Most kind, thank you! 
And damn, you’re quick. Lol 
Got lucky. Was reviewing the agenda this morning while skimming posts here.
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The previous attempt at building the Clarence Lightner Public Safety building went through all the preliminary phases and passed by the council but at the end when it was all set and ready to begin one or two council members switched their votes and thus this project was killed. The economy had tanked and it would have required raising city taxes in order to build it. So I would not think that this project will be built until it actually has a ground breaking ceremony.
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I am not overly familiar with Ratio (even though they are local) or Henning Larson, but they seem like they have some interesting work, and their Minneapolis Public Service Building appears to be a similar project to the first part of the Raleigh Civic Campus.
I just hope something finally gets build.
Yes, this is true, and I’m not saying it necessarily can’t happen again, but to the best of my knowledge, this civic campus takes in to account the concerns from the lightner.
To recap, if I can recall it all please help me fill in the blanks, the major concern was the idea of centralizing all our public safety services in one building. Rather, some wanted a more distributed network. Terrorist attack risk was part of that conversation at the time as well.
I see both sides of the argument but the civic campus will not, again to the best of my knowledge, have a major consolidation of public safety services in the building.
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Yes that is true. In the years following the Lightner building downfall the police department was relocated to substations and the main headquarters moved to Six Forks. Raleigh also built a very expensive 911 center (and IT and various other uses) off of Westinghouse Blvd. I wouldn’t be surprised if they spent nearly same amount of money that it would have cost to build the Lightner building in the years that followed.
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Any new updates as of City Council meeting last night?
Assuming Henning Larson is the design architect, with Ratio as architect of record, I’m optimistic about this outcome. Henning Larson is a world-class design firm with fantastic work. Ratio, not so much, but I hope this will be the kind of working relationship where HL is intimately involved all the way through to execution.
Also, have to admit I’m a little bummed the firm I work at didn’t get this lol. Rumor had it that they were going to bring in the big guns from the international design board to lead this. I can imagine that anyone going after the project had similar star power involved though, so let’s see how it goes!
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The EMCOMM center on Brentwood was a joint county-city project, not a city-only project. The cost was $65 million. The last estimate of Lightner was $226 million, not to mention the inflation that accrued between the cancellation of Lightner and the completion of the Brentwood facility or the overruns that Lightner probably would have incurred.
Ain’t even close.
You made me laugh that you somehow think I was only comparing the new 911 center cost to that of the Lightner building. First off the Lightner would have also been partially funded by Wake County for the 911 center part of the building so that point is mute. Wake County built the Justice Center and saved at least 12 million dollars due to the downtown in the economy and it was cheaper to build. I suspect the Lightner building would have saved even more than that if they had gone ahead with construction. And your inflation comment is incorrectly used as a new office building built today would be more costly due to inflation than it would have been back then. And finally, I meant in entirety that I would not be surprised if Raleigh spent as much money because they built the new 911 center, and they relocated the entire police department (and left the building abandoned for all these years). And they also have a building on Fayetteville St and various other locations throughout Raleigh. All of those things have costs as Raleigh needed the space for its city employees that the Lightner would have provided.
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I don’t think there is any factual basis to say that a building pegged at $226 million in 2009 would have been buildable for less than $226 million in, say, 2013. The window to get bids at less-than-anticipated costs because of the recession turned out to be rather narrow (early 2009 to mid-late 2010), and the Lightner project couldn’t have gone to bid that soon.
The Turner Building Cost Index was 803 in 2009Q4 and 959 in 2015Q4. Draw your own conclusions about the effect of inflation on comparative costs of what eventually got built.
Lightner was an inherently expensive design. The city could easily have built an equivalent square footage (including the special features for 911, offset by the county’s contribution) across any number of low-rise sites in the city and still come out way ahead. In fact, they could still do so – but it’s politically unthinkable in the current regime, so we’ll see a city high-rise in DTR and the rest of us will see what happens to our property taxes at that point.
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The Wake County Justice center opened in 2013 and the money saved was after the bid. The cost of steel and concrete ended up being cheaper and the building was built for less than what was bid. Now the city of Raleigh can build a normal office tower as they took all the expensive parts out with the building of the new 911 center. Downtown Raleigh also lost those employees (and the police officers and supporting staff) as they are now both in North Raleigh. Don’t know if you have been in the EMCOMM center but it is the Taj Mahal of 911 centers. Nondescript on the outside but fairly opulent on the inside.
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Haven’t been inside. Had been inside the old one, which was a rat hole. I would call the new site more East Raleigh than North Raleigh.
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Not super exciting but a snapshot in time of this block in the chances development does eventually happen of the new campus tower(s).
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My firm has been asked to consult with the design team on the phase 1 building. Some of the building basics passed along from the architect… 16 story, 420,000 sf building, construction estimate $140 million. Thought this was supposed to be a 20 story building, but wonder if they are constrained by the 250 foot height limit from the DX-20 zoning?
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Given it’s going to be all commercial floors (higher per floor) you’re probably right. Constrained by total height, not floors.
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Why couldent the city just rezone it to DX-40?
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They can’t pay themselves a million dollars for a variance, ala Kane. 
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Imagine bribing yourself.
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