Am I crazy, or does this random glass box look really stupid slapped onto the side of what is an otherwise really good looking exterior …? It was almost a really great looking building lol
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I’m not a fan either!
It especially bothers me that the horizontal datum lines don’t line up as the facade transitions from one design language to the other.
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i’m 100% certain before the design was final, there was a rendering of just the same repeating pattern of offset windows here…This version with the smooth glass protruding box probably was deemed better to break up the repetition somehow. I don’t hate it like you do.
This is the leaning building that juts out towards 440 at an angle, right?
It does look like someone needs to powerwash the Renaissance though. It’s probably their unfortunate EFIS color selection, but that thing looks dingy as hell by comparison.
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I could not get all the way back there and I think the next apartment building will be up against 440 and I could not get down.
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Inspired by @kjhburg I decided to take a few pictures of this area today. Definitely pretty cool already; I’m excited to see how this turns out. They have several signs and the rendering about the upcoming footbridges, which is pretty unique around here.
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Forgot to post this photo the office building site next to One North Hills and RH store. When Kane starts this one you know the office market has really turned. I took these from the rooftop of the RH store and I think your store has better views than our store in Charlotte.
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its glass wedge time again?
That site is contemplated for a high end hotel.
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from last week. This project looks great and once the Lifetime Fitness Center and apartment tower is underway this is a force to be reckoned with. From what I saw online and where the Lifetime tower will be it will be on the “North Hills” side of this tower west side if facing the tower from 440 to the left.
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It’s a cool building with some good new food options. However, at the rate this development is moving, we might get a new building under construction like every 5+ years. Which means the full build out of the Exchange could take about 30 yrs. I don’t know if we’ll ever see this development look anything like the rendering of the completed project.
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Even if the Exchange continues to move at a snail’s pace, this area will look completely different once the sale of the apartments behind the Exchange are sold and that land is rezoned. Those apartments butt right up to the beltline. Whatever gets built there will have quite an impact as you approach North Hills.
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Heck, that may even be the catalyst that helps push the Exchange to ramp up development - the more people that end up living immediately next to it, the more people that will need: food, entertainment, services, WORK, etc etc.
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Speaking of a need for consolidated places to eat, live, work etc… yesterday, it seems like GoTriangle staff recommended Hoffman & Associates to develop the new Triangle Mobility Hub.
Hoffman is the same company that’s overseeing RUSbus. HOWEVER, the general contractor who’s responsible for the vertical development of the downtown tower got downgraded in responsibilities for this project - presumably because of how the tower’s scope and costs changed so much under their watch.
I didn’t get to stream that meeting so I’m not sure if the Board of Trustees voted in favor of this proposal, but I assume that they gave the green light to negotiate with Hoffman et al. to move forward with this plan:
It’s unclear what the numbers truly mean in this figure since the associated legend wasn’t on the slide deck (the figure was probably ripped out of Hoffman’s proposal, which is not in the public records, yet, since this bidding process hasn’t truly ended yet).
However, we can make a few guesses (click me!)
1: BRT station alongside NC-54. Note that it’s a bit of a walk from where all other buses will stop (13).
2 and 3: There’s a small creek running parallel to NC54. Since it cannot be developed, it’ll instead act as a buffer for the new development. It also looks like a multi-use path will be installed and connected to it - though I’m not sure what the building indicated by the number 3 is.
4-9 and 14: Three presumably mixed-use buildings that will include apartments and some sort of retail/restaurants.
10-13: The actual replacement for the Regional Transit Center. 10 is probably a kiosk and waiting area (with air conditioning!) for passengers. 11 is probably a walkway that’s intended to connect to a future station Amtrak (and regional rail, someday…), while 12 is probably GoTriangle’s new office and 13 is the twelve bus bays + two layover bays for services that start and end at RTP. Note that the bus bay is connected to a stoplight that’s exclusive to buses!
???: 100 parking spaces and 6 battery-electric chargers are also included in this grant, but it’s not clear to me where they are on this map.
Remember that a key difference here is that this development will be in Durham’s boundaries - and they’re overhauling their development ordinances right now. If this change passes as it stands now, it’ll be zoned for commercial mixed-use, so Hoffman shouldn’t need to rezone anything as long as they keep everything 5 stories or less.
Read this, too, before y'all start complainin' again about how this will cost too much, take a billion years etc.
Just like other BUILD grants, this project is a private-public partnership. The idea is that GoTriangle will partner with the Research Triangle Foundation (RTF; they run RTP) to develop this plot of land simultaneously.
This project will cost $58.2M ($25M from a BUILD grant from the federal Dept. of Transportation, $5.5M from other federal sources, and the rest from Wake, Durham, and Orange counties’ transit taxes), and it also includes 10 battery-electric buses. They’re currently aiming to open this by Q1 2029. If you want to predict where things could get delayed, here’s what GoTriangle currently wants to do:
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Not only this, neither the RTC nor the BRT are anywhere close to a spot they could put a train platform.
Any transportation facility that prioritizes placemaking over transportation by needlessly putting the transportation facilities hundreds of yards apart from each other, is a failure in my book.
So, first impression? This is awful. I hate it already. Back to the drawing board.
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They considered putting it at HUB RTP but decided to prioritize including a train station, which is not possible at HUB. I actually think this was the right move.
Besides that, what is there for it to be near in the first place?
I just can’t understand why they wouldn’t put the BRT, off-street bus platforms, and train tracks right next to each other. The connection from the bus platforms to BRT is like a quarter mile. Yikes.
…
Perhaps I’m being a little glib here. I don’t mean to dismiss this offhand - this is worlds better than what we have, and it does look like it would be a nice facility. However, I’m just wishing, for once, the experience of transit users (not developers, not motorists, not politicians) could come first. Not likely, I know.
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I think this is for the same reason that the private developments aren’t shown to be directly along NC54: there’s a creek in the way, and for whatever reason (soil runoff or contamination concerns? idk), you cannot build anything over it except for road bridges.
This constraint (and for the record, also a location for train station platforms) is also shown in initial concepts from Kimley-Horn, GoTriangle’s on-call engineers:
Also, the walk from the bus bays to a presumed train station would still be much shorter than Durham or Raleigh’s current Amtrak stations.
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I recall them saying they’ve got a good working relationship with adjacent property owners (Fidelty in particular) and plan to extend TOD into surrounding sites.
They also implied at that presentation that they were planning an ambitious development for this site to accompany the transit center… I’m a bit surprised to see what looks like five over ones when it seemed like they were after something more the scale of HUB. Probably the rough market.
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