Some notable memories for me back then were that Pullen Park still had its vintage pool, and Western Boulevard just died into Boylan Heights.
I also remember the Mellow Mushroom being a Sizzler (I think that’s right), and the Starbucks next door being Pizza Hut.
As you headed into downtown on “Downtown Blvd” (now Capital), there was the Charlie Wiygul Ford dealer on the right after passing over Peace Street. We bought a car there in 1974, and it remained there until 1983. It was a cool “round” building with an inverted pagoda type roofline, VERY unusual for Raleigh back then. It always stuck out in my mind. Check it out below.
http://www.ncmodernist.org/buie.htm
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Great picture! Thanks for sharing it.
From the angle I’m guessing it was taken from Boylan Heights or Dix? . . .
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you can feel the humidity in the photo 
… the photographer might actually be on the roof of dix… similar angle to JosABanks recent photo:
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My guess is about where the old Dix Entrance tied into Lake Wheeler. I think the neighborhood in the foreground is where Gateway Park is now. FWIW that chunk of houses survived until Gateway Park was built in the early 2000’s or so.
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An interesting angle, from the south looking north.
A bit grainy as it’s from an N&O video about the Greyhound Bus lot, just bought for 4 million bucks. Could be a great residential area.
The view is quite cool. From the right is One Glenwood and the Dillon, all the way over to Redhat, Skyhouse, and the Shaw Dorm Towers and then the US Federal Building to cap it on the left. And you can see FNB should eclipse One Progress in about a month. This shot even has one of the only giant smoke stacks (Durham has several, bless their hearts) in downtown Raleigh!
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For what it’s worth, The Dillon is right at that 250’ UDO limit that is on so many properties between it and Fayetteville St. That means that a future skyline shot like this would level out to the west of the BBT building with a collection of buildings around that height.
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That’s a good observation. And it a bit sad, as 250’ doesn’t impact the skyline much from a distance.
But the ground level scene keeps getting better as these projects replace 2 story buildings and parking lots. It seems like momentum is picking up, and we could be seeing several of these projects going on at a time…
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It’s not ideal from a skyline perspective but I completely agree with the street level experience!
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Quick update to my “future Downtown Raleigh” image:
• Added Nexus (N&O site)
• Added History Museum expansion (rough guess)
301H has changed a bit from the previous plans, but the office tower portion essentially still matches the drawing so I left it as is.
I also realized 400H is office and residential, but decided to leave it coloured blue (for residential)
And it occurs to me that I coloured the Residence Inn incorrectly (it should be yellow).
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How many residential units will all these projects add?
It’s hard to say for sure, because many of these projects are still conceptual and their developers haven’t indicated an exact number yet. But from what I can tell, from those know, the numbers are as follows:
400H - 216 units
FNB Tower - 239 units
Smokey Hollow II - 281 units
Peace (or Smokey Hollow I) - 417 units
. . . which works out to 1153 units. That’s just from those four projects alone, though, and there will surely be hundreds more in all the other projects planned — 301H, Nexus, RUSBUS, Commerce Pl., City Hall, Kane’s Boylan Heights project, and any others I’m forgetting.
It’s definitely a step in the right direction!
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The downtown element is just 1.18 square miles. Adding 1153 units assures us that these 4 projects alone increase downtown’s density by 1000 ppl/m2 or more.
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I don’t understand topography that well, but wouldn’t Kane’s Amtrak and the Exploris 20 story buildings look pretty prominent from this angle? They’d be a similar distance to Charter Square South and like 35 feet taller?
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In the big picture view, there’s somewhere between 64 to 78 people people that move to Wake County every day. So 1120+ units barely covers between 16 days and 1 month of population growth. All that sprawl.
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Awesome. Didn’t you have this same project picture with another angle as well?
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To be fair, downtown proper isn’t the only place in Wake County that is densifying, but point taken.
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Yes, I did! Here’s an updated version of that picture as well:
In addition to adding the Nexus and History Museum projects, I also realized I had neglected to include Kane’s Boylan Heights project and the City Gateway building in this view.
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Awesome job dude this is an amazing future for DTR if you ask me. Makes downtown look dense and expansive.
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It sure does! Frankly, even if only half of these buildings come to fruition (and it appears a fair number of them will), the skyline is set for some impressive changes — not so much in height, as plenty on this forum have lamented — but certainly in density and overall “bulk.”
I’ve really become a fan of the skyline as seen from Dix Park, so in that vein here’s another projection of future buildings, using @OakCityDylan’s fantastic picture as a base:
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