This just made me think of something; a question I’m hoping some of y’all can help answer. So the whole idea behind building a larger City Hall/municipal campus is to consolidate a couple different city offices into one building, then sell off the old buildings that they move from for redevelopment. My question: Which buildings will all be vacated and then sold? Or how many? Because I don’t think we’ve really discussed the true potential impact this building could have in the long-term; as the old city office buildings that have been vacated are renovated/redeveloped.
To bounce off that, how hasn’t the state started to think of a plan to at least consolidate and sell some of the parking lots and maybe even a few buildings.
To the best of my knowledge, One City Plaza and One Exchange Plaza both currently hold a number of city offices. I highly doubt they’ll have problems attracting new tenants, even with the office downturn.
Ahhh, so not many new buildings will come from this
One Exchange Plaza is owned by the city but One City Plaza is not (owned by Highwoods). It’s possible One Exchange may be sold but probably not anytime soon as it likely has just as many employees as main city hall, so probably the last to move. The city only has a few departments at One City Plaza which will likely just be leased back out by Highwoods.
Comparing lower area of the tower to Richmond City Hall (also 20 stories tall). You can see that Raleigh’s East Civic Tower is designed to be inviting when Richmond City Hall is an old-school government fortress, designed to be defensive and imposing.
It looks more corporate than “inviting” to me, but I guess it still looks less cold and imposing compared to Richmond. It’s still an upgrade, in my book, from what we have now 
The City has a 15% vacancy rate (~600) and no employee paid parking unless ur management. Hybrid is not going away. All development plans are submitted digitally. The County saved $$ as they went ahead while there was a downturn in activity which is not the case now.
While we wait for East Civic Tower to get going (2023) my thoughts are that West Civic Tower should instead go north of East Civic Tower, facing Morgan Street and McDowell Street.
West Civic Tower area should instead go to a multi-use main library or some other public use tower/building instead. The space will get more sunlight and ideal to promote the city if a city-defining project goes there instead of another stuffy tower mostly off-limits to the public. Especially when you consider the value-added facing the park. It could be a well-loved public area especially if Nash Squares gets renovated. Where else in downtown can you build a library with a large park area next door? Not many places else.
A good compromise is converting West Civic Tower to multi-use office tower where the first 5 or 10 floors is a library or museum or something else while the top is an office.
Love the library idea and a good place to put it… 
A Library could just take the bottom 4-5 floors of the West Civic Tower city office building. Also the East Tower will certainly not be off-limits to the public. I think the bottom 2 or 3 floors are all public spaces and should be very inviting with all the glass and openness.
Any status on this project? Thought this one might get going by the end of this year?
There was an administrative site review of the site plans back in April and it did not get approval. There has been nothing resubmitted since.
The city didn’t approve their own building? Savage.
Latest schedule showed demo sometime summer / fall. And construction starting late 22/ early 23.
You would think the City could get their own planning department to grease the wheels a bit, but alas no.
Price rose $30 million to $220 million. But rent will still be worse.
City’s plans need to meet building code just like other plans. The reviewers (building, fire, plumbing, mechanical, zoning, life & safety, urban forestry, utilities, and transportation) would be fired if approved plans that did not meet code or lose their respective license from the State.
Oh, I know. However, it has been my experience that the planning department is overly knit picky in their reviews. The reviews get dragged out and they basically cost the developers time and money.


) between them. I guess this submittal is trying to convince the city it won’t look bad? May be one of those “just don’t look at it too close” things.