Cue Grid Plan Alpha: Extreme Edition.
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This would be dope, especially if those new streets were reserved for horse drawn carriage and EcoPRT only.
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And scooters. And drones. And maybe some flying cars.
Funny thing is I actually drew that up seriously. It was not until I got done that I realized how over the top it is. Sigh.
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@Various people
I can be dramatic. Sorry that can come across harsh or snarky at times.
Wilmington and Hammond are underused because they do not go through smoothly. Wilmington is great to get to Moore Sq. and Fayetteville St area. Hammond I guess the same thing but a block over, but both of those do not flow the same as Dawson/Mcdowell and they come out awkwardly on the other side of DTR, whereas S. Saunders to Capital works really well for through traffic. S. Saunders would have to be reduced to nearly nothing before traffic is pushed to those roads. From what I see, most of the traffic on that corridor is through traffic and the other routes are inferior for that purpose.
I could see these areas developing into divided districts, with a Dix district to the west of S. Saunders and MLS district to the east and hopefully pedestrian bridges to connect these easily at some point.
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Could still use some stop lights inside Dix so the people driving thru there to work don’t run stop signs and nearly hit runners and walkers every morning.
(Does anyone know a good stoplight company I can buy stock in?)
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Wish I could like this 20 times!!!
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Good podcast with John Kane, who briefly brings up the Penmarc site and how it has increased from 40 acres to more than 60 acres and growing. They are trying to acquire more land, but cannot give more details due to confidentiality agreements. Starts at 25:25 minute.
Also goes into detail the difficulty he had with the beginning stages of building North Hills and the push-back form the neighbors to even build the Total Wine portion.
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Listened to the entire thing. Thanks for sharing!
It’s interesting to hear all the stories, and especially the aggressiveness of his team to acquire land around Penmarc. I wonder how much they are eventually trying to assemble?
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A Stadium on this site will still be pretty disconnected from downtown. If they built it today it won’t blend seamlessly into downtown for at least 20 years sans hypergrowth.
Petco Stadium in Downtown San Diego this weekend.
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I am completely guessing on this ! I have not heard anything , just my opinion . Former Raleigh Mayors York , Bradshaw Jr. , Meeker’s first choice for their $20 million hotel / food tax request for a 8,000 seat sports stadium , has stated that Cargill is their first choice & S. Sanders Area is their second choice . Cargill Site is 10 acres , city owned lot next door is 5 acres . Wonder if Mr. Kane is buying these two lots ? I have heard Mr. Malik mention in public app. 2 to 3 months ago his interest for Shaw football to have a stadium opportunity in the future .
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Okay, so after trying to do this by memory (always a bad idea) and @Phil pointing out that the Raleigh Reclamation properties do in fact touch the Penny properties, I decided to do something I should have done a long time ago: I created a spreadsheet tabulating all the various landholdings in the Penmarc area to make one comprehensive list. I’m pretty sure this list is complete, and if I’m missing anything at all, it couldn’t be much.
The Penny family owns a total of 22 properties in the area totaling 44.76 acres (that’s slightly higher than a previous calculation on this forum had come to).
Some of that land is in the block bounded by Saunders, Gilbert, Green and Penmarc. If Kane/Malike are or were able to secure the entire block, that adds another 2.25 acres on top of the Penny family holdings.
The Red Roof Inn property is 2.7 acres.
Raleigh Reclamation owns 11 properties in the area bounded by Wilmington St., Bluff St., the Penny properties (which includes the Walnut Creek Trail), and I-40, totaling 11.01 acres.
There are five other properties between Bluff and Walker, all tiny, totaling 0.66 acres.
If Kane/Malik have absolutely everything listed above, that comes to a total of … 61.38 acres! So, yeah, having now reasoned this out, I agree with Phil that this is probably the scope of the land we’re talking about here. (BTW, this would imply that maybe they do indeed have the Red Roof Inn land under contract now, because otherwise it’s hard to count to 60 here.)
Now, keep in mind that these 60+ acres include the Walnut Creek Trail, which is in a floodplain, which means you can’t build anything on it. Just to eyeball it, that looks to be maybe 10-ish acres that would absolutely have to be left as green space. And trying to build a cohesive development with a floodplain running pretty much right down the middle of it would certainly be an interesting challenge, so it’ll be really fascinating to see how they tackle it, if this is indeed the scope of the land they’ve got. If they do it right, it could be something really, really special, but with emphasis on the “if” there.
To add further intrigue, Kane said they’re trying to acquire even more land in this area. And maybe it could just be that they’ve got some holdouts on one of the smaller parcels that they’re still negotiating with. Or maybe they’re looking to add something substantial, which could be the 10 acres Raleigh owns (although that’s also largely the Walnut Creek floodplain), or the Hatem property (the Bain Water Treatment Plant, which I doubt Hatem is inclined to sell, just guessing here), or the 6 acres north of Water Works that Duke Energy owns (I’m not sure how inclined Duke is to sell, but I would have to think that Kane/Malik would be extremely interested in getting their hands on that land).
Or maybe they are indeed looking to jump across to the other side of S. Saunders St., which would be quite interesting in its own way. (Someone had suggesting jumping across Wilmington St., but that would be exceedingly difficult since that land is mostly in the Walnut Creek floodplain, too.)
Anyway, this all just goes to show that keeping detailed spreadsheets is much better than relying on your own memory.
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Talked to one of the NCFC coaches a week ago at the bar. Asked him if he believed we would land the MLS expansion team, he replied by saying he was certain we would land it. Not sure if it was just bar talk or him knowing something already 
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It could be really cool if the floodplain was treated more like a park with picnic areas and grilling stations for pre-game “tailgates” before NCFC games. Imagine an open air type food hall type experience adjacent to this flood plain land for people to buy food and then hang out in advance of a game in a planned picnic area, or just for fun on a pleasant day.
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Is that a water treatment plant or a sewage treatment plant? That might help determine if I would want to picnic by the creek or not.
It was a water treatment plant at one point a long time ago, but has not been active since 1987. The name belies the really exciting redevelopment potential the property has. It was built in the Art Deco style and could be revitalized for any number of really cool projects once the surrounding area starts to get built up.
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Thanks @daviddonovan I did look at some photos of it awhile back, it is a very cool looking building. It would be great to repurpose it one day.
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If you include the 6 acres of Penney family property north of Water Works and the Raleigh Reclamation site along Wilmington, but exclude the Water Works and Red Roof Inn, it works out to almost exactly 60 acres.
That property has an electrical substation almost in the middle of it, so I wonder what would happen with it if it’s incorporated into this development.
I think a big development like this is the only way the Bain property will be revitalized any time soon. It’s such an amazing building, and I wish they would open it up for another art installation again. I drove by it yesterday and was struck by how the natural light was just streaming through the windows.
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Yeah, that’s a really interesting question as to what’s going to happen with that. I’m not sure how feasible it would even be to try to relocate it, but I’d have to think Kane/Malik would be delighted to see it gone.
I think this development would be both necessary and sufficient for the Bain Plant to get revitalized. If this Kane project really does come off, then I think you’d see money start flowing into Bain very quickly, especially with the new Opportunity Zone tax credits that are applicable here and make it extremely attractive to pour capital into this area.
BTW, I realize this is called the “Stadium at the Penmarc Site” thread, and look, I understand why we’re referring to it as the stadium site even though it’s entirely possible that there might never be any stadium on this site … but, stadium or no, this project is going to profoundly and fundamentally change not just this area, but almost everything that bumps up against this area. This is going to be transformative for a huge swath of south Raleigh, and the implications for the Bain plant are just one great example of that.
To me, the possible stadium is literally the least interesting part of this whole proposal. A project that brings tons of housing, retail/restaurants and office space to this area, another North Hills, potentially, is going to have a much more significant impact on the surrounding area than any soccer stadium will or would.
And speaking of things that are both necessary and sufficient, @JKK every single thing that has ever happened in the history of MLS leads me to be extremely confident in predicting that if an MLS-caliber stadium gets built in Raleigh, then Raleigh will definitely get an MLS franchise, and if no MLS-caliber stadium is built here, then Raleigh will definitely not get an MLS franchise. It’s truly as simple as that.
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I could be wrong, but I don’t think any city has built a brand new soccer specific stadium for an MLS team before being awarded a franchise.