I’d propose the frontage along Williamson be single-family cottages, transitioning along St. Mary’s to townhomes and then eventually a 7-story mid-rise at St. Mary’s and Wade. At the SW corner of the property, closest to the SECU building, I would propose 10 stories before dropping to 5-stories, and then to cottages. Similar to Birney Park, but a bit more aggressive along Wade. Maybe not a highrise, but density.
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However the purchaser chooses to develop the property, commercial/institutional or residential, it will be interesting to see how many parking places are built now that the requirements have been lifted.
Given the City’s budget situation, I can’t imagine that the St Mary’s-Wade intersection would be massively rebuilt unless the developer of the hospital property kicks in some funding.
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With the grade change here, I’ve always wished they could do a Dupont Circle style intersection with Wade 4 thru traffic lanes tunneled from east of St. Marys to just past the sharp bends and then have 1 lane local lane each direction at the surface with intersections with the cross streets. But yea, that’s a shit ton of money, shit ton of effort, and probably overkill.
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All of Wade Ave needs to be completely redone and modernized.
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Probably but deep down I’m glad that it’s not likely in my lifetime. The property acquisition alone would blow the entire budget so that the City wouldn’t be able to do it on their own. There are some reasonable changes that could be made but I don’t trust NCDOT to do it without making it some over-engineered mega highway monstrosity. I’d live with separated medians for the scary bits
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Yeah you are not wrong. Especially considering that is the exact issue tat killed the sixforks rd project.
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Where’s your sense of excitement?? I used to drive Wade from Capital to Edwards Mill everyday on my way to work. Rolling hills, curves, left lane with just some painted lines separating your from a head on collision… Idiots trying to make a left turn at 730 AM… If that doesn’t wake you up in the morning, nothing will. 
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This feels like the way to make it at least more tolerable.
Wade’s problem to me is that it would be best to act as a local road, but it is treated as an highway extension connecting 40 to Capital.
It seems unavoidable that it will be a major artery into downtown from the west due to its connection to 40, but Western is so much better built to be that connection, I wish we could just push the traffic there.
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About as likely as the City’s fixing the mess at Crabtree. The most recent estimate was $90 million and that was years ago.
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