Wasn’t that something Cuomo wanted to do for a while? The design firm PAU had some really amazing sketches of Madison Square Garden being gutted and turned into a massive skylight with the new Penn Station’s main concourse underneath.
It doesn’t look like that’s taken off much lately, though, since the latest proposals don’t include that and the owner of Madison Square Garden doesn’t seem to be budging.
We are visiting Manhattan next Friday, staying at the Andaz on Bryant Park across from the NYPL. Curious to see how it’s looking in this area, but I feel like all of NYC is just its own universe.
Yeah… I never said that and definitely wasn’t the tone of my comment. I was saying I’m sure if the company haven’t done a bridge yet it must be a valid reason some type of restriction. You definitely took that the wrong way. If they can build a 35ft building like The Walter a bridge shouldn’t really be a problem. Maybe he is waiting for a creative design. I don’t comment on here much I usually just observe because I don’t like to argue with people or something I reply to taken out of content
I must’ve just misread the tone of what you wrote (since this is the internet, after all); thanks for clarifying! In that case, yeah I agree with you; like I said earlier, there’s quite a few challenges, but I also don’t think it’s fundamentally impossible to build a bridge (or tunnel or better-designed crosswalk or whatever) around there.
No worries 
all is well.
You would be correct. Madison Square Garden (and the Dolans) isn’t likely going to be moving any where as it sits on top of the busiest transit node in the country. The other points with regards to MSG is that there’s no other place to shoehorn the venue as the other locales have already been snapped up. And, it would cost $5 billion to make the move.
Now, back to Raleigh…
From what we have today on either side of Six Forks Rd., I think it’s more likely that a pedestrian bridge or tunnel wasn’t a serious consideration at all. I say that because of the way the two sides are currently developed with each of them drawn to its own center, not to each other. There’s literally no hint of pedestrian priority in how the two sides address Six Forks. On the west side of Six Forks, NH literally has a surface parking lot, a gas station, a drive-thru bank, and the main car entrance that leads to all of those things, plus the lower level garage. On the east side, the project has an ever growing wall of towers that don’t engage the sidewalk on Six Forks. There’s literally nothing that suggests that pedestrian activity between the two is either intended or a priority.
Kane is not going to build something unless he gets a return on it. A bridge or tunnel is not going to get him anything for for the outlay.
No he’s not. I agree.
Yeah. It’s nice to brainstorm about possibilities. But I agree that if Kane wanted a bridge or tunnel, he would have built it already. Or at least made some plans to incorporate a future bridge to tie into one of the towers.
I kind of disagree. While you’re correct that clearly no such accommodation was made on the west side of Six Forks, the east side is literally perfect for it. The central plaza between the Captrust and Bank of America towers of NHE is perfectly depressed 12-14’ below the pavement of Six Forks. The parking entrance to Captrust has already dipped fully below ground by that point. There are no gravity-drained sanitary sewers or storm sewers under Six Forks to get in the way. They’d just have to reconfigure Cowfish’s outdoor seating, and then there is just a concrete wall to cut through for a straight shot under Six Forks. There may be other utilities in the way such as electrical, fiber, telco, gas, or water - but those can be relocated with less extensive impacts than sewers which rely on gravity for drainage.
Here:
I’m not saying that it couldn’t be done. I am saying that the way it’s developed, there’s zero indication that there was a thoughtful consideration for the pedestrian experience between them.
IMO it’s not too big of a leap from there to see that, if the North State Bank building, and the two outward-facing banks on that side of the NH Main complex were redeveloped, they could easily take a tunnel into account, linking the central plazas on each side of Six Forks with a pleasant passageway 450’ long: about a block, one-and-a-half minutes’ walk, or about a third of the end-to-end length of the central corridor at Crabtree Valley Mall.
Maybe they didn’t plan for it from day one, but the experience is serendipitously perfectly set up for it on the east side, and there are some redevelopment opportunities on the west side that could accommodate it well.
It feels like you’re both right on this - if only we could wish / speak it into existence.
To John’s point - if you look at the renderings for the next (JC Penney ’ Lassiter) phase of the development, the Kane group is still focusing inward at North Hills - so keep shouting to the rooftops…
At least there’s a thoughtful pedestrian connection across Lassiter Mill at a rather nice crosswalk with a button to push for the walk signal.
The best shot at making it happen will be whenever Kane decides to redevelop the North State Bank outparcel building into a tower of some sort. This redevelopment is sure to happen someday, but it’s definitely not on the short-term agenda.
Remembering all of the hullabaloo when Kane first started the whole North Hills project. And, he wanted to go tall on the immediate west side of Six Forks.
There was resistance about needing setback requirements. So, the Exxon station and North State Bank were kept as is.
Now, it’s a different day. He’s definitely played a long game with this project.
Here’s where this tunnel could integrate into NH Main. This floor could continue on this level, with no slope, under Six Forks, and all the way across to the plaza at NH East.
Ditch the row of parking (about 20 spaces) to make it a nice walkway connecting the tunnel to Target. It’s about a 700 foot walk from here to the NHE plaza.
Lastly, this is where it would tie in with the upper/street level at main North Hills. It would be about 450’ from here to NHE.
It’s funny to see this conversation and your diagrams. I worked in North Hills above the AT&T store for a few years when I first moved here (2013-2016) and I talked about doing just that and almost exactly the same way. Enter from the same level parking where you show here and having it come out behind where Bruegger’s Bagels used to be (next to Cowfish). You could have mall kiosk style vendors and weather wouldn’t be an issue, at least from the Target deck to the other side of Six Forks. If events are happening on one side or the other (think the Beach Music Festival series) ppl would be MUCH more comfortable parking on the opposite side and walking through the tunnel to get to the event.
It just makes so much sense, but $$ needed and I don’t see that happening any more than my gondolas DTR.
