32 Likes
I am glad the building is in front of the deck unlike Bandwidth. Wish the layout of Bandwidth was different.
4 Likes
The layout of Bandwidth is baffling to me. The site is enormous, and they chose to put the parking deck front and center? And it’s not just any parking deck, it’s enormous, one of the biggest ones I’ve ever seen.
Why is that the impression they want to make on people passing by? Its so big that it blocks the view of the building itself, which I think is actually quite pretty, from most angles. They could have easily just placed it on the western side of the lot.
They better hope that their return-to-office plans work because their shiny new HQ being obscured by an empty parking deck would project a pretty bad image.
8 Likes
Putting the deck outbound facing the street tells the entire story for me. While the site isn’t way out in RTP or anything, it isn’t walkable to anything and having the garage front and center tells me that they know it’s a car dependent site plan and the are likely pointing all of the experiences inbound. In a more minimal way, Kane has done this with North Hills and Smoky Hollow.
1 Like
It probably had more to do with appeasing the neighbors down the road not wanting the main entrance and parking deck by their houses. So now those 40 people are set and the tens of thousands driving, especially from the highway, get to see an ugly grey concrete deck with an interesting building tucked behind as an afterthought. Not thrilled
5 Likes
The building/deck location was chosen to enclose the campus from the road, both from a sound and visual standpoint. The campus orients the occupants directly to Schenk Forest, and locating the deck along Edwards Mill preserved the incredible views the building has to the north, south and west. There was never going to be any retail here so I’m not really sure why some are still so obsessed with pulling suburban buildings in non walk-able locations up to the road.
3 Likes
I think the idea is to one day make this area more walk-able…
8 Likes
Regarding Bandwidth’s parking deck location. Is it only in that spot because that’s where the state wanted them to put it?
5 Likes
They use the gravel lot south of the deck for fair parking as I dread the fair traffic. They could have easily put two floors of the deck under ground or had the building on top of the deck. The building looks great and I can only imagine the views out from inside but imagine someone from out of town driving down Edwards Mill must wonder odd place for a deck? If they paid that kind of $$ for the land they should have had more say.
No reason to reward the drivers with views. If it looked good, it would probably slow down traffic anyway by people taking pictures. Keep traffic flowing by keeping the views from the road bland. 
But definitely makes no sense to have retail facing Edwards Mill. Since it’s a high speed road, it will never be a good location to have walkable retail. Add in retail with the typical parking lots and we’ve made yet another Glenwood Ave N. of Crabtree, Capital Blvd, or Wake Forest Rd/Falls of Neuse. So it definitely doesn’t make sense to have retail facing Edwards Mill.
1 Like
IMHO, There needs to be a multi use trail along both sides. It would encourage walking to PNC etc. I have walked to PNC for events from Duraleigh. If these are installed now it makes it easier in the future when Edward Mill will be very different than now.
2 Likes
The way the multi use trail is now makes more sense to me rather than running it on both sides of the road. When your coming down Duraleigh the sidewalk runs along the side of Edwards Mill where homes are located. Once you get up to Bandwidth there’s a tunnel that takes you to the multi use trail down to the PNC. Having it run down the other side of Edwards Mill doesn’t make much sense IMO.
Even with it. The on ramps do not give way to pedestrians at all since they encourage fast rolling through speeds. Not a problem when Edwards Mill is empty, but when it’s busy, I can imagine it’s not fun. Luckily the Blue Ridge side might be ok when the pedestrian bridge is completed.