Hillsborough Street - NCSU Area developments

[ChiefJoJo]

Some new information on the Hillsborough St project and substantial effort has taken place towards the creation of a Business Improvement District (BID) for the Hillsborough St corridor. The BID would create a fund by local businesses to improve the area in several ways (similar to the downtown BID that created the DRA):

• Safety and Security
  
• Maintenance and Management
  
• Marketing & Promotion
  
• Business Development
  
• Advocacy
  

Some notes on the street project from the Aug project newsletter (some of these items may be resolved at this point):

• potential for a streetscape theme, possibly WWI (NCSU Bell Tower) and or "green" based to encourage recycling, walking, etc
  
• use of low-power LED streetlights
  
• potential use of special colored pedestrian crosswalk polymer for better visibility
  
• 7-ft wide raised median (brick pavers) for ped refuge and to restrict vehicle left turns in some spots
  
• benches & bike racks along the sidewalks and 16-foot-wide travel lane shared by bicyclists and cars
  
• brick sidewalk pavers, new street trees, and plantings in roundabouts and new Pullen entryway
  
• construction planned to begin in April/May and end Dec 2008
  

Here is a link to the street design plans (note the streetscaping plan which shows the location of lighting, parking, ped signals, landscaping, trees, etc). I'd love to see some type of monument erected in the main roundabout at Pullen.

I think the latest design will produce an attractive, safe complete street, but ultimately the overall plan for envigorating the street will only work so long as the BID is formed and some of the property owners (NCSU, Valentine) redevelop some of their parcels, such as the North Hall dorm and the potential Stanhope project. It is nice to see this finally making progress after all these years.

[Jones_]

Speaking of Valentine....I think its obvious how much he cares about anything but his pocketbook based on his approach to the seven collapsing houses (1 yellow one on Hillsborough and 6 back in Stanhope) they are all just falling apart with no obvious maintenance done for years....the City has boarded them up and assmume will tear them down soon. He must be loaded with money....those parking lots generate loads of cash with no overhead. A good developer would say, give away the houses, or at least do something other than piss off the neighbors by allowing the houses next door to fall into a heap. Great PR campaign. I would not expect anything he proposes to take into consideration anything anyone has to offer. The University should grab him and demand that the perception of teh end of the university he plays a large part in be cleaned up and provide some expectations or make an offer on his land....something....

[ChiefJoJo]

The Hillsborough St project schedule has been updated:

• Jan, bid advertised
  
• March, City Council considers contract
  
• May, construction begins Phase I (Pullen + south side street elements)
  
• Dec, construction begins Phase II (Oberlin + north side street elements)
  
• April 2009, construction begins Phase III (roundabouts)
  
• June 2009, construction begins Phase IV (median, landscaping)
  
• July 2009, construction ends
  

In case anyone is wondering, the schedule is a bit longer than you might expect because the contractor has to maintain traffic flow during construction, which complicates the implementation... not to mention all the business access, utilities, pedestrians, buses, etc. It's going to be difficult for the businesses to deal with the chaos for 18 months a la Fayetteville St, but I'll be glad to see it finally done.

[DanRNC]

Raleigh's first LocoPops will be located at 1908 Hillsborough St.

Edited January 9, 2008 by DanRNC

[RaleighRob]

Raleigh's first LocoPops will be located at 1908 Hillsborough St.

Well that's interesting news! 1908....mapquest puts it at the Red Hot & Blue block...so they're taking the old Weatherman Jewelry spot?

[ChiefJoJo]

For some reason, the Hillsborough St project has been delayed from this April to November.

The Hillsborough St Partnership has a meeting on Mar 12, from 4-6pm at Red Hot & Blue. I'm sure this will be discussed.

[jumboman]

My civil engineering senior design project team at NCSU is working on a plan to convert the North Hall surface lot into a parking deck with commercial/residential/retail frontage along Hillsborough St. There are two other groups working on the same project. (As well as 3 groups working on 2 other deck designs on campus)

Tomorrow there will be a workshop/charrette open to the public 2-4 pm (come and go as you please) in the lobby of Mann Hall to display our progress and to answer questions and get feedback on our designs. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated!

[orulz]

Interesting project. A parking deck on the North Hall lot is in the latest incarnation of the university's physical master plan, I believe. Didn't realize that the university was considering retail / residential along there as well.

Do you know if this is supposed to be developed by the university as dorms, or by a private developer as a partnership? What's the scope of your design project? Does it focus on the portion of the lot west of North Hall only, closest to Bruegger's, or does it include most/all of the frontage between Logan and Enterprise too?

I'd like to see everything on Hillsborough between Enterprise and Oberlin redeveloped as well, excluding RH&B/Locopops and Sadlack's, but that's another story. Hopefully some of that will come with the streetscape and roundabouts.

[RaleighRob]

Do you know if this is supposed to be developed by the university as dorms, or by a private developer as a partnership?

Well, I doubt it would be dorms in the traditional sense...maybe campus apartments like those new buildings at the corner of Gorman & Sullivan.

What would also be cool is if they did like St. Mary's School recently did and made them nice housing for staff, except in this case have retail on ground level.

I'd like to see everything on Hillsborough between Enterprise and Oberlin redeveloped as well, excluding RH&B/Locopops and Sadlack's, but that's another story.

Well yeah....and also excluding Fraziers/Porters and Mitch's/Global Village. I like them just the way they are, too. Edited March 25, 2008 by RaleighRob

[orulz]

Well yeah....and also excluding Fraziers/Porters and Mitch's/Global Village. I like them just the way they are, too.

Well, the specific area that I referred to (Enterprise to Oberlin) is the area between North Hall and Oberlin Road. In other words I want to see everything between Sadlack's and Locopops torn down and rebuilt without the stupid parking lots that attract loiterers and make the sidewalk uncomfortable.

The three blocks from Pogue to Logan (Pearl Cafe to Bruegger's) can stay. I rather like that strip.

[RaleighRob]

^Ooops...nevermind. I got Enterprise mixed up with Gardner for a minute there. sorry.

[ChiefJoJo]

Jumboman, can you perhaps post photos or renderings of your class project (all the teams' entries) here for those who can't make it today? I'd be very interested to see what you came up with for that site. Is the university actually considering redveloping that site, or is this just a paperwork exercise? (Either way, I'm glad someone is working on this.)

While driving by recently, I noticed what appear to be right-of-way and easement stakes all along Hillsborough st next to the sidewalks... that is at least a good sign that the plans are moving forward, albeit to slow for my taste... been waiting almost 10 years for this.

[ncwebguy]

It is weird that the Pogue to Logan "flow" is disrupted by North Hall (formerly a hotel) and never "recovers" until Weathermans/Locopops with the remnants of Hillsborough Square.

A Palladium Plaza-ish "deck wrapped by apartments and ground floor retail" between Logan and Norht Hall could be a spark to improving the area. There is a fair amount of surface parking to play with (google maps) and adding *more* parking to the Hillsborough Street corridor would help, similar to the Rosemary Street deck's proximity to Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.

Budda's Belly, the wings place, the barber shop and Bell Tower Mart could all work in the base of a four or five story buidling as easily as the current buildings, with the plasma center above BellTower Mart and shift the surface parking behind, like Cup a Joe/Nice Price Books further down Hillsborough. With the slope of the land, they could excavate and put in a two story deck with an entrance on Maiden, or work with/pass through the parking lot behind Sadlacks.

The same could apply to the next block to the east, that used to have Cream and Bean, the wing zone/(discount clothing store before that) and the two story office building.

With the roundabout nearby, the whole area could clean up pretty nice, though with every owner thinking small, it will probably be more of the same going forward.

I did a paper on how the old houses between what was then Kinkos and Record Exchange (currently a parking lot and Sylvia's pizza) could have been several things from shops and apartments or a Rialto-like single screen movie theater and cafe. But that was for technical writing/nothing serious.

EDIT: My web page design for showing buildings on the campus map (ncsu.edu) is still used to this day for some buildings. It is laugable now, but was pretty good in 1995/96. So "student projects" are often given serious consideration by the university. See also the student portal, online TRACS, etc.

Edited March 25, 2008 by ncwebguy

[jumboman]

The workshop went pretty good today. We had City Council members, University Housing staff, and Engineers from various traffic and structural firms come and ask us questions. The other 2 decks in the class are more immediate projects (West Lot, and one on the old Riddick field), whereas with the North Hall lot, it is much more open ended (i.e. the University has no plans other than

"maybe a deck could go there?").

I'll try to put up some concepts soon.

[RaleighRob]

Looks like the City is going further in a possible BID for the street: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/wake/rale...ry/1020778.html

[ChiefJoJo]

More on the BID study at HillsboroughBID.com. The final report is due at month's end and it looks like this will go to council in early June. The BID district, as proposed, will extend from I-440 to just east of the Morgan St intersection west of downtown.

[Jones_]

The Lulu renovation of the old North Carolina Equipment Company building is in full swing. Lulu has a wooden sign up hanging off the front and it looks like they repainted the old NCEC logo on the brick facade...I hope they keep the old tractor too...love that thing.

[cthayes75]

Demolition seems to have begun on the old service station across Hillsborough from Char-Grill.

[Jones_]

Demolition seems to have begun on the old service station across Hillsborough from Char-Grill.

I am pretty sure that is a renovation.

[Jones_]

It is indeed a renovation. A sandwich shop would be great.

[pack-man]

might want to lower that rent some. especially since the tenant knows this is short term.

[rooster8]

Agreed. Five thousand bucks is a lot of sandwiches.

[RaleighRob]

Planet Smoothie next to Bruegger's is supposed to reopen in the next week.

[ChiefJoJo]

The city council approved the Hillsborough St BID yesterday. Hillsborough Street property owners will pay 10 cents per $100 of assessed property valuation for a period starting July 1, 2009 and ending June 30, 2014. The estimated $130k generated annually from the BID will cover:

[DPK]

The estimated $130k generated annually from the BID will cover: