Is this different from Fayetteville/Wilmington St? All the loading docks face Wilmington, and the buildings front Fayetteville. Loading docks have to face somewhere. Also NH has the issue of access. You can’t drive an 18 wheeler, or even a box truck, through the middle of NH’s. It’s not navigable by large vehicles.
Ideally, would be to have an access road off Lassister running beside 440 and that be the primary access points for deliveries, but that may be difficult to do with arrangement of buildings.
From what I gathered from the Kane folks at the meeting, it’s not true that trucks can’t navigate within the property. They said that they already have loading docks within the property. It was clear to me from the meeting that they want to maximize leasable storefront space within the core of the property by pushing this loading area to Lassiter Mill.
Regarding the core of downtown, there clearly has to be loading docks somewhere, but the context is different because the nature of the urban core continues beyond Fayetteville, Wilmington, and Salisbury. With North Hills, they have a transition between the development and the immediate adjacent residential neighborhood, and that’s clearly not being ideally addressed. If we want to continue to think of North Hills as a place one accesses by car and then walks within, then let’s just treat it as a new model of a mall. However, if we want to imagine it as a more urban and walkable resource to its walkshed, then its transitions to the neighborhoods shouldn’t be ignored.
The only “loading dock” in the core of NH is at the very front that I’ve ever seen. Overall, it’s very much less than ideal navigating NH by large truck. 18 wheeler is absolutely impossible except for certain access roads that wrap around the outside of it.
I agree that NH east is definitely more of a walkable outside mall then an urban environment. I also agree that there needs to be a transition between the rear of NH and the neighboring houses. Having any loading area facing inward in the development though, no way that would ever realistically work. It’s best to keep trucks away from people as much as possible.
Where are loading docks for Target in NH. Not sure I’ve noticed them. But they must have figured something out because that Target is not easily accessible by an 18 wheeler.
If they can hide that away seems like there is a better solution then having the new access off Lassiter mills.
Except for we keep conveniently ignoring the probably couple thousand people that live in NHs that enjoy a walkable urban 24/7 environment just like those that live downtown. For the people that don’t live in NHs and drive there to go for the mall portion, then fine it’s an outdoor walkable mall.
I wonder how many people who live in North Hills and need/want something on the other side drive instead of walk because crossing Six Forks by foot is so inconvenient.
It’s not super convenient but I also feel like it’s way over blown. You just wait for the lights like any other road. Fewer accidents and people hit there then crossing some of the speedways downtown. Then there’s the free shuttle and trolleys that are available as well.
No doubt it would be great to see a more convenient option like a bridge or tunnel but it’s not like you have to jaywalk/frogger your way across six forks.
Personally, I see the east side and west side of NH’s as completely different beasts. East side is much more urban-like and more integrated, while the west is much more self contained.
@OakCityDylan that picture shows what I’m talking about. That back road circles the outside of the whole place and is the only place where the tractor trailers can get through. The problem with the JC Penney side is the “backside” is facing Lassister Mill rd. They just need to have screening trees, problem solved.
I saw yesterday where someone started buying up multiple properties in that office space section off Six Forks and ITB. The article was behind a paywall in TBJ, so I don’t know any specifics. This is the area where they propose a multi modal bridge over 440 in the Midtown/St Albans plan.
Well, it’s still possible to redevelop those condos if the price is right. If someone can pull that off at Bellwood (Cameron Village), it could be pulled off there too.
We are just at the beginning of the re-invention of Raleigh, and I expect to see a ton of redevelopment in key locations and corridors. Greater North Hills is just a start.
Remember that those buildings aren’t there right now. Kane is creating the problem that he is trying to solve by pushing loading docks to Lassiter Mill. I’m not buying it.
a project in the area that was a positive example of moving toward a true urban environment are the apartments next to the old Gorilla Grill and gas station. Even though it’s all residential, I like what they did street level wise, utilizing minimum setbacks. There’s no reason why this can’t be emulated with other residential and mixed-use redevelopment all along this corridor towards North Hills and towards center city utilizing Wake Forest/Atlantic/Whitaker Mill.
I think that we are going to see a lot of rebuild of aging stick built apartment complexes that were built in the 70s and earlier, especially those that were 2 stories on sprawling property. There will also likely be redevelopment of aging condo and townhouse developments that will become overly burdensome financially on their associations to the point that they’ll essentially be forced to sell.
Problem is, the development across Lassiter Mill from JC Penney is so low density that there is little reason for Kane to plan his development to address it. Under current zoning, the pedestrian traffic crossing Lassiter Mill to reach his development from there will be dwarfed by the number of people reaching the development by car or transit from elsewhere. To him, it just makes sense to have a stronger focus on the internal environment
What could get him to voluntarily change that perspective? If the city would rezone the land from Lassiter Mill to Rockingham as RX-5 and Rockingham to Rowan as RX-3 (which would allow possibly thousands of units in those blocks, which, IMO, is something that they should definitely do) then that would put some greater density across the street and provide a reason to treat Lassiter Mill as a first class pedestrian route.
I definitely understand that point, but we need to start breaking 40 years of horrible urban planning. It shouldn’t matter what is there now. How we should be thinking, is how to improve the these transformable corridors into dense corridors with an enjoyable street presence. It might take 20 years to achieve, but at least we will be taking a first step.
