“We will remain focused on maximizing the value of our few remaining office assets through prudent asset management and then effect a complete exit from the office sector through a controlled and well-navigated disposition process over time,” Murphy said in a prepared statement.
The project is dead! Long live the Queen.
This is really par for the course for Raleigh. The only developer that seems to be able to get anything done in a timely fashion is Kane. And, even he can’t get all of his proposals to move forward.
I’m gonna be real honest… if it weren’t for Kane being involved in any capacity, I wouldn’t have even considered for one second this was gonna happen. But even with Kane, I was skeptical. The bright side? This plot was approved for a 40 story rezone, so whenever a developer comes along that will actually get something built here, they can hit the ground running!
Yup. This is now my second planned skyline boom that’s been cancelled since I moved here. Honestly, at this point I’ve almost stopped caring. I thought in my late 20s I was getting in on the ground floor, so to speak, with a small city about to become a medium city. Now in my late 30s, I’ve realized I’ll probably be in my late 50s before downtown Raleigh is what I want it to be. Assuming we don’t just see cycles of pandemics, protests, riots, crime, and mass shootings that just make everyone retreat to perceived safety like in the 60s/70s/80s and stop the preference for downtowns at all.
I think a lot of us are losing focus today on how lucky downtown Raleigh is and how good things are here compared to a lot of downtowns who have literally seen no development in decades. This one is probably dead but we have how many more on the docket? How many people move here per day? You know how many killed towers I’ve seen from my time in Atlanta? We still have loads to look forward to!
Edit: also I think this is much different than 2008. There’s still money flowing, probably more than ever. It just has to be redistributed and done differently than investors were thinking. We won’t see years of “nothing” like after 2008 either.
Amen.
Pivot expectations and get back to work. Raleigh will be fine. Think about where the city was after the 2008 financial collapse and where it is now. It’s not like it’s been standing still. The experience of downtown has changed dramatically, and several key game changers have taken place including Union Station, The Dillon, Smoky Hollow, Bloc83, and the dozens of multifamily housing projects that have further knitted together the downtown experiences. With the Seaboard project coming out of the ground that energy continues, and let’s not forget that new multifamily housing projects get announced with regularity.
The thing that made this tower viable and caught the developers eye in the first place was the DX40 entitlement which was rare, and the prior council was strongly anti-development so the prospects of DX40 rezonings elsewhere were slim.
Then, the new council comes in, showing a willingness to upzone, and the rarity of the zoning on this parcel, and the unique market position these developers were aiming for, is shattered. End of story.
Maybe I am trying to remain optimistic, but until it is announced as canceled, it is still alive in my book. Like 400H.
Who knows…maybe Kane does see this as a marquee project and takes over. But I remain defiantly, sometime naively optimistic about this and 400H and other projects.
I can relate with some of this frustration, but then I remind myself of how much has changed. I moved here in 2014.
Since then:
The Bank of America Tower, Charter Square, Block 83 I, Dillon, FNB Tower, Park Central NH, Advance Auto Tower, Dartmouth Apartments NH, AC Hotel NH, Peace Street Apartments/Publix, Wegman’s/Hampton Inn, Origin, and almost 301 Hillsborough and Smokey Hollow II has opened (I avoided bullets to prevent very large post).
There have been new bus routes added and this year the Glenwood package will be great.
What I have come to the conclusion is that it’s not really fair to expect a whole lot of change in a short amount of time. The best thing to get what I want in a short amount of time is to move to a city that already has what I want. I want a better transit system with better frequency. I would love to have some more attractions and baseball. Unfortunately I am not expecting to see all of my requests fulfilled anytime soon. What keeps me here realistically is my job and the cost of living.
It’s not wrong to want more from the city, but it will take time. I’m sure you know this, I just want to add to the rant. It is definitely frustrating that things aren’t done quicker.
Oh yeah absolutely. That’s the right perspective and I agree but it’s just frustrating for those of us that kind of wish Raleigh at least “looked” like the city it is. I know skylines aren’t everything and a lot of great stuff has been built here since 2014 as you used for an example. But look at what has been built in some of our peer cities since that time as well (Austin, Nashville, and yeah Charlotte.)
Its just kind of disheartening when we all know Raleigh is booming and the world seems to be starting to recognize it yet it doesn’t end up getting the respect it deserves because it doesn’t “look.” And it hurts more when it seems like we keep being right on the cusp and then …! Such is life.
TBJ confirms through Highwoods that the project is on hold indefinitely, aka dead. Highwoods is acquiring the property with the WF building
It’s so frustrating that Highwoods is so squeamish about any downtown construction. I get that office is a gray area right now, and it’s pencils down for the foreseeable future, REITs are in the business of making money, etc etc etc. But if you ask me those issues are compounded by Highwoods being chickenshit.
You’d think that having a major office REIT in one of the hottest CRE markets would result in more buildings. Apparently you’d be wrong.
I’ll preface with I don’t know the process and stuff of how buildings don’t get done but with the level of renderings and floor plans they had already produced would it be insanely hard / expensive for Kane (or any other developer) to come in and flip this to a condo / apartment tower with the same exterior specs? Or am I dreaming
(That’s the only brick like emoji that I could find).
