Raleigh-area Mall / RTP Redevelopments

Downtown Raleigh would be more of a factor if it had better freeway or transit access.

As for downtown freeways: In a significant way, I think this is a big part of:

  • The explanation for why North Hills is going like gangbusters in terms of getting big office buildings built, while Downtown seems to be moving at a walking pace
  • The motivation behind Downtown South.
  • The reason that it seems Downtown Durham sometimes “eats our lunch” in terms of winning major tenants, especially tech firms.

However, as we’ve also discussed, the lack of downtown freeways is a benefit to downtown Raleigh in many ways as well, so I don’t think I’d change that even if I could, even if I knew it would land some more major office tenants downtown.

As for transit access, this is the solution we should look to. We just have to quit piddling around. Build it, build it right, build it soon.

9 Likes

Spring Hill Precinct between Centennial and Dix is our corporate relocation “Megasite”. Don’t want to waste it on an insular “campus” though.

3 Likes

Downtown Connector on Wilmington street from 40 to MLK

No ROW needed, no other interchanges needed, saves S Saunders and Hammond

3 Likes

Yeah, so your suggestion for the north-of-downtown corridor is really exciting to me. One of several things holding back the Capital Blvd corridor that connects downtown to Midtown, is the lack of local streets. The West Street extension combined with punching Wake Forest Road through along the rail line seems like it might work? It could dovetail with redevelopment of the entire CSX corridor along with the S-line purchase and SEHSR. Good call on that concept.

I’m less sure how I feel about the S Wilmington Street idea. NCDOT does have S Wilmington earmarked as a spot for a HOV-only interchange, if they ever get around to building the multi-billion dollar managed lanes on I-40 they like to talk about. But since the city has decided on S Wilmington as the BRT route (I preferred Saunders), doing something to add rather a lot of cars to Wilmington seems like the wrong way forward. If they were going to put BRT on Saunders, then yeah, opening up Wilmington makes sense.

6 Likes

For those who have no idea what we’re talking about.

It’s my hope that the Railroads realize just how much money they can make by selling off those massive rail yards and building them further out, or realizing they don’t even need that many yards anymore.

Good points here. My thinking and hope that is if you do two lanes and keep a bus-only lane north of 40 or maybe even just a queue jump approaching MLK things should be fine. I can’t imagine there being delays on the connector, if we put half of Saunders / Hammond on to Wilmington we’re looking at maybe 50K per day which at limited access, two lanes can handle perfectly.
I’d also argue with the new neighborhood feel of Saunders this would create, it makes 100xs more sense to use that as the BRT corridor. With Downtown South, it seems kind of silly that they wouldn’t have the BRT go past that, right? Unless their singular goal is to move as many people coming from Garner / Fuquay to Downtown.

But tying back to this actual topic of making Downtown a more viable office spot, I think something does need to be done access wise from all four approaches. But first and foremost BRT and Commuter rail should be implemented ASAP.

4 Likes

Not to distract from the downtown gateway conversation (though we have a thread for that), but TBJ put up an interesting article about UNC Health thinking of buying property for a new hospital in RTP!

EDIT: A new N&O article includes more details, including which parcel they’re looking at, as well as details on how Duke wants its own Certificate of Need to expand an existing facility nearby.

This means the hospital could be right across the street from Hub RTP and the Frontier, and probably right at a BRT stop (if the Cary-RTP extension happens)!

7 Likes

Man it looks like I’m in the downtown of a city… Or a midtown! :man_shrugging::man_facepalming:

24 Likes

Where’s the sky going? It’s disappearing lol.

7 Likes

Is that Rosewater’s bar?

Nope, CO actually under the AC Hotel.

2 Likes

Hoping they get something in where B Good, Piola, and World of Beer were.

3 Likes

https://www.instagram.com/p/CO2st0JnWD0/?igshid=n0n5okwuuwpy :eyes:? Does anyone know more details about this??

3 Likes

This seems to be the zoning case they’re talking about. The city’s YouTube page has a recording of when the rezoning vote was taken.

The city’s public meeting portal has a pretty solid interface with a good search engine, if you ever need to search for these sorts of things again.

2 Likes

I don’t have IG. Is that renderings for the rezoning @keita shared?

No it’s just a post mentioning a new and pretty large mixed-use project planned near Wegmans in Raleigh. The zoning was changed to 20 stories for 1.5 million sq office space, 2000 apartments and 75,000 sq retail.

4 Likes

Ah gotcha. I need to take another look at the Midtown-St Albans plan but I hope there’s some gridding planned. Otherwise once NHID, Midtown Exchange, and this project are in place, Wake Forest Rd at the I-440 interchange is going to be a nightmare.
At least there can be a nice train station right next to the development one day.

2 Likes

I don’t think that meadow wood blvd - front st connection over to Atlantic, over or under the RR, is shown in any official plans, but I really like it.

There is definitely a planned Highwoods-Wolfpack grade separation though.

Bush Street is planned to have a bike/ped bridge I believe.

1 Like

Not sure about those specific connections you’ve drawn, but this is what is listed in the Raleigh Street Plan (dashed lines are future connections):

4 Likes

The spacing between crossings (of anything: Freeways, arterials, railroads, creeks…) is a huge deal, and doesn’t get as much play as it should. For an area that’s already as dense and busy as Midtown, that is only planned to become denser and busier, the current situation, with up to 1.25 miles (!) between the Wake Forest and Six Forks crossings of 440 is really unacceptable.

Half a mile between crossings is really the bare minimum that should ever be considered adequate, in my opinion.

My guide for distance between crossings:

<500ft: LOS A - ideal for highly pedestrian-focused areas

500ft to 750ft: LOS B - minimum standard for pedestrian focused areas

750ft to 1000ft: LOS C - recommended spacing for suburban arterials, especially in commercial/multifamily areas

1000ft to 1320ft (1/4 mile): LOS D - minimum standard for suburban arterials

1320ft (1/4 mi) to 2640ft (1/2 mile): LOS E - semi-rural areas, and also the minimum standard for railroads, creeks where grade separations are the only option, in suburban areas

>2640ft (1/2 mile): LOS F - Only in rural areas

7 Likes

Do you think that we need more crossings that also connect to the Beltline, or just more crossings like Atlantic that don’t?

3 Likes