Don’t forget that that both the state and the county own land in downtown. Do you have a link to a map of the land that Raleigh has to sell? I’d be interested in seeing that. Thanks.
I charge 2500 bucks a day for consulting services, not wasting my time on that.
COWFISH is really good
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you must rock kitty 
Way more than my 600 pd but that was 20 years ago.
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I dont live in DTR but may someday I will when there’s more there. I definitely root for DTR development, but there’s only so much food and drink one can consume (and afford), which is the main activity to do in downtown: eat at restaurants and drink at bars. I’m not gonna go to the handful of our museums more than once every few years (if that). There just isn’t much to DO downtown yet, unfortunately, beyond restaurants and bars. (I mean good for you if you’re a foodie with unlimited bank account).
I too have had guests from out of town make that observation same as soft kitty has…but hopefully it’ll change. Until it does, there’s just not much reason for me or a lot of my friends to give up the free and easy green house polluting car-driving in the suburbs to move downtown. We can just pop into DTR when I want in 12-15 minutes from my house…(when we want to go out to eat or drink LOL)
But there’s plenty of times we’ll pick North Hills over DTR (partly for selection and partly because it’s fairly easy to get there) and will probably will spend time at Fenton when it opens too
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Well i also think it’s the lack of retail and leisure downtown that killing it and giving Downtown a run for there money!!!
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I think everyone has cooler visitors than me. Everyone who comes to visit is from somewhere less fun than here, like me. And they’re always like wow it’s so nice to have all these new interesting things to do.
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I was just joshing around with John a bit, he is a good guy, sticks to his guns and I respect that.
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We need more interactive activities, or even- hate to say it- but more touristy activities. Indoor botanical gardens, interactive art experiences (a la Meow Wolf in Santa Fe) and galleries, a ping-pong/jazz bar like Fat Cats in NYC also comes to mind. Not even exactly these things, just something like them.
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Except that, as you might expect, I’m not a big fan of guns. LOL 
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To add - we need more WEIRD in Raleigh. Oddities shops/museums (think Mudder Museum in Philly, The Museum of Death in LA) - we used to have an AMAZING oddity shop called Blackwater Oddities that was run out of No Regrets Tattoo on Hillsborough. Super cool experience even just to look around, but just needed a better location - closer to downtown would be ideal, of course. But hell I could see the Iron District becoming more of a Weird Centric area, just because of all the old warehouses that are being turned into cool spaces. Glas comes to mind as far as a great/weird art space in that area.
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The Holy Rose ‘enchantment’ shop is pretty odd. It’s off Hillsborough Street.
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This may deserve a new thread. “Your Favorite Weird Spots near DTR”
Maybe not secret spots, but hidden gems. Or it could be a theme within the “where in Raleigh…” Thread
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Yes!!! I noticed they added a lot more oddity type stuff when they moved to that larger location. Just a shame it’s so tucked away and hidden, with nothing else beside to encourage more foot traffic. I hope they’re doing alright there!
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No Wayyyyyyyyyyyyy, lol
what do your visitors say are particularly interesting things to do other than restaurants and bars?
are they from places that dont have many food and drink options? because it seems like that’s what the commenters on this topic have said their visitors have said, and i’d agree. I mean compared to Burlington or Hillsboro or Goldsboro, yeah, by COMPARISON this is like Los Angeles.
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Our visiting friends from NYC, London, Miami love it here. They say it’s like a city only smaller! The pandemic and broken windows have hurt us but I think that’s very short term. The long term is looking great.
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My visitors are usually friends or family from upstate NY or New England. They don’t usually spend 2 weeks just in downtown Raleigh or North Hills. Since one of the appealing things about Raleigh is the stuff nearby as well. Such as greenway walks, Yates Mill Pond, Duke Gardens, Franklin Street/Carrboro, Umstead State Park, downtown Durham, various breweries and distilleries, the Farmers Market, the NC Museum of Art and their trails. Downtown Raleigh: the 2 food halls, restaurants, bars, yes. But also the contemporary art museum/First Fridays, just wandering around downtown and the parks, looking at new projects or people watching. Boxcar, Videri, the other museums, some of the random events that used to happen, Red Hat Amphitheater. I don’t know, we usually just have plenty to see and do without thinking about it. I don’t really know why someone would spend 2 weeks downtown without venturing out places. I spent 5 days in San Diego a few years ago for work and still travelled around exploring. I don’t think Raleigh is exactly blowing minds, but I think there’s plenty for visitors to do if they like the kind of things I mentioned.
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Excuse my following rant, but I have to get this off my chest.
The way I look at this whole site/community is that we are a group dedicated to the promotion of, and development of downtown after it suffered nearly a half century of neglect from the broader society. If it weren’t for the state government in the interim, I don’t want to even think about what sort of shambles of a downtown we would have been left with going into the 21st Century. The post war culture of our country abandoned the core of our city and others for the greener pastures of the suburbs. No effort to bring people back downtown seemed to work, though one can argue that it wasn’t for the lack of trying (Bicentennial Mall, Raleigh Civic Center, etc.). I am here as a supporter of downtown and I’ve put my money where my mouth is since I first signed a contract on a pre-sale Cotton Mill Condo back in 1994. I fully believe that the health and future of Raleigh depends on its core.
At the same time, I also support the densification of our city’s largely suburban footprint so that we can manage both our growth going forward, and create the tax base that’s going to be required to maintain our citywide infrastructure as it ages.
That all said, I am not interested in humoring the dismissal of downtown without a constructive desire to improve it. This does not mean that one has to have a personal stake in downtown proper or nearby (live, work, investments, action, etc.) to participate here, but I don’t think that goal of this community is to boost other parts of the city/county/metro at the implicit expense of, or dismissal of downtown. If that’s ones goal, then I think that there are likely other platforms that might be better suited for that narrative.
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I could agree on that but reading @GucciLittlePig comment it did help me realize we have a lot now in the City we didnt have 10-20 years ago. However I do agree yes we could have more, and keep tourist who leave coming for more next time like tourist coming every year. But also it gave me a chance to think about things for visitors under 18, a theme park or water park, or whatever could happen with this Fortnite/Cary Towne Center deal could it be Fortniteland, who knows. Yes we should be blowing minds, and somewhat branding ourselves and not by “Keep Raleigh Boring” which is an embrassment to our city and will never happen it will be taken down, but by something else the malls could be better. I remember years ago when I was very young Triangle Town Center had a fair I remember it cause not that fair from there, I didn’t go but I remember it was around for I think a week. The was even TV advertising still a day after it ended when the cranes had already token the rides down, I can’t believe I still remember that. Crabtree could be a little more expansive on things like that. Anyways I was thinking that we have a lot i just think maybe this pandemic has us so bored out in our house maybe we need to realize what we already have and how we can do more Dix Park is a great opportunity to expand on that.
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