Here are some pics I took in November this year:
The water was not reaching WF rd yet (and didn’t this time)
Edit: gage level corresponding to the pictures:
Edit: gage level corresponding to the pictures:
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This is a cool idea to have more green space developed into something attractive, but “waterfront?” I mean, c’mon. The water is just a creek that floods often and that’s it. I mean better than nothing, but I sure hope it’s not called a “waterfront park” or some other exaggerated name! Raleigh has no “waterfront” but there’s plenty of cool-factor in “creekside” stuff.
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The area around Biltmore Village in Asheville is instructive. It contains many examples of different approaches to building in a flood plain.
Approach 1: Build on top of fill. River Mill Lofts apartments.
Approach 2: Build on top of parking.
Grade A: Grand Bohemian Hotel.
No expense spared; great care taken to make it feel like the building still interacts with the ground level.
Grade B: Retail building.
Faces the sidewalk with a big stairway. Kind of sets the activity off apart from the street but still presents a decent apperance.
Grade C: Hotel.
Building on stilts.
Approach 3: Flood-proof construction (Also Approach 2 for the new wing)
New Morning Gallery. Flood-proofed interior on the ground floor of a historic building for its entrance. The new wing has parking and some false-storefront display windows on the ground level and retail space on the second level.
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Approach 4: Convert Crabtree Mall into a lake, along with the quarry, and rehab Crabtree Creek @ WF rd. Into nice wide river park.
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If Scottsdale, Arizona can have a “waterfront” area, then I think we can, too. I remember seeing an ad for waterfront living while in AZ for a few days and rushed over to see what it was - it’s a concrete canal of sorts. At the time, the water looked very light blue, like it had been colored somehow. Lots of people paying a lot of money to have views of the Scottsdale Waterfront!
http://scottsdalewaterfrontshopping.com/
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Except that Crabtree Mall has plans to get MUCH bigger structurally.
N&O article is paywalled unless you do view in incognito
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You know that plan got significantly downgraded last year due to a change in management, right?
(Also I’m like 100% sure Evan was joking.)
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^this is that waterfront.
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I would like to know what their plans are. I’ve seen their site and it looks like they’ve done no really significant upgrades to their current properties.
I’ve read an article about a mall in LA that was converted to an open air shopping area. I think I’d be happy if they opened up the mall. This would allow shops to open at different times. I would also like if they put in some nightlife entertainment. A bottle shop and brewery would be nice. I would also be happy with a grocery store. I’m really pressing for a shopping for every type of need thing. One can dream.
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it may be a good thing to not have so much traffic bottlenecking into a cbd from far flung parts of town. much county stuff is on poole road or near wake med. nc state is a couple of miles from downtown proper and generally expanded sw-ward. sure, nearly all city and state employees are downtown along with a good amount of new tech. the hospitals are all outside of downtown. highwoods and now north hills have some employment density…midtownish i guess.
Climate change is testing a lot of metro areas’ plans for adding stormwater storage capacity, since heavy rain events are already much more common than they were when most stormwater systems were engineered. Crabtree Creek already was dammed several times to reduce flooding; the mall has flooded far less often since Lake Crabtree was built.
At the risk of wading into some other political discussion, the “RDU Quarry” site is also adjacent to Crabtree Creek. Some huge quarries were just added to Chicago’s flood control system, and it seems like the Hanson quarry on Duraleigh has been studied for stormwater potential.
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Was driving down St.Albans drive, and took these pics, in reference to the Midtown Exchange development.
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They are “exchanging” some trees for some steel and concrete.
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Branching off from the business expansion thread…
This is the article, for those of y’all keeping count.
It’d be interesting to see what sort of companies Kane’s Innovation District could attract. …but I doubt he would want to start off his urban biotech hub with something as highly controlled as nuclear medicine 
What do you think could actually happen in his Innovation District? Do y’all think there are real opportunities for biotech and IT-related startups to call North Hills and downtown Raleigh its home, and give RTP and Durham a run for its money?
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I don’t know, but I work in Biotech and live a stones throw from there, so the the thought of taking a 5 minute stroll to work is very enticing…
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I’d love it if I could work in biotech anywhere close to actual civilization. Almost got close in Morrisville, and then my company decided to double down and move to the middle of nowhere RTP this summer. Sigh.
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Have there been any updates on Midtown Exchange? I don’t know if anyone mentioned anything in another chat.
The land appears to have been cleared but hard to tell the extent of grading / site prep that has been done from just driving
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