Jesus H…. This just looks to be a Kane Stanhope building on steroids…… which is already one of my least favorite additions to Hillsborough but at least that included ground floor retail. I’m not loving it lol - all for density but I have a feeling this thing is gonna be more hideous than the renders indicate- just like Stanhope was.
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There is going to be a lot of walking between this building & the campus. I also wonder if this is going to goose sales at The Village District and also increase foot traffic in the neighborhood in between. I walk this area a lot, and I’m usually one of few on foot in the area.
At this point, I think it would be AWESOME if there was a Wolfline that ran from main campus downtown (circle around the Capital) and back. We used to hoof it from the east campus dorms to Cameron Village and IHOP (never quite made it downtown proper), but with this much new student housing coming online (with no parking) running a new Wolfline bus that continued to DTR is a no brainer.
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I wonder if they plan to have this open for fall 2025? Seems like a stretch but don’t think it should take until fall 2026
The N&O recently published a story that - Nan Xiang Express (soup dumplings), Tsao-Cha (a bubble tea and fried chicken bar), Ebisu Life Store (assorted Japanese merchandise), and Chex Grill & Wings - would all be opening in the ground level of Uncommon.Tbh - not certain if any of those seem like long term tenants with much staying power. Feel like every “new” bit of retail that has opened up on the NCSU adjacent stretch of Hillsborough in recent years has been a revolving door of boba tea shops.
On the Bloc 83 side - the first time I went to Incendiary last year, one of the bartenders told me that a Mexican restaurant would be opening up in one of the larger spaces at Bloc 83 on the Hillsborough St side. Haven’t seen anything public about that though and it’s probably been close to a year since I was told that.
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HOLD UP. NOW YOU’RE TALKING MY LANGUAGE!!! Where did you see info on this??
I’m shocked that selling tea with chunks isn’t enough to pay rent and employees and still make a profit…
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Just googled it. Not sure if this is real. I don’t necessarily want to buy an entire Japanese life, but if they sold food stuff and sakes, I’d check it out.
Edit: Ok, so the N&O article says:
Ebisu Life Store offers a range of products and brands, all from Japan. A representative for Ebisu contacted by The N&O has not yet shared details about the Raleigh location. But based on Ebisu’s social media accounts, the store carries home decor, snacks and drinks, toys, beauty products, cups and mugs, stationery and other products.
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Getting off topic but if you like Japanese stuff have you visited Toyo Shokuhin up the road in Cary at Chatham Square? I don’t make it out there as often as I’d like but I do enjoy that place.
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Working on a college campus, there is a real fascination with Japanese culture amongst student. I suspect it has something to do with anime. But we have active anime and a Japanese culture clubs on this small, rural campus. One would think that this would do well with the demographic around State.
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The amount of candy and snacks I’m gonna buy… WHEW! But Jesus H, that building does ZERO favors for any retail tenants, it is THEE ugliest and least inviting piece-of-$h!t on Hillsborough St, IMO.
The Uncommon is actually a modern wonder of Raleigh. The more you look at it, the more it evades comprehension.
It’s like the architects didn’t understand that they can, you know, coordinate the building systems to make an iota of sense. Nope, they just… fall where they fall lmao.
I actually hadn’t noticed this one before but the expansion joint just cuts right through a bay here askfoefafewwl. Even if they didn’t want to spend the time or money to detail it discretely, they couldn’t just… compose the facade to have it align with a material change?
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Wow. As a non-architect/building person I may have never noticed that. Now that you’ve pointed it out, the OCD in me doesn’t like you anymore but even more hates this building! 
But seriously, it’s like someone designed the building infrastructure and internals and another person/firm did the exterior and they didn’t compare plans…ever.
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Absolutely garbage building in every sense of the word.
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I was excited to see more apartments built on Hillsborough. When I graduated from State in 2013, there was just Valentine Commons and 1-2 of the Live on Hillsborough buildings.
But the Uncommon building looks awful. It also has the distinction of being the building that replaced East Village Bar & Grill - which I still miss every day (and miss it extra during baseball season). I think both Stanhope and the Standard look fine aesthetically for student apartment complexes - but Uncommon just looks so slapped together and incongruent with the other buildings around it.
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It really is quite bad.
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Oh they truly could not have designed a worse looking building if they tried.
They could have painted it seafoam green.
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