I noticed that too, I had similar thoughts. I always thought Exploris walked away after the initial school plans fell through, so this was news to me.
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So I poked around a little bit and found out some information. I’m sure there’s more out there, but it’s something.
First, some background. According to this N&O article, Exploris had planned on building a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient building on Kindley St. as far back as 2015. They had the architectural plans and everything. They would occupy three of the building’s 10 floors, with the others being reserved for office space. Unfortunately, when it came time to attract investors to fund the construction of the project, no one was interested in putting money into a building that would house both offices and a school:
“At the request of The Exploris School, our clients invested millions to purchase and develop the site and build a new facility for The Exploris School,” said Charleston in a statement. “Unfortunately, lenders were not interested in financing a commercial office building that included a charter school, as originally envisioned.”
So since 2019 or so, Exploris has been in limbo. Fast forward to now and it sounds like Exploris has purchased 3/4 acre themselves on the Kindley site and are now in the process of finding a new architect. I confirmed that last bit from this deck:
Back to the drawing board, it sounds like. Although it appears that they’re being smart about it. They’ve been able to utilize the funding they earmarked for their new campus and are engaging with a specialized legal counsel (Morningwood) for all real estate and development matters.
That said, according to the deck linked above, while the landlord for their elementary campus has said they can stay put until they move into their new building, their middle school landlord is “increasing rents considerably” for the next 2-3 years.
Hopefully they’ll be successful getting a new architect and designing their new building! Although given all the work left to do, I can’t imagine them moving into a new building any sooner than ~5 years from now. Guess SE Raleigh will have to wait a while longer for our grocery…
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Thanks for the investigative report!
…so that land at the gateway to the city from the South that can and should house 40-story buildings will possibly just be a damn grade-school? Am I completely misreading this?
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I don’t believe this will be limited to a grade school. There are plans for what appears to be a dense, mixed-use node of activity within the development. I’m hopeful we can successfully bring this vision to life at the entrance to the city.
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These should all be 25-40 story buildings IMO, and we’re already batting zero after the stupid Mira apartment building.
@Jake scroll back up on this thread…. There was chatter about theoretical massing of many buildings of various usages (including a school) in January, and going back to May 2024 there were plans for a 20ish story hotel on part of it and “automated vehicle storage”. It is just taking time to actually materialize.
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Lmao it’s actually really impressive how poorly you’ve misread it and then jumped to conclusions
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preciate that big dawg 
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Ahhhh yes, sorry y’all that I didn’t scroll back 2 years everyone! LMAO
Anyway… I still think even reserving a spot for a 2-3 story building … a grade-school, no less … on this inarguably prime location in the immediate downtown area is insane. And we’re kidding ourselves if any of us here seriously think every other building will be built to full zoning potential. This will just, inevitably, be another wasted prime lot in Downtown Raleigh.
“but but but but but we have so many prime lots that can be a future tower!” - yep and someone says this everytime a lot is wasted, and we’ll only be able to say it so many times before it just isn’t true anymore! I’ll 
myself and see myself out!
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Ok I’ll take the bait and argue.
This is not a prime location by pretty much any measure other than its prominent position in “money shot” skyline photos. It is an isolated island, cut off from downtown by a railroad, and the rest of the city by two busy highways and an interchange. Its only current access is a seemingly random bridge over said railroad that is only accessible from a one way street on the way out of downtown. It appears close-ish to Dix as the crow flies, but in reality is nigh inaccessible by current transportation routes that actually exist.
This is a C+ location by downtown standards, at best.
Stacking this area with 40 or even 20 story towers is a pipe dream this side of the year 2050.
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No lies told here! Frankly, I am sad to lose the trees that provide a nice foundation to the money shot.
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Any large lot within immediate (aka SMALL) downtown area = PRIME LOCATION
IMO, of course. But come on… be real lol
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har dee har har but nah you know damn well what I want. Density, mixed-use towers (build up now out), street level activation everywhere resulting in a walkable, urban neighborhood from Peace St all the way to Dix park.
Richmond
San Diego
Both cities are incredibly dense while not extremely tall, perfectly attainable for Raleigh IF we actually start utilizing the remaining PRIME LOTS in the immediate downtown area that are empty and ripe for development.
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I assure you that Richmond has more than it’s fair share of issues. The downtown core and long the James make a nice picture, but… yeah, there’s a lot to unpack up there.
Virginia separated cities from their surrounding counties which pitted the counties against the cities for economic development. I lived in Henrico County (with a Richmond address). Both Henrico and Chesterfield (and Hanover to a degree) directly competed with Richmond to land jobs. In the early 2000s Richmond was ranked in the top 10 highest murders per capita two of the years I lived there, which further sent new opportunities to the counties rather then the city. The suburban counties thrived while the core city spiraled downward. RVA appears to be on an upswing now (thankfully) but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows between 2004 and 2008.
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None of that really relevant to my main, and limited point; Richmond is far more dense and walkable than Raleigh, has tons of buildings in the immediate downtown area over 10 stories (though, sure, not much taller than that) and has a legit (albeit short) skyline - and culture, to boot. San Diego is even more dense with a still limited-height skyline. Raleigh already has a little more going for it, height-wise, but if we continue to waste these prime lots in the immediate downtown area for 2-3 story, single-use buildings… that’s all we’ll ever have.
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