Which is funny because the North Hills parking decks are so much more annoying to get in and out of than the downtown ones.
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It could be that when people say, âI hate parking downtownâ that a lot of them really mean parallel parking. Yes, there are many other reasons but Iâve always thought that parallel parking to get into an on-street space is intimidating for most drivers. Itâs just something you only really do around hereâŚin downtown Raleigh. 
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If so, itâs a pathetic excuse. We humans have a pretty high capacity to learn new things. Though, if parallel parking is truly a ânew thingâ for anyone with a driverâs license, I question the rest of their driving skills. Iâm not in the camp of feeling a need for marketing downtown/anything towards these kinds of people, as I and @xdavidj (perhaps he more eloquently) are getting at. The folks that are scared to perform a basic parking maneuver in their car are the same people that will be scared of even the sight of (shudders) a homeless person. Thatâs not what we want more of downtown - that literally just invites more complaints and baseless/false claims.
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The last thing anyone has ever called me is eloquant hahaha.
But yeah. Completely agree here. There is not a single downtown in this country that has 0 homeless people and 0 crime.
I donât get how anyone can insinuate that the people providing money to downtowns are the same ones that refuse to go downtown because they saw a single homeless person and felt unsafe.
Letâs make downtown better and more accessible for the people who actually want to be here and spend money here. Not the people that will only come here if itâs a carbon copy of North Hills.
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I enjoy going to North Hills and Fenton and donât for a minute have to âpretend Iâm downtownâ while being there. Theyâre great. Downtown has itâs positives too, lots of unique and fun characteristics (crazy homeless bums included HAHA), energy, entertainment, etc⌠but it sounds kind of âthose places in the burbs are not as good as we are downtownâ to say what you said. There are a LOT of things that you can only get OTB or in planned retail/lifestyle/entertainment centers of Raleigh and Cary
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I donât exactly enjoy it (they feel like malls, and I donât like malls), but they certainly have most of the shopping I actually need. I was just at the Fenton Williams Sonoma yesterday getting a knife.
Funny note, my employee had carried over from the Crabtree Valley location - said their nice knives âused to walk out, whether we locked the case or not.â
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I agree, but also most people are not taught how to parallel park - NC doesnât even require it as part of your driving test to get your license.
Yeah I loathe parallel parking. When I go downtown I park in a deck, or park next to the Lincoln where thereâs always space to pull in.
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This threadâŚcrime, parking, 
âŚ!!!
I personally welcome the day when we get âMooreâ shopping things downtown but it STILL seems a looooong ways off for the density needed to have multiples of these stores in the area with the reality of market size / CRE, online shopping, etcâŚ
We should really be honest ---- When folx on here gripe about North Hills / Fenton and the like ( *they also feel more mall than not to me) - I can understand the lament of those things not being downtown and understand the appeal of those places for a certain this or that while acknowledging they have a very different human scale ( drive to, THEN walk around). Hell, some of the same âcrime / this Fân city is going to hell barkersâ hate North Hills for many of the (parking!!) access issues called out about DTR ( yes, they are ridiculous 
).
To bring it home for the thread - We need Moore residents downtown for more things, better density, which yields walkability then more amenities and Mooore vibrancyâŚItâs coming. Not fast enough.
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Yeah, was thinking we should round this thread back to the topic. 
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Light it up with led lights in and around the alleyway make it look refreshed.
I know the timing isnât right but I envision a second kiosk right on this spot here. One kiosk for breakfast and lunch, the other for lunch/dinner/drinks both with fantastic outdoor seating arrangements. Maybe the second one is even full-service.
One can dream.
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I would say thatâs a better use of the space and good for activation. Perhaps those bland open blocked off areas were done that way as a placeholder for future projects?
I think they were planning on having a much bigger garden, or at least thatâs what those small fenced in areas signal to me.
They areas they do garden are pretty well done, theyâre just such a small percentage of the available space.
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