Now, Memorial’s lobby is awesome.
I agree completely.!
I’ve heard that Royal Albert has really bad acoustics, but only seen it from outside.
Being round and tall like that, I can imagine. I saw CATS at New London, and being round wasn’t bad. But, it wasn’t a cavern like Royal Albert.
Saw Les Misérables in a theater a few blocks away, that looked like it was about to fall down. Wanted to see Phantom of Opera at Royal Albert but we could not get tickets on short notice (finish dinner and “lets go to a play”). Did get to see movie version on plane coming back.
Saw Phantom at Her Majesty’s Theatre (where the chandelier is integrated into the ceiling like it had always been there). But, at Memorial, it was a huge disappointment. Now, Miss Saigon at Memorial was pretty good. It handled the helicopter prop with ease.
I Invision Raleigh have Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer Stadiums. A light rail lines from Downtown to Crabtree, and a Light Rail line from South Glenwood to NC State Fairgrounds good route during the state fair. A line connecting the backside of Cameron Village with connections to Glenwood Ave thru 506 Capitol to Midtown Raleigh. And a Downtown line running along Capitol to the Triangle Town Center, and commuter rail connect via tram North to the Airport. I’d love for Glenwood to have a little plaza like Les Misérables. And a sports and Entertainment district where the a cross intersection where people can dance in mingle. 40-60 story towers and retro-style buildings that have a modern touch from 40-60 stories. And affordable housing district.
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If feel like Raleigh never takes risks on any big projects. Raleigh wants to be a big city, but is never willing to take those risks. We’re worried about petty stuff like gentrification and controlling people who be changing our city like John Kane and controlling what he builds and how he spends his money. He choose Raleigh cause he believed in our big size potential. I was talking to a few out of town let’s all they think Raleigh is a city when we’re not mentioned on the TV, that when we breath a sigh of relief, do you guys really want to have that reputation. Even some people on this page people I won’t mention say “Have you been to other cities, then you’ll have an appreciation for Raleigh”, truth is I have and they have there on style like Raleigh does but have a lot more to do and more balls. Even my Mom (a Native New Yorkers, which is known for being a big city) and I clash on this, it even gets divisive we don’t talk politics anymore, she would say “why do you move to that other NC City?”. I get mad at her pretty quickly. I choose to put this topic in the PUB because rants were allowed and we need to have a discussion on Raleigh putting on its big boys pants immediately, or it gonna be another decade of us always being in the consideration, but never actually making it happen.
This isn’t a general Raleigh conversation, I see you guys lost interest in that when another person posted his opinion confronting the truth. But why do we have these pathetic, stigmas and notions about Raleigh?
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What big project risks are you wanting them to take action on? Downtown South was approved. 40 story zoning was approved. The train station is new. There are many projects that are happening.
Raleigh is a developing city that has been mentioned as one of the best cities that is doing well throughout the pandemic. Raleigh won’t grow into a big city overnight.
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As someone who just got to Raleigh (even though I’ve had my eyes on it for over 10 years now) I think you see the skyline at a glance and think “eh that’s a little city” but once your in downtown even though there aren’t a ton of dominant buildings it’s a great downtown at street level and has a decent foot print. What I think a lot forget is just how small this city was 20-30 years ago. Most major cities have been tracking toward their path since the 1700-1800s. Raleigh seemed to say “okay let’s become a big city” in the 70s right?
If I were the city planners, the one big thing id do is try to get a 50-60 story signature tower with an entertainment space near the core like 5th and Broadway and squeeze a signature downtown park space in somewhere. But other than that, per capita this city probably has the most development of any right now.
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I’m nominating @atl_transplant as rookie of the year. I realize it’s only March, but I think he wins it already. @dtraleigh, we need a rookie of the year designation, pls.
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haha thanks! Maybe one day we can get one of our crazy dreams born on here to come true.
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Actually, the city was actively marketing some city owned sites by the performance arts center with a RFI that went out more than a year ago, then the pandemic happened. They were actively seeking a substantial signature project with a convention hotel and mixed uses. Time will tell when the city tries that again, and what makes sense post pandemic.
See the post here:
https://dtraleigh.com/2020/01/city-starts-rfi-process-for-multi-use-development-on-fayetteville-street/
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That’d be killer! Hopefully we bring that back when things are better.
Agreed. In the meantime, I am content with Raleigh’s ground game (pun intended) that works towards improving its sidewalk experience. I’ll take that every day of the week over a soulless downtown filled with tall postcard skyscrapers.
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Cracks knuckles - Where to begin?
Bring back the Village Subway and the Electric Mall - places with lore don’t crop up often so when they do, they should be kept. VS could be brought up to code by adding a 2nd tunnel entrance on the north side.
Pigeon House Branch Greenway - Raleigh has a pretty good greenway system, but it is hardly connected to downtown. There should be a vertical stripe from Crabtree Creek to Walnut Creek running straight through downtown. I would probably do two additional vertical connections using Fallon Park and Beaverdam creek. The central feature would be a pedestrian suspension bridge across the tracks connecting the greenway and the warehouse district with Glenwood South.
Downtown sidewalk improvements - the state of the sidewalks downtown is unacceptable. Glenwood and surrounding streets are embarrassing. The entire downtown area as defined in the UDO should see sidewalk embiggenings throughout. I’d go ahead and start with Glenwood as that’s the most painful but also necessary one to fix. The onstreet parking will have to be sacrificed to get sufficient width for the walkable environment there + bike lanes. Whatever. Hey, if you’re driving on Glenwood South you’ve already made mistakes in life.
Historic Preservation - the map of historically protected properties made me realize the historical commision is basically useless. Many… no most… of the retail fronts that should be protected aren’t. This needs to be fixed pronto before it gets worse.
Zoning - Raleigh’s parking requirements and the old UDO’s height limit caused a box problem. It incentivized developers buying a whole block to get the footprint for a deck, then building the volume of that deck up to the 20 floor limit. You’ve seen a lot of jokes about 301’s girth but Dillon’s already worse. 400H will be worse still. I’d revise the zoning to force taller skinnier towers from new developments. For any building over say, 8 floors, at least 3/4ths of the building’s floors must conform to a width no more than 70% the height of the building. Here’s another spicy one - parking requirements would be removed for buildings that preserve historic facades or for buildings below a certain square footage. Boom, that condo tower next to Crank Arm is on the menu. The thing next to Beasley’s? Sure.
Retail - As downtown grows it’s going to become more expensive to live. It’s a common story in other cities but tenants that own tend to survive better than tenants that rent. I think there should be incentives to get local small businesses owning their own properties downtown, as well as zoning ensuring the retail components of new buildings are for sale units. I think this could blow away other cities a decade or so down the road.
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Can you explain how ridiculous this UDO I know there state laws but is the city even thinking about modifying UDOs. To allow skinner buildings.
It may not happen till 2023. Because of budget, Raleigh gonna need a big budget income some miracle has to happen. For example if he host a major political events like the RNC or DNC, which everyone seems to be against but could bring so much money here, are some other large scale event. That might bring immeasurable income.
Not important, but it bugs me everytime I go downtown: standardize traffic lights. Even on Dawson/Hillsborough, the style/color of the lights are different and it looks messy. If we standardized the lights to be like the ones on Hillsborough that would really clean up some aspects of the city IMO.
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I think that is something Raleigh needs to do. Every downtown district has a standardized traffic signal type. Raleigh seems to have like 4
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