This is the same development Clearscapes proposed over a year ago, they are now partnering with Turnbridge. Here is probably the most reassuring part of the article :
“The historic buildings on the Warehouse District property will be preserved, and conditions in the rezoning request prohibit development on that part of the site unless the existing buildings are destroyed “in the event of disaster or unintentional damage.” If that does happen, the developer has committed to replacing them with structures of a similar material and massing as the existing buildings.”
Here is a better visual, the one across Dawson is misleading with the colors references dragging over the street:
The highlighted areas that extend to the right are just for identification. The new building would extend from Commerce Pl to Dawson. The entry to the building is TBD, but could use the small strip of land that leads to this property from Davie (it’s an existing driveway). The light blue area (bound by Commerce Pl and Dawson) is an 80’ (I believe) buffer that they’re asking for as fusing the new construction to the historic/preserved buildings may require some demo/reconstruction of the backside of the historic buildings they are preserving that face Martin.
This is worrisome. I’ve seen these unforeseen “accidents” happen. However simple that the existing buildings are, I doubt that any replacement would even approach the detail of the existing.
Could be a little dose of CYA… hopefully their intentions are to keep the facade within feasibility, with the caveat that construction is messy and imperfect
That’s what it sounds like to me. This is fairly typical verbiage to be included and I saw it a lot when I lived in Savannah, GA. In the event of something unfortunate happening, it can be unreasonable to expect someone to return a building back to exactly what it once was.
The fact that the developer has publicly stated that they would replace them with something similar in the event something happened to the existing structures I think is overall positive.
Exact same thing was documented in the Dillon proposal, and they did a fine job of preserving the facade and integrating it into the new building. This is definitely just “CYA” as @evan.j.bost states, I’m not worried. ESPECIALLY not with Clearscapes - they truly want to preserve the history of the existing buildings.
Curious, have you seen anything like that happen locally?
Companies put those clauses in there to CYA, but I haven’t seen many accidents. I saw one in New Orleans once where they said the old building wasn’t stable.
Still, it is great when a company pledges that in such a case they would replace with structures of a similar material and massing as the existing buildings.”
No, not locally.
But as Raleigh increasingly sees national developers enter the market, who knows what they are capable of doing? One non-Raleigh example of trying to save a building happened in Miami. The “There’s Something About Mary” house (used in the film) was supposed to be saved as part of a development that includes a hyper luxury tower. Well, the construction crane fell into the house.
Hopefully it actually happens. Getting worried for all the projects like the Madison and the Creamery that are supposed to start eventually, now faced with skyrocketing materials and labor costs and a pending recession.
I think the demand for housing in this and similar markets is still so high that developers will still see profit potential and most smart developers will keep pushing. I’m not too worried about us (yet).
