They do have a lot of empty space on their campus.
The Morningside Heights seminaries have been doing the same thing in New York, as purely religious educational institutions are facing their own cashflow issues. With downtown real estate becoming more valuable across the country it makes sense.
Hopefully it’s a bit more thoughtfully integrated than the UTS one, which is going to loom dramatically over their pretty quad and Riverside Church.
I’m glad that my school is healthier financially than Shaw and SAU. Our campus keeps expanding every year. It is further away from Downtown Durham though.
The big ones such as NCCU A&T Morehouse etc do fine just based on donations. Unfortunately, the ones that aren’t flashy enough for big buck celebs to notice don’t get much.
706 Hillsborough St being rezoned to 20 stories. Is this new? Haven’t seen this before.
https://cityofraleigh0drupal.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/drupal-prod/COR22/Z-016-22.pdf
I think it was mentioned on here a while back that there was a request, but if it’s officially been rezoned then this is news! HUGE prime lot, well worthy of 20+ stories!
316 W Edenton rezoning case was deferred yesterday. You can thank Cox basically.
The argument was made that “that type of density isn’t right here” “it’s too far from transit” “density should “be on the larger roads”uhhh…it fronts edenton
MAB basically called the density and transit arguments idiotic in the nicest way.
The guy is, excuse my language, a fucking idiot. Any type of density is right literally anywhere DOWNTOWN. God we need to get his ass out of there.
I’m more annoyed that they agreed to push the approval back when they could’ve just voted without his support.
Honestly the representative for the Quorum Center owners frustrated me so much with this, and glad the mayor pushed back. I frequently use the bus stop that is in front of this property, which has 3 GoRaleigh routes and 1 GoTraingle route. Not to mention, all the other bus routes that run less than a few blocks away.
The city also just invested in a bike way running down Harrington St adjacent to this property. And the proposed North BRT would run a block away.
Why would we not want to maximize the number of people living/working along a street with multiple bus routes, with many more in the area, a bike way, and a future BRT? If not here, where??
With all of that being said, the mayor still didn’t express her support (she said she would not be able to vote for this as it is) for this due to the historic church on the opposite side of Harrington St. I have attended every meeting on this and the church has not once had a representative come to any public meeting, yet they continue to talk about it like it’s a fatal blow to the church.
Additionally, council member Branch voiced his concern for this as well (hinting at supporting Forte in what seems to be her silent opposition on this). Don’t agree with the sole blame to Cox on this, and don’t agree that the mayor should be praised too much here either. Council seems opposed to this in its current form.
Literally every large American city has tall buildings next to historic churches. It’s kind of a key feature of growing a central business district. What’s their issue with it?l
Well, MAB did say she couldn’t support the rezoning “as is” either. Here’s her quote:
Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin pushed back on Kuhn’s concerns around proximity to transit options.
“The whole idea is to be within walkable distances to train stations, bus stations, whatnot. This clearly is within walking distance," she said. "What I have a real problem with and just causes a lot of unease is the proximity of the churches and the historic value of one of the churches that’s on the historic register. And to not have any conditions addressing that, I could not support the rezoning as it is. So you have work to do.”
I’m a little confused (ignorant I guess) about the church angle of this. There’s churches next to the World Trade Center in New York City that are doing just fine.
Also to your point @Justin6882 I was more so talking about the transit / density part.
Hopefully all this will be a non issue when the applicant puts some setbacks in the plans. Would be an atrocity to not have something major here.
We’re talking about the church with the trees growing out of the roof and gutters, with that yellowed plastic shield over the main stained glass, and general deterioration? It doesn’t seem like the owner of the building seems to value it that much. I’m also not sure why a nearby building can’t be tall just because it’s a church next to it.
I hate to think this would be the case, but it sounds like a political maneuver. This council has been criticized (wrongly, IMO) for letting every 40-story rezone sail through. This gave her the opportunity to push back, but I think ultimately she’ll support it and get the church some concessions they want.
I was about to say, a deal where the developer chips in for church renovations seems like a workable solution.
It’s so funny. People don’t want density, they don’t want traffic, they don’t want events, they don’t want towers, but they like the economy doing well. It’s not going to stay well if we don’t grow. And If we don’t grow downtown, there’s plenty of places that will steal our growth and economy.
Devil’s advocate, why should a private company have to pay for renovations to a tax exempt organization’s building just to be able to build a tall building downtown? Would this be as politically palatable if it was a person’s old house, or a historic office building? Or is its status as a church somehow different?
Because politics ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t like it, but it’s not my money and a church renovation would be nice so I don’t exactly loathe it either.
Yeah, I mean I wouldn’t mind the church looking nicer either. I’m just saying…
