Ha. Agreed about losing Garland. That one does, objectively (wink) suck.
I personally also really hated to lose Pharmacy Cafe, Linus and Peppers, and C. Grace.
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If/whenever that shipping container development for Glenwood South by CityPlat and Local Icons comes to fruition, I could have sworn I read they were going to bring back some Linus and Peppers sandwichesâŚ
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New Triangle Town Mall owner submitting a 5-story rezoning request for the mostly-vacant outparcels on the property. The property definitely needs it atp.
A neighborhood meeting scheduled for today will discuss the proposed rezoning for 11 acres that includes two rows of retail outparcels adjacent to the main mall and stretching south toward Sumner Boulevard. The proposal for the property at 5959 Triangle Town Blvd. is to change it to commercial mixed-use with a height limit of five stories. Itâs current zoning is commercial-mixed use with a height limit of three stories.
The meeting notice indicates the rest of the Triangle Town Center would maintain its current zoning designation, which also limits heights to three stories. The notice says the meeting will discuss potential zoning conditions tied to the development of the 11-acre property, which currently includes a Menâs Warehouse, a child development center and vacant restaurant space.
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I was wondering the same thing as I walked by the site the other day.
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I had not heard that. That would be awesome! 
Good news! Rather than a full raze and replace, the incremental approach of replacing outparcels with mixed-use (e.g., at Triangle Town and Pleasant Valley Promenade) can be implemented without impacting the ownerâs income from existing retailers.
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Yep it was in a Raleigh Mag article about it earlier this year.
Teaming up with Local Icon founder/owner Jon Seelbinder (think The Merchant, Virgilâs, Little City, to name a few), Patel says, was a no-brainer. âI know the individuals who can make a concept happen⌠and execute the best vision and use of the space,â he explains. âJonâs been doing this as long as I haveâhe wholeheartedly deserves entire credit for really curating this concept and thinking outside the box.â (As well as literally inside the box in this case.)
âAll involved parties are in a shared dialogue,â notes Patelâwhich, he says, âis where the magic happens.â With a longstanding MO of maintaining the essence of Raleigh while simultaneously pushing the envelope, Local Icon is primed to perfectly play out that shared vision. While the details are still being flushed out, Seelbinder and his team are flirting with three or four casual food conceptsâtossing around opps from resurrecting their former famed Linus & Peppers sandwiches to a âreally slick burger program.â
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Never going to happen .
Yeah I hope youâre wrong but wouldnât surprise me if youâre right. I have zero confidence in City Plat to build anything.
I drove down hillsborough street a couple weeks ago and they still havenât done anything with their âprojectâ across from state campus.
I do consider how my demographic lens (I wouldnât say âcloudsâ bc that insinuates that Iâm not seeing clearly) alters my view. I have noted this multiple times on this site, and have been open and honest about this transition in the way I use the city, the way I view the city, and my goals as someone who resides in the city. Iâm extremely aware of it, which is why Iâm bringing it up in a public forum for community discussion. Itâs an interesting topic and I personally feel people shy away from it because they donât want to be seen as âtribe-traitorsâ for asking questions and challenging ideas they once held.
On the same token, as someone without kids, do you consider how your own demographic lens could cloud your view and prevent you from seeing the changes youâre seeing might not work better for other people, who have their own wants and needs?
Have you considered that 40% of US households have children? As you said. luxury highrises arenât really designed to work for them. 17% of the US households are over 65 (meaning they are likely on a fixed income) so luxury highrises arenât really designed to work for them. Almost 40% of the US population makes less than $55k (which would be arguably the minimum you could make and still live a normal life in a new luxury apt) so luxury highrises arenât really designed to work for them either.
So who are luxury apartments/condos designed to work well for?
Well-off couples or well-off individuals with no kids (or kids who have left the house).
I feel like that group (which I was a part of just 10 years ago) along with developers, are the people pushing the hardest for and cheerleading extreme density and development. Which is fine. But what I donât get is the hard pushback against the people who speak up that want a little more checked density and development. More focus on getting infrastructure caught up or amenities established before we just keep zoning up and building out.
Look, the more you can create a city that caters to families and the middle/lower working class, the more diversity youâll get , the more character youâll get, and the more that those arguments you make based on âtraditional city dataâ will change.
If we just follow what cities have always done and use data from traditional cities, weâll be destined to become what they became. Raleigh has a chance to be different. To cater to everyone. To rethink what an urban city even is. We have the chance to break the mold.
But the way weâre trending, thereâs no way that happens.
The reason I root for density is that I think a future with fewer cars, more walkable, and more togetherness/community engagement is a future that is good for the earth and good for humanity.
Can you achieve that if most everything caters to a select few? And if everyone else just âhas to leaveâ or âlive in a community not designed for themâ, will that achieve all of these lofty goals? I dontâ think so. I think what you end up with is a utopia for the extremely rich.
I am beginning to focus on my goal for the city at this stage. I feel like my goal was âgrow, grow, growâ and now that we are growing fast, I feel like that goal needs to be re-evaluated and shifted a bit.
I believe, if Raleigh is going to break the mold and become a unique destination, itâs going to take great minds coming together and coming up with new solutions for new challenges. To figure out ways to make an urban city work well for all walks of life at all-stages. Maybe thats impossible, but I believe we are in a position to at least try.
If we keep just saying âbuild higher!â, more units!" ,âIt will tamp down price increases!â, âItâs our only option!ââŚwhen we all know the only response to that is large luxury highrises. It only slows the inevitable. And Iâm just not ready to quit on Raleigh being something unique and special for all people. Thatâs been my dream for this city since I moved to what was a boring, sleepy downtown 15 years ago.
What is your goal with wanting more and more density?
Do you ever feel like there will be a point where density needs to be checked/tapered down? And how do you go about tapering it down without being labeled a NIMBY?
Is the current system going to get us to your goal?
These are all questions Iâm asking myself, which has kind of led me to question some of what weâre doing here in Raleigh. Maybe my goals donât match with yours, and thatâs fine, but itâs why Iâm vocalizing it here. I think we all need to understand each other, level set, and work for a future that may not be perfect for one point of view, but sees everyoneâs perspective and works for something in the middle.
All this NIMBY/YIMBY stuff makes me think weâve taken our eye off the ball. Thatâs all.
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When could we see the crane go up
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I do have a question - what sort of environment do you envision as a good place for families? Townhouses like Boston or Brooklyn? Dense SFHs like Charleston or lot of inner LA suburbs (with better public transit obviously)? A mix like Chicago and Toronto outside of their cores?
Obviously if everyoneâs getting a big house and a big yard, weâre getting spraawwwwl. People just wonât fit, especially at any reasonable price point. I love townhouses, so thatâs naturally where I lean as a solution. Lots of people like raising families in condos near parks - my first âhouseâ as a kid was in a high rise in Houston and I remember loving it. Sincerely curious what you picture as your baseline for family living.
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Good question.
I think townhouses and shotgun/dense SFHs (with some sort of small yard) work well for multiple life phases. But I think the big thing is having lots of open green spaces near these types of development is key.
For Raleigh in particular, I think much more focus/incentive on building out Dix Park is essential. Having a large destination, free of cars, with playgrounds, bike paths, running trails, sports fields, picnic areas, and little cafes would instantly make the area more livable for families. It would give you a place to walk to, bike to, or bus to, where you could take your whole family and spend an entire day outside together.
I think prioritizing those green spaces would go a long way. I also think transit is the major missing piece and I know thatâs being worked on, but scope keeps changing as more and more gets built. Iâd rather get an elite transit program built out and running. I think that would ease the pushback on up-zoning for more density. It would assure people that they can grow here and that there really is a way to absorb this growth and still have a decent quality of life despite it.
For me, I see a lot of focus on development, bigger buildings, more density and I see transit, Dix and other projects like this taking a back seat. Iâve seen these great ideas for a livable city be proposed for years, but very few tangible outcomes. Meanwhile, I see a new high rise every couple months. Iâve waited and waited, but at some point (and that point seems to be approaching for me) I start to get frustrated and wonder why this is the case, and where priorities really lie.
But hoenstly, I am working through these thoughts currently and taking time to think of pros/cons of all of these things that on the surface seem desirable. Itâs why Iâm engaging in this discussion on this forum, actually.
I donât have all the answers, but Iâm not pretending to. But I think finding these answers together is important, and I think to come together we need to be willing to have a good-faith conversation that honestly takes into account all sides. No more writing someone off for having a concern on how we are growing or bucketing those people as the enemy of progress. Thatâs where Iâm at, at least.
What about you? What do you think some steps Raleigh could take that would promote growth, but also keep the city livable for multiple life stages going forward?
*A note on Dix: I believed that zoning the Lake Wheeler strip for high rises was a good idea to generate revenue for the park to get built out and continuously funded. So Iâm not anti-development at all. I just feel like there has to be a livability trade-off with a lot of these projects.
Without that guaranteed revenue for the park, weâre at the mercy of whoever is in office, the economic climate, etc. I think if we donât figure out a way to generate meaningful income for the park, then itâll be a half-baked version of what was once envisioned and I donât like that.
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Re: the demographic question, no, because I grew up in a nuclear family in Cary and am close to both my parents and my brother (who has two small kids) who live there. This is a society where nuclear families dominate conversation, and as an outsider to that Iâm acutely aware of that - just like Iâm acutely aware that white people and straight people dominate the conversation (Iâm neither).
Which largely explains why my work is building 3BR (and some 2BR) townhouses with tiny yards.
I point out demographics because most Americans have no idea that this demographic transition has happened⌠and that our planning laws are largely frozen in time from before (via AARP). The entire planning system is built around nuclear families, and reinforces biases towards that.
Yes, this is a âcheck your privilegeâ moment.
Ever since Euclid (i.e., for the last century), US planning has focused on strictly segregating âparasiteâ apartments from detached houses. The population growth since then has either been shunted into ever-larger apartments, increasingly crammed onto an ever-shrinking slice of land allocated for them, or ever more sprawl.
Thatâs why âmissing middle housingâ is so important: itâs the majority of housing units in pre-Euclid cities, but a vanishingly tiny slice in post-Euclid cities (such as Raleigh.)
Detached houses are 59% of Wake Countyâs housing stock vs. 12% in Boston (which has an acute housing crisis, but is the first example I could think of)
50+ unit apartments are 5% of Wakeâs housing stock vs. 17% in Boston
âMissing middleâ rowhouses/apartments are 36% of Wakeâs, 71% in Boston
8000 new units in downtown Raleigh might sound like a lot, but thatâs a 1.9% increase in Wake Countyâs overall housing stock. Itâs really not that big a deal, and these are far from the only new units being built. Thereâs enough room, and there are enough building types, for all kinds of families â the problem is that, until VERY VERY VERY recently, it was pretty much illegal to build anything other than big apartments or sprawl.
To get to a place where Raleigh has a âbig cityâ housing split is going to require hundreds of thousands of new dense housing units, in lots of different shapes and sizes. Donât overreact to the few thousand you see today; theyâre literally the tip of an iceberg.
Raleigh has unimaginable quantities of open space by the standards of any walkable city. (Too much of it is paved over, though!) People walk THROUGH, not TO, green spaces - the ratio of buildings to green in any walkable city is firmly tilted towards the buildings.
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I think youâre onto something with the framing of this challenge for Raleigh - From a leadership at the local level perspective, I think a big thing that could help citizens frame the changes expected (needed?) ahead would be some quantification of the expectation of needed housing of this sort :
If citizens could SEE a 10 year plan for these sorts of things, then maybe they could wrap their heads around the change necessary to bring this plan forth. (*Disregard my snark over in the Mordecai thread about peopleâs inability to do just that as, the reality is none of us are good at everythingâŚ)
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Youâre a Debbie downer you really are. Peaceful and Glenwood could be a sixth street like in Austin in fact on Fridays and Saturdayâs it get busy with nightclubs, weed, partying in fact they takeover the streets and declare a portion. If the street there own more likely towards me he end of the road. Since the is sn entire block a large one this would be great.
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I think you forgetting something sir, the tech jobs Apple coming here, Lenovo young millennials can afford luxury apartments.
We can be family-friendly but not a boring city, we are boring even kids say that. Thereâs nothing to do for us to be a family city if thatâs what you want they has to be more amenities. And fun stuff Austin has a wet n wild in surburban Round Rock. But I noticed there really isnât much for teen and tweens in the area like here. Thereâs museums but museums donât always change, Thereâs there version of Dix Park I went by its family-friendly we donât have town lady or as itâs called Lady Bird Lake. There has to be some amenities.
You labeled a NIMBY because your stopping some forum of development rich or poor, plus there hypocritical because they hate multi family dwellings In there neighborhoods which consists of black and brown communities living them. Theyâre the true NIMBYS and racist. Yes a council can demand affordable housing units, but I see you have forgotten the affordable housing bond that was killed by COVID.
Lol. Millennials are nearing (or passing) 40 these days)
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Well Gen Z are more tech like.
I ask when does cranes goes up an I ever got reply back
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