Maybe the answer could be that the senior housing at Glenwood Towers doesn’t mix well with the frat house vibes of Cornerstone (or whatever is going to replace it anyway). A block further west might help a bit - but not that much.
Residents may prefer to live somewhere a little less… well, Glenwood South-y.
I know some of the residents in Glenwood Towers. They enjoy it, but they simply wish the towers were better managed and kept up to standards. These are residents homes and not for our entertainment. It’s funny how nimbys can complain about over shadows to be taken seriously, however there are residents being kicked out of their urban homes due to development… Is this gentrification or redlining warfare?
Raleigh has plenty of empty lots ripe for development in the downtown area. Why must there be a plot to kick long time resisdents out?
Sounds to me like the cost to maintain/keep this building up to standard may simply just be… too expensive to justify. It’s not always some nefarious plot against low-income folks - they literally include “relocation off-site” in the RHA options Mike shared lmao.
if the building needs to be rehabilitated (as the city says) and is becoming uninhabitable or extensive enough disrepair such people can’t live in it while the rehabilitation is happening, it doesn’t mean it’s a “plot to kick long time residents out.”
Even more reason they should be moved elsewhere during the major repairs or rehabilitation or whatever needs to happen. The residents need the dignity of a home not the expectation they must live inside a construction zone during their twilight years. Leaving them there to deal with that mess would be a horrible way to treat them.
That site next to Yacht Club is really small for a substantial project. Glenwood Towers’ location is underutilized for how much land they occupy and the number or residents served. It’s also in really bad shape. As a neighbor, I walk past it often & it’s pretty bad. RHA could get a pretty penny for the land alone that would enable them to fund building of new units on other property they own. They could put some of the residents in a new building next to Yacht Club, but not all of them. With all of the hostility toward funding publicly at the Federal and state levels, RHA is going to have to make shrewd business decisions. If I were RHA, I’d petition to rezone the property taller to make it more valuable (it’s currently zoned for 12 floors), and then market it to maximize their coffers to build relocation sites. It would be very difficult to renovate or rebuild in place because so many residents would be displaced during construction that could take years.
I also don’t know why they are holding onto the site next to Yacht Club since is pretty darn small to do anything significant with it and economy of scale would make the site challenging to financially operate. Maybe RHA is just doing the CityPlat thing and using the land as a bank account?
they’re not making an more land, lol, so definitely city of Raleigh has a gold mine on their hands with the plot of land on Glenwood on which Glenwood Towers sits. I agree, they should get it rezoned for TALL height/floors whatever, especially with Creamery about to be under construction, and sell to whomever wants to buy it to give the RHA money to build more housing elsewhere. The Glenwood Towers residents could be housed somewhere during the years housing is built elsewhere. I don’t think there’s a necessity they must be “downtown” if they’re retired folks. It might be cheaper and more amenities for them closer to one of the shopping districts, or make room for them (even temporarily) at Heritage Park as units there become available. Leverage that land that developers want, sell it high, and build more housing elsewhere.
More likely RHA doesn’t have $50,000,000 to deliver a new high rise with with nearly 300 units.
We’re looking at $100+ million for a 300 unit high-rise more likely. For reference, Maeve was $110 million and while some of this is due to the high-end amenities, construction costs were lower when it started.
I know there’s a lot of reasons renovating doesn’t make sense, but if we’re looking purely at cost, $10 million doesn’t strike me as all that unreasonable.
I guess some stuff does get built. Maybe in another 20 years when I’m John’s age, downtown Raleigh will be the city I wanted it to be when I moved here.