AND the hypothetical/mystical/probable Nexus tower too!
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I find most skyscrapers to be rather garish and imposing, I guess I lack good taste. But seriously, I think skylines have a minimal impact on a regions civic identity and find it rather sad if that is actually the case. Civic identity should be more tied to the street level and not story count.
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“That said, a skyline is like an advertisement for the city’s economy and culture. A weak one sends a negative message and might cost the region in small ways.”
In what way? I’ve literally never met anyone who was like “I’m interested in XYZ city but for it’s lack of super-tall buidlings.” In my experience people evaluate cities on a million other things - walkability, art scene, airport, food, jobs, whatever, but not the height of the buildings.
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Fair - but skylines give a city an identity. At one point I could always tell you what city a show was filmed in if they showed the skyline. There’s been so much development of late that it is much harder for me, Philly and LA both have seen dramatic changes in the last decade. I think that the skyline can create a sense of place and a brand for a town. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a tall building/skyline. A building like the Philly Art Museum, with its grand steps, church steeples (looking at your Charleston) or some monument (Paris anyone?) can serve that function too. Ultimately, I agree with everyone that the street level experience is much more important, but I would like to see something break up the current 20 story mono-culture we’ve got going on. It is time to end the tyranny of blue glass and flat roofs built on parking plinths!!!
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I think we’re all crying out for something interesting.
A cool skyscraper, a vibrant street where they let developers build skinny urban infill without a parking structure, a grand public building, literally anything to point at and say “you can only get that in Raleigh (at least in this region).”
Raleigh is wonderfully liveable, and full of great amenities and cultural institutions, but it’s crying out for something unique - having a “there” there. Being unpretentious is lovely, but take it too far and it’s a bit boring.
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I’ve had numerous visitors ask where the tall buildings are, or where’s all the stuff happening/why is it so dead downtown. Also convention visitors, etc. The appearance and presence of tall buildings makes an impact. And so does the street level experience. I don’t think it needs to be either/or. I want both.
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I mean Boston’s skyline is very weak yet you’re right they can attract a lot of business.
I would rather have no skyline than a bad one. That’s a perfectly valid style for a city to go for. An extreme comparison would be Santa Fe or Salem, or some Euro cities, vs skylines I detest like Albany or Vegas.
Therein lies the problem… Raleigh built three 400 ft buildings with pretty significant gaps between, as if expecting more would come some day. If it had never started playing the game it’d be fine but now it has a ‘bad’ skyline that looks unfinished and offkilter, and it can only be fixed by adding enough other buildings of sufficient height to restore harmony.
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But the I have a feeling our skyline will apartments/condos if we get office demand together. Our skyline might be the “Apartment City”. I think some buildings under construction could change it.
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High-rise buildings with a residential program are capped by a unit count constraint. Even in low-rise form the total number of residential units is usually somewhere between 250 and 300. That’s the number that works for an amenity program that includes a pool and gym. Also works for a typical management structure.
Same thing happens in high-rise form. Skyhouse has 328 units with a 173’x70’ footprint that needed 21 stories at approximately 750 gross sf per unit. Add an amenity floor and a non-residential ground floor and you get its 23 stories of building height.
Office program buildings could be constructed higher but then add a whopping amount of floor area needing to be leased. The two 30+ story buildings constructed on Fayetteville at nearly the same time are an example of that issue. And we are not looking to build more office space at the moment.
A city with lots of 20-some story buildings is not a bad thing in my opinion. Would rather have more buildings footprinted than fewer unrealistically taller buildings.
Best way to get taller buildings on the southern front row of the City parking lots across from the Performance Center is to perhaps combine two uses like a hotel and a residential program as I believe the City was attempting to attract.
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Residential buildings with more than 300 units clearly exist and are quite common in other cities, so why are we limited?
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It is related to local zoning ordinances and each jurisdiction can change that for the better or for worse
4 posts were merged into an existing topic: General Raleigh History
International style, Portman-ish Marriot style, Price tower style? something to work with?
Inflation hurts, ouch.
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Ok well then they better GET THE HELL STARTED before that cost balloons even more lmao
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What ever the time frame is double it. The City moved into One Exchange early 2004 and stated it’s temporary. No longer than 10 years and here we are 20 years later! They don’t want to pay enough to keep staff especially police but 200 million campus to work 30% in person?
*60%. It’s a 3/2 schedule. But agree in general
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Ugly and energy inefficient building vs. new, beautiful, energy efficient… based on the City’s climate plan, I’d imagine they’d rather have a partially empty energy efficient and visibly pleasing building. City hall is not as ugly as Boston’s but it’s one of the ugliest buildings in NC.
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Raleigh’s Climate Action