I don’t think anyone was suggesting that it would be physically impossible to do such a thing, or that there were no examples of it ever happening, or that you couldn’t use Google to quickly find a bunch of situations where it had been done and done quite well.
I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but my own points were that:
There’s absolutely no good reason for the local government to try to strong-arm the owners into doing that for this particular parcel. Speaking as someone who is literally inside this building five days a week, there’s absolutely nothing about this particular building that merits historic preservation. Conversely, the buildings here look like ones that really would be strong candidates for preservation–and they were several stories tall to begin with, which really makes preservation easier.
Based on conversations with people who are close to the situation, I get the sense that the owners do not have any particular plans to try to save the existing 310 building, or probably any of the others running to Davie Street. That was basically the extent of the argument.
[Edit: I deleted the original version of my closing comment because it was probably too snarky in tone, but suffice to say that I don’t think that posting a picture of a different, and wildly dissimilar, building that sits in an entirely different context is a persuasive argument for what should be done with this particular building with its own very different history and context.]
Two things 1) Those are my original photos, not google…no snark eh?..2) *you alone do not get to decide what has historical merits so please stop acting like you do. You are not simply stating your preference, but present an air of authority on the situation that nobody could possibly understand except he who works there. I used to play soccer with Charles Long and have been in there quite a few times myself. My 31 years in Raleigh have probably produced as many walk bys as days you were inside. I spend a lot of time reading all the historic literature I can get my hands on for Raleigh (or wherever I am visiting at the time, like Baltimore above) and have both objective and subjective justifications for my case. To me, this is not a mindless defense of a plain brick box just because. I am certainly not a NIMBY and will support good mixed use density all over the place, except when it uproots existing good things.
The point of the original post is that it is not some sort of atypical situation and when the will is present (I get it, no such will exists for you in this situation), it gets done. The buildings are not past their useful life(regular subjective argument) it *is economically feasible (more subjective than objective despite the way it’s presented in these situations), and I do not see a single good reason for tearing them down.
My rough notes from the Central CAC meeting last night:
Case Z-6-19
All 3 property owners were in attendance and are seeking the rezoning
1st session presenting the request and seeking feedback (potential vote next meeting)
Want to open up the west side of the block to connect Davie to West (walking)
Retaining S9 Architecture as the firm
Publicly accessible dog park is a priority and they had some renderings showing this
Want it to be a connecting place for citizens based on proximity to Union Station and central in Warehouse District
Why are people so grumpy? (general observation)
“It was a stop light, now it’s a stop sign. Somebody needs to tell us!” (couldn’t miss the opportunity to document that quote)
City council expected to vote June/July based on timeline shown in preso
Was this in reference to the lights>signs conversion on Boylan or something else? There’s been an outspoken minority who seem resistant to change about those, but I think most people who live in the area are happy with the signs vs lights. Also, we were given plenty of prior notice on the change.
Thanks for reporting back on this meeting! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend.
(couldn’t miss the opportunity to document that quote)
