-47: https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/11/09/new-hanover-election-voters-weigh-in-on-tax-increase/69612936007/

The Pitt-Greenville study mentioned above has been fully funded with $250,000 from NCDOT: https://www.reflector.com/news/local/pitt-greenville-passenger-rail-study-fully-funded/article_b99a47ee-efb4-5d10-9030-6a75314b297c.html

Yeah, coming from Wake County it's a very easy drive. Never took more than an hour and a half each way when I was going to school down there, but for a lot of college students a station in Uptown would probably be very convenient as it's walking distance to the ECU campus. I certainly would've taken advantage of the service although it would've taken longer when adding in time to drive to and from the Raleigh/Cary stations. Not too optimistic about the chances of this actually happening anytime soon but I really hope I'm wrong.

Yeah, it's an exciting project. They have construction fencing up around the site and I believe the first phase is underway, which involves renovating three historic warehouses. It's one of the first things you see heading into town on the 10th Street bridge so this will make quite an impact.

I think this building is about as tall as we'll get for some time. With the location of the airport just across the river it seems impractical that Greenville will ever see buildings much higher than this or some of the existing dorms at ECU.

Construction has broken ground on a new 8-story Hilton Garden Inn in Greenville, which will be the tallest building in Uptown when completed in 2023: http://www.piratemedia1.com/theeastcarolinian/article_94fe4a32-83ba-11ec-b2fa-c300fc50dd33.html

Owners of the Tower 7 building in downtown Wrightsville Beach want to bring apartments back to the upper floors of the building: https://portcitydaily.com/local-news/government/2021/12/27/future-plans-for-tower-7-building-moving-through-wrightsville-beach/

I completely forgot about this—I actually did a brief "what-if?" study on capping or removing the Belk Freeway this spring for a planning class. This has probably already been posted, but a cap was discussed about a decade ago and was estimated at $330m in 2013. That figure has surely skyrocketed since then. Here are some of my findings: As for removing the freeway entirely—between Clarkson St. and 7th St., the freeway right-of-way consumes approximately 116 acres. Based on per-acre property values on both sides of the freeway, I calculated rough estimates of what each right-of-way parcel would be worth if it were not tax-exempt. The total came to just over $458m, and this is a relatively conservative figure because it doesn't include the possibility of valuation increases as a result of the freeway's removal. While surely the freeway removal and new replacement infrastructure would be costly, there's a lot of value to be created here. The City would surely appreciate the increased tax revenue from these parcels. I used a Google MyMap to organize some of this, as well as visualize a possible street grid replacement. You can look at it here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1oemDbiWgXmZpMO_LViuXCFg3KEmVl9_T&usp=sharing

The City of Wilmington has endorsed one route alternative for the rail relocation project: https://portcitydaily.com/local-news/2021/11/23/new-route-pinned-for-wilmington-rail-realignment-only-crosses-1-road-instead-of-30-plus/

Small world! Let me know if you ever come back to visit! I'm about to finish my planning BS in May. Ready to get out of Brewster—it is currently under investigation for having contributed to multiple professor deaths from pancreatic cancer. But the rest of campus is great!

Greenville is booming. Great city to study Planning in! It's so neat to see all the new development springing up everywhere.

Salisbury's downtown is no joke. They've put a LOT of care and money into preserving their stock of historic buildings over the past few decades. I highly recommend giving it a visit, and it's great to see more investment take place!

Saw someone wearing a Charlotte FC t-shirt walking around on ECU's campus earlier today. Buzz is definitely spreading!

The 11th annual BlockWork event happened in Salisbury recently on the 600 and 700 blocks of S. Ellis St. This is such a cool event and I just love how it helps the community come together and invest in itself. https://salisburypost.com/2021/10/24/volunteers-focus-on-south-ellis-street-for-11th-annual-blockwork-program/

Now that Bell Tower Green is open in Downtown Salisbury, there are plans to find a tenant for the historic Wrenn House that was preserved on the site. It has been renovated so that it may now be marketed for a restaurant to help serve park patrons. The park is owned by the City, but the Wrenn House will remain owned by the park association with plans to return revenues from the restaurant back to the park's maintenance and improvement. The only trouble now is finding a tenant during a pandemic and labour shortage . . . https://salisburypost.com/2021/10/22/renting-out-wrenn-house-is-next-on-menu-for-bell-tower-green-park/

Salisbury also considering creating a "social district" for alcohol consumption, following the new state law that Kannapolis has already taken advantage of: https://salisburypost.com/2021/10/06/salisbury-exploring-creation-of-downtown-social-district-for-outdoor-alcohol-consumption/

Raleigh is actually in the process of amending the street cross sections contained in their Unified Development Ordinance to include more of these lanes in the future. If approved by City Council they would become the standard on most new streets. You can see what it would look like in this text change document from the Planning Commission: https://cityofraleigh0drupal.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/drupal-prod/COR22/TC-03-21.pdf

Finally found the full dataset for the UNC System. UNC Charlotte saw 1% growth from last year, bringing its total to the aforementioned 30,448. However, that wasn't enough for it to maintain its 2nd-place position in total enrollment, as UNC Chapel Hill saw the biggest growth in the system at 5.1% and soared past Charlotte to 31,641. Other schools with strong growth included App State, NCA&T, and UNCSA. ECU, NCCU, UNCA, UNCG, and WCU all lost students. The system overall grew by 0.8% to 244,492. Total Enrollment Fall 2020 Census Fall 2021 Census Percent Change ASU 20,023 20,641 3.1% ECU 28,798 28,005 -2.8% ECSU 2,002 2,054 2.6% FSU 6,726 6,754 0.4% NC A&T 12,753 13,322 4.5% NCCU 8,078 7,953 -1.5% NC State 36,042 36,831 2.2% UNCA 3,363 3,233 -3.9% UNC-CH 30,092 31,641 5.1% UNCC 30,146 30,448 1.0% UNCG 19,764 19,038 -3.7% UNCP 8,262 8,319 0.7% UNCW 17,915 18,031 0.6% UNCSA 1,070 1,119 4.6% WCU 12,243 11,877 -3.0% WSSU 5,169 5,226 1.1% UNC System 242,446 244,492 0.8%

Construction just kicked off on a 10-room boutique hotel in little Washington. It's called the Main Street Inn and will be located on a vacant lot between the Bank Bistro and Salon 208, which is owned by the developer. Washington is a great town and this is only going to make it better. Excited to see what else is in store for the area! https://www.thewashingtondailynews.com/2021/09/10/groundbreaking-ceremony-kicks-off-construction-of-main-street-inn/

They missed several on the Asheville-Salisbury route as well. Montreat, Warren Wilson, and Lenoir-Rhyne all got left out.

The construction of a new passenger tunnel and platform at Salisbury Station was approved by the City's Historic Preservation Commission: https://salisburypost.com/2021/08/13/hpc-approves-platform-tunnel-installation-at-train-station-new-street-light-near-fame/ They elected to build a tunnel rather than a bridge, which some feared would overwhelm the historic station. The new additions are set to be designed to fit in with the Mission-style architecture of the old building, which is great. Design is currently at about 60%, and another staff review will be completed before construction bids start coming in.

$200m high-tech sawmill coming to Weldon in Halifax County. Roseburg Forest Products plans to start construction next year on a 375,000 square foot facility that will employ over 100 people. The jobs will have an average salary of $50,000, well above the countywide average of $34,000. This is huge for the region. https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2021/07/27/roseburg-forest-products-halifax-county-sawmill.html

If I recall correctly, CPCC did a survey 2-3 years ago gauging interest in such a thing. However, I never heard any results and I'm not a student there anymore so I don't know what the school's position is.

This is a great project. Downtown Wilson has so much potential, especially with the city having gigabit fiber internet service. Also, it looks like this is the site of the old BB&T building that was recently imploded. Glad to see it's being redeveloped fairly quickly.