Really need to get a new camera. All these misty shots. Haha
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Regardless of what they’ve done at Park at North Hills, it’s still fake version of an urban area. It’s almost Disneyesque in its structure and function, plus it’s also inwardly focused & contained that the adjacent neighborhoods are all but ignored.
While the overall North Hills/Midtown redevelopment is certainly better than the strip development that is pervasive across the Triangle, it’s still almost exclusively auto-oriented for those who aren’t residents of the development. Even then, the context of project along a major/busy corridor (Six Forks), makes walking from the east side to the west side uncomfortable at best.
If you look at what Kane is doing in phase 2 (Smokey Hollow), downtown, he’s creating a project that’s stretching and engaging Glenwood South through a pedestrian corridor. He’s also abutting the West Condo project, thus strengthening downtown’s urban credentials.
Between the two, give me downtown every day of the week.
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I Know…Sorry. Looking for one as we speak. Heehee:slightly_smiling_face:
Maybe just wipe the lense. Or take the phone out of the case and wipe the lense.
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Some people here like to talk about all the new buildings coming up at North Hills, or if you’re like me, you’re looking forward to the Midtown-St. Albans area plan that’ll hopefully make it denser/more walkable, and build better transit connections to DTR.
All of that depends on those land use guidelines being passed, though -and I finally found specific dates for when they will (hopefully!!) be approved:
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The Planning Commission’s Committee of the Whole has apparently blocked off their entire to-do list for their next meeting in their next meeting, on Aug. 27
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The Planning Commission’s response to this glorified wish list is due Sept. 28.
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I think this means the city will start asking for public comments today -but I’ll be working and can’t see the WebEx for this plan, starting today at 4pm 
Was anyone else thinking of going?
I think this means we're just one public comment period away from developers being able to take advantage of this??
The city uploaded a list of amendments they want to make to the city’s future land use and street maps (read: the thing that makes new transit/bike routes and zoning change requests easier to do) -but not a preview of the presentation.
It’s nice that North Hills is getting more densely developed, and that Midtown Exchange, Five Points/East End Market, and Capital Blvd. are starting to come up with cool-looking concepts. But if you want that vibe to last, then you need to tie all of those projects together into one plan with a single narrative. Only then, can we finally make Raleigh’s inner-north suburbs more walkable and less car-dependent (and be in it for the long run)!
I wonder if this is what John Kane had in mind for the northern end of his mysterious “Prime Corridor” proposal back when we were competing for Amazon HQ2? Maybe it’s not bad, after all, that we didn’t have to bow down to Amazon’s demands to make a plan like this happen.
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Well, there’s a lot to unpack in this plan, isn’t there?
I’d love to better understand various parts of these recommendations, and hope that i can carve out the time to attend, but I don’t know yet.
In particular, I’m curious about the stretch of Millbrook that’s listed as additional housing type opportunities. WTH does that practically mean for that stretch of Millbrook that’s SFHs?
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“waterfront district” main street 
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Looks like they’re trying to go for denser houses around there (that don’t require rezonings).
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Sooo… it looks like the Planning Commission isn’t ready to make a judgment call for the “walkable Midtown” plan on Sept. 28 as originally planned. There’s an agenda item for the City Council meeting on Oct. 6 to request an extension for making a recommendation.
Here’s their excuse:
The “numerous comments” sound like a mix of people worried about building height transitions, parking, and walkability. The Commission was going to play around with options like:
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changing the max height for former JCPenny’s site at North Hills from 20 to 12/4 stories to transition with the nearby single-family house neighborhoods
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larger setbacks, narrower sidewalks, curbside parking etc. along Six Forks Rd. at North Hills
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more height in buildings along Six Forks Rd., between Selby Dr. and Anderson Dr.
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using the southeast corner of St. Albans Dr./Bush St. for residential and commercial uses
You can find the full list of potential changes from Sept. 24 here. Remember some of the conversation topics may change on Oct. 22, when this plan is back in discussion:
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Aren’t they screwing over Kane with the height change from 20 stories to 12 stories at the JC Penney site. Hasn’t he already submitted a proposal for 18 stories here?
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Bunch of NIMBYs pushing for this.
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Yes. I think you and I see the same discussions on Nextdoor about this. There are some folks in this area drumming up opposition to the 20 story zoning. To be fair, if I lived directly across Lassiter Mill from the JC Penny building, I wouldn’t be fond of a 20 story building directly across the street. But I don’t think that’s the case with most of the people who complain.
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Since the SFHs are across the street from that proposed tower, they are better classified as NIMFYs. 
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I just looked up the JC Penney re-development. It has been approved and the tallest buildings are only 12 stories. So, Kane would not be screwed. I don’t know where I got the 18 story height from. I’ll chalk it up to senility.
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It’s not very clear where updates for Midtown Exchange (and Midtown/North Hills projects aside for those with specific threads) should go, so here we are:
Dewitt Carolinas released more details about their planned flagship building for Midtown Exchange -the mixed use project coming up across Wake Forest Rd. from Duke Raleigh Hospitals.
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https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article247396645.html
Video out…would be nice to see more of this kind of architecture downtown
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In case you didn’t notice, the Midtown comprehensive plan passed unanimously on its second reading (including a “yes” vote from David Cox)!
For those of y’all who forgot, this is the plan that’s aiming to bring a waterfront park along Crabtree Creek as well as lots of walkable developments between Capital Blvd. and North Hills. Or as @mike pointed out in his post, this thing:
To start bringing the new plan into reality, City Council is meeting this Tuesday to consider a land swap for that park space!
The City currently owns the triangular wedge of land to the north, but will trade it with York Family Properties for the land to the south. They both turn out to be worth $37k since the larger parcel is in a flood zone (blue).
Click here if you want more context.
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The greenway connection to this is pretty exciting. Not very often something new is proposed that I can just easily ride the greenway too.
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$37k seems like an extremely low estimate in either case to me, seems like a decent trade for the city though.
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