I think you’re right and that this list is probably out-of-date for that site.
Yeah I guess in Visit Raleigh’s defense the new project was recently announced. Hopefully they find space for the same proposed project elsewhere downtown.
Good to see the multi-named project on Wilmington still alive. Thought that one had died off due to the pandemic since we hadn’t heard anything for a while.
Saw the Moxy hotel in DC walking around last night. Cool lights aside, the detail of the exterior is also pretty nice looking up close. I hope we really do get one, and that it looks similar. (Brownstone type homes adjacent to it would also be just fine.)
30 Likes
Bye bye high speed rail (that can work in literally only one place - THIS place)
Hello pretentious hotel that would work just as well in 100 other locations throughout Glenwood South
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I mean, maybe they should’ve done something in the past 7 years about getting these 21 properties? Would be kinda disappointing to lose some of this anyway.
Also, I’m still convinced they could get creative and make it work.
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Well we’re on the planned high speed rail corridor so we will get the high speed along with everyone else on the line. Maybe current corridor limitations will lead to a better rail plan like a transit tunnel or reroute maybe even more federal funding to assist.
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Yeah, I mean I’m sorry if this makes high speed rail more difficult, but this land has been here vacant forever. I don’t like the idea of holding downtown development hostage for this alleged, maybe someday rail project. I fully support high speed rail, but it’s likely decades away if ever. We already have trains, planes, cars, and buses to get us places; high speed rail is a nice addition if it ever comes. But if it was imminent and the only thing stopping it was this piece of property, then they should’ve bought it first. You snooze, you lose. That being said, they put train tracks through mountains and deserts in the 1800s. Surely someone can find a spot to put a few miles of tracks that isn’t in the middle of downtown Raleigh if this $X00 billion project is really hinging on this one issue.
Also, I don’t think Moxy is supposed to be pretentious. It’s like a budget hotel with small rooms that has some flair and a cool bar to be a little more fun.
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mike - what’s the source of this? any other details you can share? timing, images, etc.
I saw this just looking around after he posted the rendering. Not really any other info.
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yep. i did an ol google machine and seen it. its all i know.
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I’m completely in the same boat. I LOVE travelling by train. But this project feels like it’s a century away. Look at the California HSR, which is as close to a perfect use case as one could dream up and has been neutered into a trillion dollar way to get between Fresno and Bakersfield.
It feels like the best thing for Raleigh is to take the medium-term wins.
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Since August:
1 Like
Railroad: hold up don’t do anything with that land we need it for the railroad
Property owner: So you’re going to buy some of this land?
RR: No
PO: …and you’re not going to take it
RR: No we don’t have the money. But we need it
Hotel Developer: Ok I’ll buy it
PO: Ok sounds good
RR: That’s cool but just don’t do anything with it
HD: But I can make money building on it
RR: Yeah but if you build on it it’ll be too expensive for us to build on it
HD: You just said you weren’t going to buy it?
RR: We’re going to buy it to build on it, just later, as long as nobody else does. Anyways can’t you just put that hotel somewhere else
HD: No, I need land to build a hotel and this land was for sale
RR: No it wasn’t I called dibs on it and I’ve been doing all this work
HD: I can’t really help you that would cost me a lot of money
RR: you’re an asshole
11 Likes
To be clear I am not exactly lamenting that a developer is doing what developers do here
I am lamenting that this project has moved so slowly as to paint itself into a corner like this. This is on the shoulders of NCDOT, and USDOT, more than anyone else.
I reached out to some folks about this issue back in March. Melton was the one reply I got (Seriously, this guy is a treasure) and he said at the time that he had not heard anything about this property moving forward since before COVID, but that may have changed.
The city or state can buy or condemn this property, but right now there is no money available for that.
11 Likes
Yeah, no shit. Too late to start with the “but but but wait we were just about to start working on highspeed rail!” lmao. This is the United States of America, anway, I have 0.00% faith in that ever even happening in my lifetime.
3 Likes
I don’t have any insight to how this project would work, but I feel like there’s plenty of spaces around downtown for a hsr station. All the railyards north of downtown along Capitol blvd can’t be repurposed and all the abandoned/rundown industrial buildings can’t be redeveloped into dense neighborhoods? I mean it wouldn’t be part of union station but it also wouldn’t be in the suburbs like the proposed texas hsr stations.
thing about train stations and train tracks is you can’t just find a “spot” - you need a continuous corridor. In this case, it needs to enter downtown from the north, and exit to the west.
In a protracted, painful process culminating in about 2015, they finally decided on this route:
It took about a decade of analysis and study to get that route identified, through the environmental process, fully approved, ready to begin property acqusition, etc.
I understand that “developers gonna develop,” but finding a parcel to build a hotel, is multiple orders of magnitude easier than identifying and assembling a contiguous corridor for something like a rail line.
Building it underground would add billions to the cost, even given the extra $50+ million to acquire and tear down a just-completed hotel, that’s still a drop in the bucket compared to tunneling
3 Likes
well then they should’ve started purchasing all this land they decided on in 2015 LMAO it’s really that simple. For instance; I just found a piece of land just north of downtown that I want to build a house on. I don’t own it, but I have decided that is where I will build my house, and so help me god if someone else buys that land I want to build my house on, I will be very upset and file a lawsuit or something but also no, I will not be purchasing it myself now to ensure I can build my house on it. Does that not sound silly as all getout? That’s basically the position USDOT/NCDOT is in, currently.
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So they decided on a route in 2015, but they have yet to purchase any property for it. What do they honestly think is going to happen with the land? Not real good planning on the government’s part.
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