It better… or else I’m going to be very annoyed if it’s “1 grocer is enough for East Raleigh” and then we get 0 grocers.
5 Likes
I get that you can’t write a proforma off of this, but we’ve seen reliable waves of undersupply 
rent increase more construction oversupply rent decrease less construction. By the time the city gets done with its second of 4 studies that cycle has come and gone.
4 Likes
I waited to opine because this one hurts. Hopefully this is just politics and these concepts are supposed to get the public to realize that requiring parking limits the potential of the site. Once it’s “our” idea to reduce/eliminate the parking and not the city’s idea, then they can go back and produce something better and say “they listened.” That’s wishful thinking I know.
But it’s obvious that trying to fit parking here is a challenge. If we’re not willing to take a “risk” here, on the actual BRT line, with a fully car-light or car-free solution, then where are we going to try it? I floated culdesac at the DMV event and there was interest. Why isn’t something car-light one of the concepts, even if it’s a long-shot and just there for comparison?
The only redeeming part of these concepts is that in two of them, it appears they’re leaving room to extend Cotton Pl to Tarboro. Please just do this to reconnect the grid and figure out the rest later. I love the sight lines we have now from Tarboro to downtown with the building gone. It would be another mistake to ignore the opportunity to reconnect the grid here.
5 Likes
I totally agree with your points about parking - but curious about the Cotton Pl extension - it’s such a short road, 1 block with maybe 20 houses max - what does reconnecting that to the grid get us? Wouldn’t you rather maximize the buildable land on the site? This is a genuinely earnest question, curious if there’s something I’m missing here, I just don’t see any real value to reconnecting Cotton Pl to Tarboro
1 Like
No you’re totally fair to ask this and I’ve debated it in my head too. It is valuable space we’d relinquish to a street/path…tough sell. But there will have to be some open space anyway, why not make the open space a really nice street that improves walkability and sight lines in the area, and then max out the two blocks with density. If they don’t put the road through, they’re still going to try to squeeze in green space somewhere. I’d take the street over green space in this particular instance.
If we were seizing other opportunities to connect the grid, maybe I’d let this one go, but we’re not. Only Vardaman St and Sawyer Rd to my knowledge on this side of town, in terms of ~recent grid reconnections.
And- my real ask is to also extend Cotton Pl west when Exploris moves. Now we’re talking about making a direct street connection from Tarboro to a (future) grocery store as an alternative to New Bern.
2 Likes
Yeah, I walk that way a lot and don’t see exactly what that additional connection gets you. Anyone coming from downtown will likely be on Harget or New Bern already, except the few houses on Cotten/Camden. The trade off being splitting the block and adding a new street entrance on Tarboro.
I can see it as a secondary connection from the Dallian development to Tarboro. In that case l, the little nimby voice I haven’t quite killed yet is worried about traffic impact on Cotton. But I don’t know enough about estimating these things to figure if it would be an actual issue.
I think it would make total sense if you could extend all the way to Swain St like you’re hoping for - but if they didn’t have full approval to do that, I think reconnecting to Tarboro doesn’t add much