The ASR is updated and it’s exactly as disappointing as everyone has been expecting.
The entire development is replaced with a massive monolithic 7-story, 545 unit apartment building.
The renderings and site plan are exactly as boring and typical as you can imagine so I will not bother to attach it or any captures. The ASR makes no mention of retail so we can reliably assume there will be none.
It does set aside a second parcel along the western edge, between the parking deck, railroad, and South Street, possibly for a hotel.
It’s better than what is there now and maybe the adjacent rezoned and not yet existing lots, will have taller buildings. This area may turn out to be a nice mildly dense neighborhood in a few years.
Do we know what’s happening with the lot directly to the left of Mira (below the tracks)? Any chance we may still see the on-ramp from MLK to McDowell removed?
Great. More suburban apartment slop. Downtown Raleigh is quickly becoming overrun with this shit. There are only so many surface lots and 1-story buildings that can be wasted with this kind of uninspired and short sighted development until all our potential is used up. I also imagine there’s zero ground floor activation, which will simply ensure this current dead-zone is a permanent dead zone. Why would anyone want to live immediately downtown but have zero retail/food/service options they can walk to on their own block?
I don’t hate the idea of a 7-story building here. It pairs well with Mira, and builds a residential density that is much needed for this portion. Was this block important for high-rise activity? No. Would it have been nice? Sure. But more important is the density. My only gripes with this are: the rather lackluster design (suburban slop), no retail, and the freaking portion along the back end of Salisbury Street…that should be all street frontage, not this awkward cut in.
I seem to remember most wanted South St closed. This block dead ends into RHA2, a parking deck, a convention center, and our high speed road… no retail here is probably expected. It would struggle.
Agreed. I cannot disagree more that it’s somehow better that these places stay empty for 10 years. Folks, investment drives more investment.
It’s a lot easier to pitch cool and awesome projects when you have more people living in a given area. Don’t view this as a wasted opportunity. View this as one more step downtown is taking toward getting one of those cool and awesome developments.
This is exactly what we need to help revitalize Fayetteville Street and to support the retail spaces (some of them vacant) just nearby. The Omni will also have retail. Big boost in foot traffic and 24/7 activity.
Also, I believe they already have plans for the hotel on site 2 referenced here.
I just saw a post on LinkedIn showing the current downtown residential vacancy rate being 21.4% so I believe that high rise residential buildings are not what we need at this moment in time. Obviously, office space is also out of the question.
I did not say downtown is “running out of space” - and I didn’t say there are only a few surface lots and 1-story buildings left… I said, and I’ll quote myself with added emphasis on key words: “There are only so many surface lots and 1-story buildings that can be wasted with this kind of uninspired and short sighted development until all our potential is used up.”
That is to say: if all of the “SO MANY” surface lots and 1-story buildings continue to be redeveloped with this suburban slop (which, get real, is the VAST MAJORITY of development Raleigh has gotten over the last decade, save for a 20-story parking deck + box here and there), eventually there will be limited options for actual URBAN development. Eventually.
I may be hyperbolic, but don’t misinterpret what I’m saying and then respond to that misinterpretation. I also included the fact that this doesn’t appear to have any ground floor/street activation. That, IMO, is what is most short sighted about these kinds of developments. I can accept the awful design, the bland color schemes, the monolithic nature essentially creating a giant wall down an entire block … if they at LEAST add some pedestrian activation along the sidewalks. That is what a city is supposed to be. A giant 5-7 story apartment building alone adds nothing to the city-at-large other than tons of additional residents that now will have to walk somewhere else for anything to do.
If this is true, then average rent prices should be MUCH lower than they are seemingly stuck at. Would probably encourage a lot more foot traffic throughout the city if, you know, more people lived in the city. If there’s truly that much vacant housing downtown, it’s borderline criminal that rent is as high as it is - which clearly isn’t enticing more people to move downtown and keep the city active.
This situation kind of reminds me of what happened with 401 Cabarrus. If there had been no plans for this site and then this large but kind of boring project was announced, I think most people on this board would be like “Cool, they are replacing an empty/abandoned building with a bunch of new apartments. That will be more people which will hopefully support nearby retail and help the area become more vibrant.”
However, when this comes after lots of renderings of a massive development with multiple towers and somewhat interesting architecture, it is a pretty big let down and it reinforces a feeling that projects keep getting downgraded.
here is what the Downtown Raleigh Alliance end of year report said about the apartment market:
Six residential developments delivered 710 units in 2024,
increasing the total number of residential units downtown to 9,607
units.1 2025 is poised to add even more, with 1,520 units expected to
deliver.1 Average asking rent per unit for Q4 2024 is $1,767 and the
stabilized apartment occupancy rate* is 88.4%.2 Downtown Raleigh
absorbed 477 apartment units through 2024.2
footnote about stabilized: *Stabilized occupancy
does not include recently completed projects
Basically if a new building delivers it is 100% vacant at first right? That is why the common way to look at apartment vacancy is the stabilized this is used across the country.
As for some of these projects being turned into midrise vs high rise, high rises are the most expensive type of unit to build and has the highest rents. You have multiple high rises being completed all those apartments at the Weld and the new Maeve high rise.
