This is such a terrible and weird intersection for those of us not from here who travel it. It’s like it was part of the 40s and never got modernized. Is it the most pressing thing? No. Would it be nice to see corrected? Absolutely.
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I’d love that too, so I tried to take a stab at redoing that interchange (and whatever else I could think of to improve the Wade Av. approach from Oberlin). But I got stuck and had to give up. It turns out that overdone Glenwood interchange is even more complicated once you look at the data:
Its ugliness is more than just skin-deep, too. It’s flanked by a tree and a hill, and it’s covered by two historic districts reinforcing low-density residential FLUM areas plus a nationally registered historic site. And as if those sorts of obstacles aren’t enough, the state Division of Employment Security headquarters is also there to stay.
At this point, it’s starting to feel weird to me that Wade Av. is allowed to keep operating as a major throughfare in the first place. Even something as little as reconfiguring the westbound Wade Av. ramp near Caswell St. would impact a historic district. Roundabouts could be difficult, too, due to the hilly terrain and low visibility (though maybe y’all traffic engineers could make something work?). There would be so many obstacles to address (and, if anyone decides to be stubborn, lawsuits flying through the air) before anyone could even talk about getting shovels into the ground, I think it’s only natural that no one’s stepped up to the challenge.
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We can make anything work, if the money is there! Haha but like I said yesterday, it just wouldn’t be worth the money and anything touched would lead to neighborhood outcry. Even if the main goal was safety and slowing things down.
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Nope, the Employment Security property (former Rex Hospital) will likely get sold to the highest bidder and redeveopled. It may take a while, but I really feel its days are numbered. I’m sure Covid has temporarily cooled these plans, but with the State moving so much of there operations to the Blue Ridge Road area for newer offices moving out of the old hospital for a new building should be a no brainer.
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That’s a lot of words to say that its actually designed well and works fine. 
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putting on my amateur sim city hat…couldn’t this be solved with a 4 way intersection like the rest of wade has?
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That would definitely work. And you create some new blocks for possible development. You could even keep the grade separation at Glenwood in this case.
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Add a roundabout there and I’m all in. Still, it wouldn’t be my priority when money is needed elsewhere for infrastructure that would be more impactful.
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It would be impactful for me, who drives into DTR every time! 
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That’s not what I said. I’m saying there’s lots of reasons why you’d feel like not redoing that intersection. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good the way it is now.
Put another way: do you really need all of those loops and off-ramps? Something like @dtseabear could let us get more land to build things on. You’d still have political headaches, though (and I could’ve made my post shorter if I didn’t bother to go into that).
That’s exactly what I was thinking. The only ramp I would consider keeping is the ramp going north to Glenwood. Traffic from downtown looking to get to Glenwood would have to sit through two different intersections to get onto Glenwood.
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TBJ just posted a new article about East End Market. One of the quotes that stood out was, “we are moving forward quickly with phase two of East End Market on speculative basis in order to take advantage of the neighborhood’s momentum”.
Construction for phase two should be finished by 2023.
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Another big piece of news from that article is that Koch Industries is investing in the project. It is their first project in the state of NC. Charles Koch is estimated to be with $45 billion.
I don’t care for some of their politics, but IMO it is a pretty big deal that an investor with such deep pockets is investing here. Just more evidence that the Triangle is on everyone’s radar.
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On the other hand, will having Koch involved in this project potentially deter future tenants due to Koch’s well known political leanings?
Possibly, but I doubt it. Most people probably won’t even know they are involved. And how many people actually avoid Chick-fil-A, which is arguably further on the spectrum?
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That’s because those chicken sandwiches are like crack.
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Bojangles all the way. 
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In a perfect world but unfortunately the alternative is few and far between
Love it. Kane Jr keeps building on spec like his father -excellent to have them both for our area
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Deep pockets are good to have and boy does he have them. He was very deep in traditional Republican politics (divisive but sane), but not a Trumper.