Raleigh Stadium/Arena/Sports Discussions

Saw this interesting development recently announced in Indianapolis for their USL team and it looks and sounds very, very similar to what DTS is proposing. At a high-level it would be a 20k spectator soccer-specific stadium for their USL men’s & women’s team, downtown located near the Colts stadium/convention center/minor league baseball team stadium, and anchor a $1 billion investment district (hotel, office, etc). For reference, the men’s team was in the same league NCFC played in before Malik took them down to USL League 1 (league below). Kind of interesting to see another team in the same class as NCFC putting forth similar type of plans.

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In October, a potential blueprint for developing the property around the hockey and basketball arena will be presented.

“We’re sitting on a lot of property,” said Carolina Hurricanes’ GM Don Waddell. “When the building was built, if you go back, there was talk about the development of the property, and it never got followed through. We’re sitting on 80 acres, I believe, just on the PNC side. Make it a destination place. Make it a place people want to go to. We don’t have anything like that right now, and I think it would be a huge benefit.”

Waddell said he envisioned several hotels, office buildings, retail centers, mixed housing and parking structures around the arena

This is exactly 80 acres, so wonder if this is the rough area…

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Is that forest along Westchase and Oglethorpe a protected zone, or are there ultimately plans for it? Feels like valuable land, and too carved up to be much use as a natural area.

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Guessing they will just rehash Patriot Place - Wikipedia that’s built next to the New England Patriots stadium.

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While you’re probably right, I’m hoping we can at least get something more like The Battery in Atlanta. People seem to really love it and it definitely looks like it has a more urban, live/work/play vibe than Patriots Place (even if you still have to drive up).

Patriots Place:

The Battery:

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Was just at The Battery in Atlanta last month and I liked the environment and walkability. I think there needs to be some sort of identified tailgating area (maybe parking deck top?) to keep that crowd attentive. There were lost of shops, restaurants, residential all in the same mixed-use area.

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The XFL announced their new teams for the 2023 season and there’s some cities I’d consider peers of Raleigh getting teams. Looks like St. Louis, Arlington, and Orlando got new teams. Still think Raleigh is lacking the branding to get a team but I’m old enough to remember the old Carolina Cobras from the Arena League so alternative pro football has been tried here before.

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I don’t know why they keep trying to do a minor-league football thing. It never works when most football fans already have a pro and college team to devote their time and money.

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Most likely to make some $$$ and also because football is one of the most watched things here in the US. It’ll be interesting to see if this iteration of the XFL lasts more than a season or two. Never quite understood the purpose of the other minor league that was going? Think having a USFL and XFL competing against each other kind of dilutes the point of it.

Think I read the XFL and the NFL actually have some sort of partnership this time around so who knows. The XFL would be sort of a ‘test/developmental’ league for the NFL to try new rules and other sorts of things.

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There was also the Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks that played at Carter-Finley for one year in the early 90s. They were horrendous!

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Has anybody else noticed the developing, and thriving sports & entertainment scene in our area? DPAC, the Duke Energy Center, Walnut Creek, Red Hat Ampitheater, RCC, PNC Arena, The Ritz, Triangle Aquatic Center are already some of the busiest venues in the nation in their respective categories. Then you also have the smaller venues such as Midtown Park, Dorton Arena, Koka Booth, Sahlen’s stadium, and all the college venues that create a large variety of events. On top of this, there will be an RCC expansion, PNC Arena renovation, new Ampitheater at Dix Park, new soccer stadium, new VR Center, new Ampitheater at downtown south, new Ampitheater at PNC Arena and new Ampitheater at the new bandwidth HQ.

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Over-saturation? (extra characters)

I mean, not all of that will happen but I do feel like we punch at our weight, region-wide, for music and cultural events. There are some tours that skip Raleigh/Durham/CH that I get bummed about but plenty that do have a show here that skip over other big cities.

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Most are highly likely to happen though. PNC is for sure getting renovated, RCC will expand, Bandwidth HQ Ampitheater is under construction, Dix park Ampitheater (the valley) has been approved funding, PNC Arena Ampitheater is part of the greater blue ridge corridor project which deems it as the entertainment district. The new VR Center is non-reliant on outside entities and is likely to be built

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Where is RCC going to expand to obviously a road is going to be demolished.

They plan to expand onto the other side of W Cabarrus St via bridge

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This is news to me. There’s a hotel planned where Enterprise was and I was with the understanding RCC owned the Red Hat block and that’s where the expansion was planned…

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Correct, expansion is planned for the Red Hat Amphitheater block.

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RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, arguably the BIGGEST tour this summer/year, did not skip over Raleigh last night :sunglasses:




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I’m sad I missed this. Still have yet to see RATM. :frowning_face:

And I see they catered their message with local news. Smart of them but sad we’re in that mix.

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