Jones_

Not sure if anyone in this forum cares much but Capital Club 16 is closing for good on Friday April 26th. Thats a major blow to central downtown after 14 years of loyal lunch, brunch, dinner and special events like their famous Octoberfest dinners.

Pretty sure many republican candidates and the state party regularly use the north Raleigh Hilton for election watch parties and such. Been a mainstay for a long time similar to the way the Sir Walter was for 30 some odd years in its heyday.

Right, the actual location is very ambiguous. Tucker and West is that sliver on the east side of the tracks...was that part of the Creamery assemblage ? Or is the actual location just *near* Tucker and West on that parking lot south of the 610 parking deck?

I can't tell without diving into property records...is this on the east side of the the RR tracks or actually part of the Creamery block?

Noticed RUSBUS was going vertical today and the tower crane was starting to be built.

Not sure how i feel about all the retail being on the narrow alley for Signal and the next building to the west. In my head I was expecting storefronts to face Peace College. Another inward facing development like Smoky Hollow. Why is it so scary to create active streetscapes and keep doing this self contained stuff even in downtown? Giant let down.

The stone houses have already been saved once from the Western Blvd extension at Boylan Ave. They used to sit down by the creek.

DTR is going to quite an odd doughnut when the latest round gets built out. It'll be very very densely populated in a loop from Searboard, around and down the east side of Moore Square, looping down south of town to Dix, and up though the Warehouse District to Smoky Hollow. Then the giant central dead zone from government and church and banks will persist ad nauseam. Office life will remain practically non-existent while work from home people are depended on support places during the day. Certainly not the end point I saw coming when when NewRaleigh ushered in its wave back in early 200x.

I think they are following the chain store type places and the people who like that sort of thing. Target shoppers epitomize that sector. Downtown was trending completely locally owned and grown but that encountered two speed bumps, 1) big money killing off local ventures with shareholder profit requirements and 2) the pandemic. I think too much of the old rehab -able old buildings that small and local places love are gone for downtown to ever regain that vibe. The fringe areas can sustain that if its carefully curated.

Cool, thanks. Living up here now has me caring a lot more how it goes. There are two major clumps of development along 15-501 within Chapel Hill in this area, roughly defined as south of the Franklin St interchange and north of it. So far none of it is walkable...its all car dependent density though somewhat slightly high end. The souther part (Eastgate area) is essentially cemented as car dependent though Franklin St is nice-is along this part and I have walked some errands around there. The northern part is a blank canvas though, starting with the Wegmans. I sure hope the physical connections end up being made and don't end up like Durham's stretch of 15-501 which is somehow worse than Capital Blvd.

Kinda cool to see it cleared. Hasn't been a field since Joel Lane owned it.

Wouldn't trust Greystar to do anything but make themselves money. Smell a tad corrupt to me anyway after apparently landing prime State owned parcels not once, but twice in Raleigh without any RFP process (Elan City Center and off Pullen)

I guess any list of yeses, noes and maybes is confidential until the council meeting?

Interesting reading what others think the problems are. Having lived here for 3 years now I think its a simple problem of cohesiveness. There is no downtown. Its a strip with several other arteries leading to that strip and like three neighborhoods dangling off the periphery. The energy is all spread out in several directions. The biggest commercial area is way up north where Franlkin hits Fordham practically in Durham at that point. West Franklin Street is the coolest area up there and should be preserved at all costs and doesn't have the summer slowdown issues. Its more of an extension of Carrboro. Thats where the adults hang out. The kids stay down near the Columbia and Church stretch and all student oriented housing needs to stay down that way. Also Rosemary needs those big new buildings to have retail spots. Thats the only hope of making the Franklin strip a full block deep downtown and concentrate the energy a little better. Any innovation space or office space needs to be down in the student area along Rosemary to 1) offset kids leaving for the summer and 2) so as not to affect the coolness of west Franklin. That rehabbed office building is a good start.

Got it, thanks.