I drove by the other day and asked a few construction workers how many stories this was going to be and they told me they weren’t allowed to say. He told me they had to sign NDA’s. He may have been messing with me, but I don’t know, there’s enough secret squirrel stuff going on here that it’s plausible. 
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We will know soon. Once the steel starts I feel like these usually fly up to full height pretty quick.
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That is insane. Why the hell is there so much secrecy around a taxpayer funded building??
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Total height is around 150 ft. Level 1 to top of mech penthouse.
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I agree! Why is keeping the information from the public even legal? This is public money being spent.
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This things is under more secrecy than the White House Epstein Ballroom.
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Any idea/guess as to how tall SECU is? There’s no official height online but I want to say the estimates I’ve seen are around 150’ or less
That is a tough number to chase down other than “12 stories”. Not on any of the DTR Wikipedia lists nor the designer or contractor webpages about the project
Peaked cap also makes a definitive height a gray number.
However the Certified Action document for its Council approval no doubt relied upon information supplied by the designer, O’Brien Atkins.
Height: 195’
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~200’ does make sense for a 12-story office building! So honestly, I’ll be glad if this ends up being just slightly shorter - if only for the selfish reason of still (possibly) seeing the top of the SECU building peeking out from behind it as I drive into the city from the North
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The document posted by @TDR states (among other items) “The site plan is consistent with the following policies in the 2030 Comprehensive Plan” (noted below). The structure is supposed to have “transparent storefront windows and activated uses on the ground floor.” Does this mean some sort of retail or does “activated uses” mean something else?
Is anyone familiar with how to complete a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request? If tax payer money is being used, which I’m assuming so since this is a state government project, then a FOIA request could shed some light.
I have done it in SC and VA, but not in NC. It takes some time, but there is a process. maybe Google it and see what you have to do in NC
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Just to be clear that Certified Action document is for the SECU building in response to @Jake’s question about the height of that building, not the Central Education building (which needs no City approval).
And what your referenced subsection actually says is that the Comprehensive Plan is looking for “quality architecture” which may include elements such as storefronts or other street activation features. It does not mandate them.
The zoning, on the other hand, may require such elements via the street frontage type designation appended to the zoning district. And the SECU building has those elements.
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It will not have any retail component. The guy in overseeing this exclusively said so, been mentioned multiple times here. There will be ZERO retail.
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The italics is the policy text. The standard text is for this building. ‘activated uses’ is one of the examples of a ground floor architectural feature. Reading that, they went with a different example to meet this policy.
Thanks for clarifying!
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So we will have large/taller firsr floor…
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