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.

Got any site plans or something I can look at? The only article I read said Salisbury to Wilmington which would block the view.

This site is actually a somewhat cool old warehouse type building with a small food court in the rear. I personally think this is the scale and character that make Chapel Hill cool and especially since this is west Franklin, a 9 building will absolutely begin the process of crushing all of that character. The lame ass modern buildings are creeping further west and that is an awful thing.

So the Omni is going to block the view between the Capitol and Memorial? Not sure that's a good move. For a city with relatively few 'thats cool' items, the book ends of a Greek revival Capitol and a Classical revival performing arts center are among the best tandem building sets I can think of in the SE. Akin to the US Capitol and Lincoln Memorial tandem on a smaller and less renowned scale.

Sounds right but if that was 20 years ago, dang i'm old. FWIW, University Mall in Chapel Hill is adding a large apartment building to its parking lot and other outparcel where it used to be just parking lot. The size of the two shopping areas are similar size (286k for Waverly and 350 at buildout for University Square) so you can get an idea of feel. There is a site plan if you drill down.

For what its worth, the chatter is again to move offices out near the fairgrounds. Parts of DEQ are looking to be moved so make space for DPS in Archdale (the DEQ that won't fit in Green Square. the borg and the Admin building are on the chopping block, with Admin being a rebuild (that would take a few years) and the borg future plan unknown. so no net gain for downtown but a substantial reconfiguration nonetheless. Always a hope to sell off to more private projects since State employees mostly don't want to be downtown (a few do like me, but most never leave the campus) and therefore contribute little to downtown spending and such. They just require several half empty parking decks taking up space that that could be used better.

119 Bennet Way

Phase 2 looks good. Does it front Dupont or Cabarrus?

The style of the Creamery is Art Deco and I agree it'd be easy to and the developers would do well to figure out some Art Deco features to use on their glass blocks. It doesn't have to be the Chrysler Building but something like Hearst/Truist in Charlotte would feel more natural next to the old girl.

I think the scaling up is to cover the cost increase for materials and labor that continue unabated. Nobody is scaling back of course because tangible indicators are not yet here but anecdotes abound that the population at-large cannot continue to afford only luxury apartments. You don't have to walk past too many new apartment buildings downtown to see with your own eyes that they are not filling up very fast at all. Seems like, soon enough, returns will show that as well. Other 'older' places like Elan-Downtown clearly have shifted some sort of gear as the folks hanging out on porches no longer appear to be 'young tech industry' types. Are some units cheeper now? Is section 8 being accepted? Is credit worthiness less strict? They are painting the exterior already in an attempt to maintain the upscale illusion. I hope its a soft landing but feels more like a crash from an investors POV is looming.

That 'eyesore' are crucial organic affordable apartments in the center of the city. RAlEiGh IS tOo eXpenSIvE!! but lets tear down affordable stuff cause EYESORE!.