dmccall

Is it a badly-drawn rectangle or a twisted trapezoid? (Please be a twisted trapezoid)

Thanks for posting all of these pics in the various topics!

CBS is reporting that the Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes NHL hockey players were told that the team will be moving to Salt Lake City. That city has the 2034 Winter Olympics coming, and presumably a new arena for the team will be a part of the new facilities plan for SLC. That is a lot of public money focus for a city that has 78% of the population that Raleigh has (according to KJHburg's post). SLC is in the process of rebuilding their airport for $4.1 billion. While much of that funding is from Delta, the federal government, and bonds, it still begs the question of how many resources SLC has for something like a MLB stadium in the next 5 years. On 2/28/24 the Utah legislature approved funding for moving forward with plans for an MLB stadium in SLC.

The Carolina Hurricanes just finished the regular season with their 61st-straight sellout game. After 9-straight seasons of missing the playoffs, MLB Raleigh bid leader, Tom Dundon, became the majority owner of the Hurricanes franchise. Since then the club has since made 6 straight playoffs with 2 final four appearances. Certainly the strength of this prospective owner is being noticed by those evaluating MLB expansion bids.

John Kane will spearhead the stadium effort at Downtown South, and the team, of course, will be named the "Kanes", creating utter confusion.

Thanks for remembering, rufus! I completely agree about Crabtree. I was at Crabtree a few years ago and it hit me that nearly everything for sale there is clothes. Back before 2000, that mall had a huge array of items: electronics, home furnishings, cooking, good gift shops, sporting goods, an arcade, toy stores, etc. Given that Madewell and J Crew seem to be moving to North Hills' newest area, here's a discussion point: If Crabtree closed today, where would those retailers end up? Lego, Forever 21, H&M, Apple, Altar'dState, Brooks Brothers, Coach, J Jill, The North Face, and Tommy Bahama are 10 prized retailers that would probably still want a brick&mortar presence in this side of the Triangle. Would Fenton expand and take them all? Would North Hills get them all? Where? in the North Hills East expansion?

Here is a video I made 1/2/2003 driving around North Hills mall just before demolition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYyYRN9F21Q

Not to derail this to the subject of Crabtree any more, but in 2003 I sent the mall manager a letter with an expansion concept that would replace the plaza building (where Barnes and Noble and Best Buy are) with a "street" (like Southpoint has) on top of expanded parking garage. There would be offices or residences above the retail, and a theater and/or hotel at the end. I never heard back from them (like I did from John Kane 3 years prior). We are lucky that North Hills was done by a local. The multiple, out-of-town Crabtree owners ever since seemed to be happy watching it fade away. I always wondered if they ever gave my idea any consideration, and if so, what spooked them? I still wonder if it even would have been a smart move to begin with. It's so close to North Hills in the eyes of people in the outskirts of Wake County. At least Fenton really stands as a replacement for Cary Town Center. If Crabtree had gone on the offensive like this, what would the impact have been on North Hills and Fenton? I even ponder what North Hills would have been had Neil Coker been able to do his project at Wake/Oberlin in the '90s. The first image blocks the main buildings, as viewed from above, and the second is a rendering of what it would look like looking east, down that garage-top mall, when exiting the mall's second level at Belk (H).

I kinda like these two buildings, architecturally. Bath is just a weird, odd building, and it was kind of nice to see a government try something that isn't cookie cutter. The Administration Building has always seemed like a handsome, well-scaled building. One aspect of this is that Paul Coble, who is heading up the project, is a skin-and-bones spender, doing everything on-the-cheap. He says he doesn't want to incorporate any private businesses on the ground floor of these projects to keep things simple. Therefore the NE quadrant of downtown will remain a vacuole to the downtown lifestyle. It will be functional from 8-5 weekdays, but a ghost town the rest of the time. Seems like the smarter way to use that land would be to incorporate destinations that people want in those dead hours, and share, or even profit from, the parking.

Is Atlanta dead or is it just this board? Are there any construction cameras on the 1072 Peachtree project?

I posted that because I think it is going to be several years before that project breaks ground.

Of note (possibly).. John Kane is 71 years old. I don't know how much of the show Mike Smith (mid-50s) is running now.

I really had no idea that Tunstall-Williams (auto body shop) backed up that closely to Lake Wheeler Road, and that the other project down S. Saunders was that close to completion. Thanks for posting this.

I went 2d ago and it has to be the messiest construction projects I remember in Raleigh. Clancy & Theys and the City of Raleigh need to help out the businesses have been thriving back in there for years during all this.

Can't remember if I posted this earlier, but the loading dock behind where Five Star was, at Hargett and the RR crossing, is where they filmed the people in The Connells' "74-75" video.