The issue with Dawson vs Martin is the volume of traffic b/c that is the primary route for south bound traffic through downtown. Having a parking structure entrance/exit onto Dawson would cause traffic problems for Dawson, whereas Martin is a much less busy cross street and would better accommodate entering/exiting vehicles. We all want to live in an ideal (pedestrian friendly, car lite) world, but we need to get our heads out of the clouds and deal with reality. Yes, I hear you all… building to accommodate cars… I get it, but cars aren’t going anywhere in our lifetimes. If developers don’t “deal” with the car issue, they will have a difficult time filling up a building with tenants/residents if they can’t park their cars somewhere. This is Raleigh, not New York, London, or Hong Kong… Perhaps this will be different in 100 years, but whatever gets built on this block in this iteration will realistically be torn down and replaced (at least once) during that 100 year period. Cities are ever evolving creatures, almost nothing is static. 3 or 4 generations from now, maybe cars will be a remnant of the past, but we have to deal with the hand we are currently dealt.
Dawson is NCDOT controlled and they said no entrance/exit Dawson as project has frontage on Martin (City street) plus on Martin cars can go left/right.
The right answer is in there.
Safety requirements (single vs two-stair) do have an impact, but it’s not a big impact compared to something else.
It’s not a lack of creativity nor capability nor “modern” design that makes development so monolithic.
The need for on site parking, these days driven by lenders rather than zoning, is what pushes these buildings to be so large. You need a lot of space to even fit a parking garage in the first place. If it’s a free standing garage (whether fully, partly, or not wrapped) then it’s even bigger because the building and parking occupy separate footprints. Then you need a building large enough to justify the expense of adding a parking garage in the first place. Parking garages get more efficient to build as they get bigger, so that drives the buildings and parking to be even more massive.
Granular development is still possible, and does still happen, actually even here in Raleigh, in places where lenders do not consider parking to be a must-have amenity: near the university. Stuff like 2604 Hillsborough for example.
Pretty sure there’s a way to have the parking deck entrance on Martin but just not where the Berkeley building is.
The City didn’t want that many cars near intersection going in/out on Martin. Unsafe for proposed traffic counts. Martin is city owned. So scale project down less floors or Berkeley goes. I’ve been going there since 80’s it isn’t that great. This development was going to fix the dip! I was happy for getting that done.
Sometimes the deeper we dig into things, the more nonsensical life becomes…
I get the (NCDOT) Dawson thing, and the (City) not having the ingress / egress of the deck too close to the Martin / Dawson intersection but the dip threw me… 
Progress is often a four letter word, notwithstanding how damn SLOW it goes…
We ate at Parkside last night. Parkside has a direct view of the Berkeley building, and the server said he thought the paint was just to cover graffiti. He said it had been painted over a couple times already.
Sounds like this condo tower may get going. Down from 35 to 20 stories but more likely to happen at that level. One Nash Square sound like it will happen. 82 units and ground floor retail.
https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2025/07/23/alchemy-properties-nash-square-tower-raleigh.html
This is kind of a bummer. It’s also surprising that removing the rentals makes it more doable, when almost everything else being built (in towers) is rentals. HOWEVER, I’m glad that this empty lot will be gone soon and more development is coming to downtown.
Also, sad to read that they couldn’t make it work with the old Berkley building, and it will be coming down to make way for an entrance to a parking deck 
20 floors/82 units? Luxury indeed - those are going to be some pretty big units!
This is definitely better than a building with apartments or an empty lot like it is now.
Uhhhhhh the sheer size of this footprint indicates they’re planning to demo not one but two historic/old buildings on that stretch. WTF is this???
EDIT: The article doesn’t seem to indicate this, only mentions demo of the Berkley building (which is still enough to piss me off), but the render makes the base seem absurdly large - probably not even close to what it will look like. That said, since these are condos, do we expect the floor-to-ceiling height to be larger than the usual apartment building? (in other words, could this now 20-story building still end up closer to the 300 ft range?? Of course I’m annoyed by the height reduction, as seems to be the case with literally every single damn building ever proposed in this god forsaken city, but perhaps it won’t end up losing too much height if they keep the ceilings taller since these are for-sale condos and not just rentals)
Doesn’t look like much today, but underneath all the garbage there’s a really cool old exterior hidden.
82 units in a 20 story building. Those are some big units! They will start at $795k. Interested to see how the market absorbs them.
After some googling it looks like the building is the old Raleigh Times building, used from 1920-1955, and then remodeled in the 60s or 70s to what it is now. No clue what’s left underneath the current façade.
Wish it were taller of course, but that is quite nice looking, and I think swapping apartments for condos is a win. Not enough condos downtown IMO.
At one time, Scott Crawford was going to open a tavern in this building. I don’t remember what caused it to fall through. Anyone recall?
Q&A from Walter Magazine a lonnnng time ago (right before Crawford and Son’s opened)
EDIT: Found another article. I guess it was supposed to open in 2015 
Still waiting, Scott!
It does look wider, but hopefully that’s just an error in the rendering. Per imaps, the developer doesn’t own anything to the other side of the Berkeley building.