Lol, love the plans but you may as well throw in a unicorn ranch while you’re at it
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Absolutely hate the idea of closing Lenoir for so many reasons. Seriously, F* that noise. The last thing this city needs is to shoot itself in the foot by disrupting the downtown street grid for something so paltry as people not having to cross the street between the convention center and amphitheater.
With Cabarrus closed at Fayetteville years ago, and soon to close at the RR tracks, we can ill afford such a gap in east-west connectivity across downtown.
How about just put up barriers and close the street to traffic for the ~10 days a year that an event uses both the amphitheater and convention center at the same time?
I still prefer putting the amphitheater (an infrequently used venue) one block further south, on the far side of the tracks, where it can be larger and less in the way when not in use. The “outdoor event space” proposed above by @mike is a clever way to preserve views of the Shimmer Wall, if it’s that important- but I tend to think it’s maybe not that big of a deal.
These convention center/chamber of commerce booster types have a certain monomaniacal ambition where big is never big enough because there’s always (supposedly) some lucrative big-fish event out that we could catch, if only our faciliies were larger. They are laser-focused on this “problem”, and will stop at nothing (even including bankrupting the city or destroying our urban fabric) to achieve their ends.
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It would be simple enough, it seems, to change the pavement on that block to paving stones, and install some of those bollards that rise up out of the street. On occasion it could be closed for whatever part of the day or days it was needed.
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I tend to think that when anyone says a street is closing, the car bias means they are saying, “the street is closing for vehicular traffic” but ped/bike access probably remains. Do you feel this way even if you can’t walk or ride east/west or are you interpreting a street closure to mean “closed to the public”?
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If you know downtown really well, Cabarrus never closes for a pedestrian. I can remember once or twice walking through the parking deck from west cabarrus, underneath City Plaza, to get to east cabarrus. Great trick if you are out walking when the weather is bad. 
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Cabarrus at Fayetteville isn’t closed to pedestrians, you are right, but as I recall there are stairs between City Plaza and East Cabarrus - which is disiruptive on a bike.
The idea of cutting through underground is an interesting hack that I had never thought of but doesn’t quite ring true to me as “connectivity”.
All this is moot to me, however, because in the site plans above, it looks like the Convention Center wants to take over and build on top of Lenoir, making a superblock, and leaving it closed to all forms of transportation: cars, bikes, pedestrians, horses, unicycles, you name it.
I could support pedestrianizing more of downtown. What’s on the table quite clearly isn’t that.
They are clearly hoping to incorporate the new facility to the south of the current Redhat Amphitheater into the convention center complex so that conventiongoers will have a Seamless Transition™ from the convention center to the amphitheater, city connectivity be damned, nevermind that the venn diagram of events booking the convention center, and events using the amphitheater, barely overlaps at all. (IBMA, OK, I give you that one! Now name another…)
Perhaps they are hoping that it will “differentiate” us from other convention centers, and that if they build it, the demand will materialize- but I call Boosterism BS!
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The only part of this program that I see as absolutely superfluous is the apparent desire for a Seamless™ connection between the convention center and amphitheater. That is the requirement driving the proposed closing of Lenoir, and it is an absolutely braindead requirement. They are chasing some Magical Synergy™ between conventions and outdoor concerts that, essentially, doesn’t exist. Even IBMA tickets the concerts and convention floor separately, FFS!
In short, I do not shed a tear for IBMA attendees having to walk across the street to get to the concert. Do not close and de-map Lenoir.
I won’t comment so strongly as to whether expanding the CC is a financially wise decision. While I tend to think that it probably isn’t - I do have to admit that the current convention center has been a valuable asset.
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Y’all are getting all worked up over a concept rendering. There is nothing real about this at all. Everybody just take a deep breath. In 10 years when we actually see a real proposed project, then we can discuss.
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I agree that it is a poor choice to close Lenoir and disrupt the Street_Grid™. That being said, looking at this, it may not be just the desire for that Seamless™ connection between the convention center and amphitheater. It may also be the desire to have a staging/loading area, and from the looks of this, much of that will be on what is currently the street.
Someone correct me if I am misremembering, but I think early in the process one reason the city said they were going to have to move Red Hat is b/c they wanted an area for staging, which was going to be the south parcel as it is now, and the CC was going to take the current Red Hat space. Now they are trying to fit three uses (CC expansion, Red Hat, and staging) into two parcels, and to my eye that is one of the reasons they are taking that “extra” space in the road. IMO, if they are insistent on using the area that way, they should tunnel to keep the street grid intact.
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Oh yeah, I was just sharing a “downtown hack” with the Cabarrus example. Just something fun and not to be taken too seriously.
Nothing here indicates that Lenoir is going to be closed to the public. I take it to mean that vehicles cannot cross through unless they are loading/unloading which is fine with me. I would speak up against the design there if the public can’t walk or ride a bike through Lenoir going in each direction.
It feels so very early in the process anyway (we need to fund the thing by the way) so we’ll wait and see. I’m sure there’ll be more pretty renderings released later in time.
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To reiterate what @atl_transplant mentioned before I could get to it, the “stroll” between Chavis and Dix is supposed to be on Lenoir, so unless that’s changing, it seems the City has a vested interest in Lenoir continuing to handle at least ped traffic. I do like @pBeez’s suggestion of doing something like they did in Smoky Hollow extending Tucker with pavers, effectively for local traffic and not desirable for through traffic.
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Couldn’t they use bollards to block the street off but that can be retracted into the ground when not needed? Bollards are extremely popular and useful in many of the most urbanist cities out there and I think we need to see more of them here.
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What’s MTG? We need Max space comprable to hosting a large for me Political convention or a 45,000 seat event. Btw hotels room rooms for convention is 600,000 I don’t think we’re there yet.
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But a tunnel could work I don’t get why it wouldn’t remember truck have to go here.
More details.
https://twitter.com/TriBizRetail/status/1628413131604086787?t=GWL6pTqEcdMyewIUoNwgHA&s=19
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So the main detail is that they need 50+% more funding to do the expansion they desire…
Whew, the post-pandemic budget crunch is coming. Recesssion, correction, whatever, all costing more.
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I haven’t read it (don’t do Twitter) but that money should be spent exactly for this reason before anything else, IMO!
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Twitter thread:
"Alright, let’s talk the Raleigh Convention Center’s proposed expansion. Been a lot of chatter this week, but I did a deep dive on this in January. (Thread incoming)
Seems the focus has been on Red Hat Amphitheater moving - but that’s not new information. That’s been the plan since ~2018 and I was told in Jan. that it was shifting to a nearby lot (still the plan).
What’s new information is the price of the project - $425 million. The project has already been allocated $230 million from the county’s interlocal fund (taxpayer dollars). Nearly doubling the price means the CC team has to go ask for more money.
Allocating more funds will supposedly voted on (by a combination of the Raleigh City Council and the Wake Board of Commissioners) in June.
But the pool of interlocal funds (taxpayer dollars) goes to more places than just the CC. Projects like PNC Arena are also vying for those dollars. All for now - but my story goes more in depth on the necessity of the expansion for those who are curious."
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Thank you! 
It’s exactly this kind of thing “read” that I am “considering” creating a Twitter account for…thoughts from the DTR crowd? Whom do ya’ll follow? Is their someone (@Leo Suarez) like that would be a good reason to do so?
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I recently deleted my Twitter because I got tired of the time drain. If you are here often, most information will flow back from Twitter to here anyway.
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