Amazing how these developers continue to select unproven architects and designers.
First, 12 stories is laughable, there should be no height limit anywhere, amazing.
Not impressed with Kane anymore, after phase one of North Hills, layout and design has progressively gotten ugly at north hills and he should be pursuing heights above downtown limits, and stop the UGLY BOX DESIGNS, OMG, ENOUGH, there should be no height limits anywhere, you want to be in a neighborhood downtown, to bad, a 50 story building should be able to be constructed outside your window.
Move to burbs Oakwood, Glenwood, Boylan, etc.
I like the design, and am OK with the more ācozyā scale of Phase II. But is it just me, or does this look a like a smaller version of the warehouses/courtyard from the American Tobacco Campus in DTD? Donāt get me wrong, I love that place, but that is a Durham thingā¦ Raleigh needs its own identity, not just borrowing from our next-door neighbor.
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It actually looks like a similar version to the Stanhope on Hillsborough or the apartments at the Dillon to me
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I thought it looks like an unstacked Dillon.
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Any building going up is progress at this point. Plus I donāt think any of Kaneās projects will ever be considered historically important to Raleigh in the future so when a better project comes along at least thereās a ton of buildings you can knock down.
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Iām just happy itās going upā¦ right now thatās a pretty desolate section of the city considering itās one block away from Glennwood. Getting these dead spots filled in with anything will help the city grow and lead to more density which will eventually lead to taller buildings in the future.
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I was thinking this as well. The massing of the buildings somewhat mimics a revitalized warehouse complex. I wish there would be more brick throughout the plan.
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I was also thinking the resi section of this looks very similar to the resi section of the Dillon. And sure, a little more height would be nice, but this is going to be a huge improvement. Right now 400 West is like an island with very little around. This will connect that and hopefully Glenwood, making this a little District.
Iād rather have blocks getting connected than a couple of tall buildings isolated from other things.
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I for one love The Dillon
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Dillion is nicer than expected but at the end of the buildingās life cycle only the brick facade will likely be saved. The rest of the building is just a concrete parking structure with some office space on top and wood-frame apartments on the side which works for now but in another 30 to 150 years parking might not be as important and then the building just becomes an expensive, aging parking structure with considerably less rentable office, retail, residential space than other buildings of its size.
Especially if subscription based self-driving cars model becomes a reality and higher use of public transportation most buildings in DTR will have to undergo very expensive retro-fitting to maximize rent profits.
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The brick facade is anchored to the wood studs, so no, it wonāt be saved. And can we stop with the predictions of tearing down buildings that have only been open for a few months? Or in the case of Smokey Hollow Phase 2, before it even starts construction??? 
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No, this is a development message board for DTRāmeaning that talking about the future of Downtown Raleigh is the point. Not everyone is going to agree with me as I donāt like the direction buildings in DTR are trendy (parking structures with hats), especially since a few of you work for development firms. Dtraleigh.com just wants to be a talking head for developers?
Thank you for saving me that comment.
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This project has the mix of office, residential and retail that you really need to balance out the activity in the area. Weāre pretty lucky to have this from a local developer who gets that. The out of town guys too often are looking at their profit margins and nothing else. Kane is giving up profit to get a good mix for the long haul. Sure, perhaps the stick built mid-rise apartments will be prime candidates for redevelopment in 50 years, but among the stick built apartment buildings, Kane has has done the best job with them.
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I donāt disagree with anything you said.
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Youāre right, itās very similar to the brick grid faux-warehouse look thatās in vogue in Durham right now. See 555 Mangum and the Van Alen development, or even Foster on the Park to a lesser degree. Something like this would fit a lot better in the character of the Warehouse District.
That said, Iām not mad at it. Itās one of the cleaner apartment buildings Iāve seen in Raleigh, and thereās nice articulation on the ground level with a lot of transparency and those sculptural columns which will add a lot of interest for pedestrians if they make it into the final design. I just canāt wait for Raleigh to grow up a bit and raise the bar for the design of multifamily construction. They donāt all have to scream bland developer-driven design. Thereās a sweet spot thatās not extremely high-end but still pushes the design standard a little further that can be found in most similarly sized cities. I feel itās missing in Raleigh. See for example:
3435 Main St, Kansas City
South Grand Apartments, St. Louis
Arthouse Student Housing, Portland
Itās not about outrageous, outside the box āhigh design,ā or expensive design, or anything cutting edge. Itās about adding some texture and diversity to a brick and beige landscape. We can do it, Raleigh!
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@orulz I followed the SEHSR project pretty closely back when alternatives where being decided. Leo did a great writeup on this here: sehsr ā The Raleigh Connoisseur Alternative NC5 was chosen by the City Council. I recall they liked the flyover Capital Blvd. and that it minimized the impact on surrounding neighborhoods.
What was not discussed during that time (at least publicly that I recall) was rail line consolidationāas you propose. Iāve always had the impression itās near impossible to do something like this. But anything is possible and I think itās a great idea!
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Rail line consolidation does happen from time to time and isnāt that big of a deal. Columbia, SC did something comparable back in the early 1990s, for example.
While moving the lines wouldnāt be that difficult, the hard part of what Iām suggesting would be moving the yards. Canāt hand-wave that one away.
To CSX, for all their statements about how Raleigh is an important part of their operations, the truth is that to them, Raleigh is near the end of a rather unimportant dead-end branch line, and their holdings are probably oversized for what their needs are here anymore. The fact that they actually sold half of their right-of-way as far north as Spring Forest Road (I think) to TTA back in 2004 bears that out. So, they could conceivably be interested in selling some or most of it. The hope would be for some way to make it work while still allowing the part of the line that crosses over Peace and Capital on a bridge, and over Harrington and West at grade, to be closed. Not easy.
NCDOTās Capital Yard is adjacent to CSX (Also green), and they obviously need somewhere to service and store passenger trains - so there would have to be a solution for that, but you can expect them to be a willing partner and enter into good-faith negotiations readily.
Norfolk Southern has a pretty busy operation at Glenwood Yard (Blue on my map). That would be a great spot for redevelopment but it would be quite difficult for them to operate in the area without it. Call relocating that one the āFuture Phaseā.
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OMG, I would love to consolidate the rail lines and abandon the part of CSX that runs along Capital Blvd. Iām liking your master plan for Raleigh more and more the more I see of it. 
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When the SEHSR is built, the CSX Norlina branch will techically no longer be a branch. I can see some potential for CSX traffic to increase in the Raleigh yard. With the connection restored north of Norlina, CSX may elect to route some traffic through Raleigh to points north (where it makes sense) rather than going out of the way farther east and then north. Also, the (proposed) Wake Forest extension of the commuter rail plan depicts the line leaving Union Station on the CSX S line to Seaboard Station and the CSX yard area and joining the SEHSR alignment north of the yard. If anything, it looks like there will be an increase in activity on the CSX side of town.
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