I think the extreme negative reactions are a little overboard. Could this lot have been Raleigh’s tallest tower location? Sure. But like @JKK mentioned, if you have been in Raleigh all your life or even a couple decades. You know how neglected these storefronts have been, and will continue to be neglected, the owner doesn’t care all that much.
And if we are being honest, there isn’t much separating these two buildings in terms of design and materials. I don’t recall many losing their sh*t over Peace either.
That’s exactly it though… it looks pretty much the same as this and every other boring apartment building that has gone up in Raleigh over the past 10 years - besides, Peace is nearly twice as tall/dense.
Yea, but with this on the edge of the ‘warehouse district’ would’ve liked to see more effort to embrace that design. More brick, metal cladding, loft-mimic windows…
And those boring apartment buildings have made downtown Raleigh a vastly more exciting, lively, and liveable place.
When I graduated college in 2005, there was basically ZILCH in terms of rental housing available downtown, except for the 1920s era Cameron Court, etc, which was neat (don’t get me wrong) but I wanted something with air conditioning that worked.
Now there are dozens of complexes and thousands (perhaps between five and ten thousand?) units. Many in buildings comparable to this, some in nicer buildings. And guess what, the ones in nicer buildings (eg Skyhouse) are more expensive!
Anyway, what a change for the better! And I hope it continues forever!
I could at least live with this. Double the height, and add ground-floor retail along all streets, with only one parking entrance on the Morgan St side, and I’d have a lot less to bitch about.
Not to mention the additional cost that would get passed on.
This is more reasonable. Providing an incentive would be good to at least save the look. The only problem is that this may interfere with density incentives of affordable housing. This also brings in an issue of who determines which buildings get this type of treatment. The city council? A Community Advisor committee?
I get both arguments here. I would like to see more developers go the way of The Creamery and The Dillon and utilize portions of the original structures, but it’s definitely not realistic to ask for that on every single lot in the city, and there’s nothing particularly unique about the storefronts on this lot anyway (Goodnights, on the other hand, is a real shame).
My two main complaints with this are the parking situation (two entrances is pretty freaking stupid and a waste of potential retail space) and the height. I also would have liked to see office space here, but I think developers are going to remain hesitant on office space until we’re truly out of the woods with the pandemic.
Ultimately, here’s where it comes down to: I want to see this lot activated, we all know the current storefronts are dead, and the downtown area needs all the housing it can get right now. Like others have expressed, we don’t need to be wowed by every single proposal we see; we just need density to happen. Sometimes it will be exciting, sometimes it won’t, and that’s okay. I’ve shared this link here before (I think), but there’s nothing wrong with “dumb boxes.” They’re not stunning, but they’re not supposed to be. They just need to bring people and business to downtown, and they do that quite well.
One weird thing that sprawl has done in America is convinced us that everything in downtown should be ten or more stories and everything outside of downtown should be three or less. Most walkable cities in Europe aren’t like this. There are some high-rises, sure, but there’s mostly a ton of buildings in the four to six range. Because that height is legal in more places, you still get density and walkability without insane height. Do I want to see some more high rises in downtown? Yeah, sure. But, as long as we keep developing these empty and single-level lots, I’m not super worried about it.
I think that the biggest problem with this over Peace/Smoky Hollow is that it’s not perceived to be improving the experience of that location whereas Peace/Smoky Hollow definitely improved the experience over the former auto-oriented mish-mash of development that was previously there.
Also, Peace is not 5 over 1 construction, despite it being similarly skinned.
That said, if this project had a rooftop amenity space for its residents, it could be quite spectacular in that location.
I’m in the camp that doesn’t see a big deal in losing the storefronts. I’ll take the trees and the shade they provide over them to be honest as they contribute more to the sidewalk than the empty buildings have been doing for the past 10 years.
I’m not sure we’ll ever know but I’d be interested to see why the buildings have been empty for so long. Landlord not running them well? Space not up-to-date? Something else completely? Who knows.
A group including former Raleigh Mayor Smedes York wants to build an eight- to 10-story building >including shops topped with offices, residences or both on the block southwest of the intersection of >Hillsborough and West streets in downtown Raleigh.
HBS Properties, which is represented by York Properties, has assembled all but two of the 10 tracts on the 1.15-acre block.
………….
Once that’s settled, the single-story storefronts dating to the 1930s could meet with the wrecking ball.
HBS is considering street-level shops with offices and residences — likely rentals — on top. Or just shops and offices.
York hopes to begin building within a year. The project would take 18 months to finish.
Kind of sad to see the old shops get torn down but that area always seems dead and the shops continue to remain empty. Along with all the other announcements that are coming to Hillsborough St., it will become the link between Fayetteville St. and the Glenwood South area."
There’s something to be said for the character of DTR when you’re walking around (or biking or scooting). For me, I love that little strip there and down in front of State of Beer. The sidewalk isn’t great, but it’s shaded and has character. Kane has done a great job of developing character in Smoky Hollow, somewhat in the Warehouse District, but I’m expecting a rubber stamp of the Lincoln and the Metropolitan based on what I’m seeing so far. I really hope I’m wrong.
Lots of details to work out for sure. I bet you would get some hesitancy from normal preservation folks too because it might be seen as incentivizing changing and tearing down lots of the building that they want to protect every part of. I still like the idea though if it gets preserving the storefronts and chance. The Dillon really stands out to me as a good outcome. If this one got that treatment I think it would raise 10% of the current concern.
Please just keep the oak trees. For a city that boasts the title “city of oaks”, we should have a program that helps preserve them as a part of our city.
