Toronto and Raleigh are starting to have something in common and it’s not a good thing either… urban islands that drain attention from downtown.
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Well I guess Downtown south is the spot for MLB.
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seems like any expansion of the NCSU stadium is an NCSU problem to make happen if they want it, not the problem of the guy who owns the hockey team next door and all the surrounding future development opportunities.
Not a state fan or alum, so I have to ask: Is there a movement to expand the stadium?
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Football stadiums are contracting capacity not growing.
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I’m not a fan of sprawl, but anything that is built above the tree line in the southwestern quadrant of the Stadium complex, I’ll be able to see out of the windows of my office in Wade Park 
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The unstoppable slide into being Baby Atlanta minus MARTA is beginning.
That said, every big city has outlying major nodes. It doesn’t preclude downtown from having energy and life. To your example, Toronto has some great stuff to do downtown.
@GucciLittlePig - adding as an edit since it hasn’t been an hour. The Toronto and Atlanta metro areas are almost exactly the same size! The city limits of Toronto are just much larger so more of it is in the city itself.
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Darn, I was hoping we were going to be Toronto instead. Way bigger and cooler than us or Atlanta. Oh well…
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Not that I’ve seen. State would have to win something substantial (not happening this year) for any real calls for that IMO - because the next move would be to bowl the upper deck on either end. Most realistic changes to Carter-Finley are getting the bathrooms/concessions upgraded on the non-Vaughn Towers side.
The WRAL story on the PNC changes included a mention of parking decks up to 40 stories tall. They’ve since edited it - but man WRAL is the worst. Just a bunch of click bait.
Also - was listening to a recent Ovies & Giglio pod. Giglio mentioned that his guess location for a future baseball stadium if Raleigh lands MLB is for it to replace the fairgrounds. I’d be all for that tbh - never been a fan of how much land the fairgrounds has and how few major events it hosts every year outside of the fair.
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Department of Ag will never relinquish the fairgrounds.
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Holy Moly - Tallest Building in Raleigh will be a Parking Deck!
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LOL
God help us if there’s a 40 story parking deck. We’d be the laughing stock of the entire country! I’ve been in some taller decks in Miami (maybe 12 floors?) and they are a nightmare.
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They’ll never give up the fairgrounds. I hope @Loup20 and them realize that kinda of mess with involving state land messed up the last bid we had. They may fund part of this but they wont sacrifice any land for it, I believe downtown south is the spot.
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I think it looks good. The Hurricanes (and presumably Wolfpack) are going to play in the Lenovo Center for decades to come, so I am glad that plans are finally moving forward to make this a mixed-use district.
The area closest to Edwards Mill looks pretty dense, hopefully it will be walkable with a nice feel to it. They have included structured parking and some surface parking for the drivers (which will be most people) and tailgaters.
With restaurants, a small music venue, thousands of apartments, and hotel, this should be very active most nights if it is done well. I know we all want downtown Raleigh to succeed, but I also think it makes sense to build on the strengths that we have, and Lenovo Center is a major asset.
For the speculation of MLB at the Fairgrounds, that would be pretty surprising, but I guess anything is possible. While the fair is only a couple of weeks a year, that area is used year-round. There are smaller events on the fairgrounds almost every week. There is a weekly market, cultural events like the Greek festival, and a wide variety of shows like car shows, reptile show, boat show, RV show, jewelry show,
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on a personal level i would sort of like to see MLB downtown…but if the fairgrounds site is viable and making a ‘stadium district’ of sorts would be efficient…with possibly some gubernatorial nudging, I wouldn’t mind having it there. as a raleigh native and former resident once past a certain age and 25 or 30 fairs…i would possibly welcome MLB on that site. perhaps relocate the fair to a county site?
Whatever you said I didn’t see it, but I just believe the finale decision with the stadium will be downtown south. I could put money on it but, I could be wrong.
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Yeah same. I live over there and I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic about how all the traffic is going to be with the expansion of the district already. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about it, but coming home from work sucks during big events already. Adding an MLB stadium to the mix is cool from a stadium district idea, but it’s also another non-DTR node like North Hills, Downtown South, etc. that keeps pulling away foot traffic. I feel like it’s doubling down on the original mistake of not putting the original arena downtown. I don’t really care tons about baseball, but I’d be happy just to get a team. Being downtown would be a bonus.
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DTS will likely be studied and surveyed. As will multiple other spots, including areas near the new PNS (Lenovo) district.
No decisions have been made on location yet. It’s too early.
Do you think the Hurricanes, Dundon, and Cooper would all go public about the MLB push without having a plan and process in place? Do you think they are just operating in the blind when it comes to the timing necessary to get things ready for MLB expansion?
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I assume Stein is going to pick up where Cooper leaves off pushing this plan and Raleigh in particular?
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I suspect having things to do in the area before and after events will ease the traffic. Certainly there will be additional traffic associated with the existence of the new buildings (resi/retail) but I think the end result while maybe more cars overall, will be less cars at what is now peak times.
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