The article also talked about chances to do public-private partnerships (including an early conversation ongoing with the Marbles Kids Museum), as well as longer-term opportunities like setting up a food hall. This would also bring in tenants and sponsors, adding more revenue for the park. So the bond wouldn’t be the only source of money to make the Dix expansion happen, but it would be its catalyst, a down payment of sorts.
One important caveat: it sounds like the Conservancy and City are treating improvements for Lake Wheeler Rd. as separate but complementary to the sidewalk and multimodal path in the Plaza and Play concept. To be clear, this implies that road/sidewalk improvements will be coordinated with Dix Park upgrades, but will be worked on as a separate project.
As in Ted’s post, though, this bond would not be just for Dix Park. It’s also expected to fund upgrades in other parks like Chavis Park, so it could account for more than that $73M if the city decides to go for it.
Of course, this all assumes the 2021 municipal elections goes as planned, to begin with. And like we discussed in the city elections thread, census delays are putting that into jeopardy.
Thanks Keita. My understanding is that Lake Wheeler Road improvements will be a challenge due to how many agencies/orgs would be involved: NC DOT, NC Dept. of Ag, Norfolk Southern, Duke Power, NC State. I know a traffic light is planned for the LWR & Maywood intersection, but beyond that I haven’t heard of any other planned improvements.
I’ll be surprised if municipal elections aren’t delayed.
I think the there’s ides being tossed around right now to improve stormwater runoff, decrease the speed limit, and add features to improve circulation for pedestrians, cyclists, buses, and basically everyone else not using a car.
The Dix Edge study is going on right now to get resident feedback and, hopefully, formally recommend that to be a part of city plans. I’ve seen comments in that study focusing on Lake Wheeler improvements, but it would help to add to that and make the message louder for city staffers.
I’m a regular at Dix Edge Study events and have provided a lot of feedback about needed improvements along Lake Wheeler and better bike/ped connectivity throughout the area.
“Raleigh could build affordable housing on land it owns or buy land for affordable housing or create a public-private partnership to help create affordable housing, some attendees of the summit said.”
Raleigh could… but probably won’t… let’s conduct another study instead.
This seems like a pretty large area to designate all of DIX park residency to not include Boylan Heights?
Those homes were too expensive I guess.
They have now resulted to identifying all of the property owners in the area, while also alluding too in the article they will somehow become the cause of rising rental rates in the future.
The media never wants to acknowledge the fact that the vast majority of proposed residential units (all?) are on currently vacant or commercial/warehouse land. Adding new units at any rate will provide more options for people that move to the city. Dix Park is hardly a draw at this time, yet we already see “naturally occurring affordable housing” being gobbled up and renovated because…ya’know, the city is growing. Adding new units on vacant land (DoSo) will decrease pressure on existing homes and apartments to flip.
I’ve been thinking about this phrase because something about it felt off…
Do you think it’s “The Media” truly setting that agenda? Or is this just the problem of individual journalists not being aware of that fact (simply because most of us on this site follow this issue more closely than your average time-crunched writer)?
When people struggle to talk about affordable housing issues because they can’t even tell the difference between homeowners and renters, I really doubt this is the first thing that would pop into their minds.
The outline on that map is just the Dix Edge Study boundary. This study was supposed to do nothing more than justify mixed-use developments along Lake Wheeler Rd. in time for Dix Park’s expansion; I really don’t think there was any conspiracy to stack their results here, especially since the city’s laser-focus on equity and affordable housing started after it started.
For reference, the N&O article links to the slide deck used in the Affordable Housing Summit it talks about. Here it is:
I think the study area only includes the neighborhoods that will be directly impacted by redevelopment. No one is buying up swathes of Boylan Heights to tear down and redevelop.
That said, I live next to Boylan Heights and the city did post signs in the neighborhood with information about the Dix Edge virtual events.
In this case the media is simply a sounding board for those who have the most to lose, because they are louder than the silent majority of folks who will benefit from new market rate housing.
The Dix Park Leadership Committee ha a meeting this past Tuesday, and had a presentation that included updates by city staffers on the “Plaza and Play” area and the Lake Wheeler Rd. redesign.
Plaza and Play
Here’s the latest conceptual sketch they made for how they could lay out Dix Park’s first new gateway.
Here’s a possible (still a concept! No commitments!) view from the parking lot, down the “Grand Stair” towards the “Fountain Plaza” and waterfall wall.
The City has ideas on how it wants to make Lake Wheeler Rd. safer and more useful to walk along, but it now has a much clearer picture on how much of a pain it will be to move the existing power lines. They have to move the power line to make any of the proposed upgrades physically possible. City staffers brought multiple options to the table, but it’s not fun.
Move Utility Poles
Use Fewer Utility Poles
Re-Route Power Lines
Move Power Lines Underground
Time Needed
18-24mo
24-30mo
24-36mo
24-30mo
Estimated Cost
$2.5M
$5.5M
$11.0M
$30.0M
Riskiness
Easiest
Easy
Annoying
Requires Duke to use new technology for area
Once the city can figure this out (and there’s no YouTube recording of this meeting yet so I don’t know if the committee got to any conclusions), we could get something like this:
…as well as a new intersection reconfiguration so Saunders and Lake Wheeler can both act more like local neighborhood streets (and not high-speed arterials):
Relocation or underground make the most sense. This corridor will be a top urban area in a few decades, the cost incurred today will benefit the city for generations.
Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet! While we’re talking about power lines, I wish they’d hurry more of them downtown. It’s so weird to have these burgeoning downtown corridors and districts and they have old school power lines.
At least with GDOT, cost of any utilities work gets reimbursed to the utility company.
So whatever happens, if the utilities are to be moved, the city would be on the hook for it.
The utility company is a regulated monopoly that makes huge amount of money for its high level administrators and CEO and plenty of money for shiny towers in Charlotte. It seems that they could be handsomely reimbursed for significantly less than the stated amount. Especially if the city says ‘we want to bury most power lines in downtown and downtown adjacent areas’ and then negotiate a price that could let them make money but save the city money as well. The city gets increased tax revenue from street renovations. Look at what happened to Glenwood South and Hillsborough Street after the streetscaping. I especially think the city should bury power lines around any new project particularly if the entire block is being constructed. For example, the Link apartments on Jones/West had that block entirely dug up including the streets around it for almost 2 years and I think it would have been much more cost effective to bury the power lines while the construction was in progress. Now they’ll have to go back and dig it up again which will be difficult.
