For a moment, we were led to believe it would be one of the tallest projects in Raleigh with some cool features like the Oculus and a walkway to the train station. But now it’s a 20 something story value engineered box with a poorly disguised parking structure in the middle. Things cost money I get it but we’re stuck with this structure for decades–possibly our lifetime.
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All for what will probably be just-barely-affordable apartments lmao
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The “moment” was before covid hit. Prices have skyrocketed since then.
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and yet… towers continue to be built in cities across America. Raleigh is still one of the fastest growing cities in the US, no? I just don’t buy that whole argument for every single building downgrade here, especially when this one has guaranteed Federal funding ffs
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I mean the latest update for Gateway is literally “key questions remain,” so…
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Part of it is Raleigh’s general small-c conservatism around urban growth and pretty short track record for making money on downtown towers. Part of it is that Raleigh is the city you pay the most attention to, so you don’t notice when towers in other cities are downgraded or cancelled.
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Wait is the train station for Charlotte still not even started?? I thought it was supposed to be finished already. Jeez… Really gonna have to push back my next Charlotte train trip
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The pictures are deceiving considering I took them at curb level. Most of the drilling equipment appears to be gone. They were digging the areas with stakes, so I assumed that was the beginnings of the foundation and soon the crane.
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I heard they were looking at a temporary station around it but who knows whether that will happen or what will need to happen first. But yes Charlotte is hysterically behind on their station there’s 0 chance construction starts in 2026, everyone keep your shirts on
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According to the NCDOT, the Charlotte Passenger Rail Facility (for maintenance of the trains) needs to be built to support the Gateway station. Well that facility doesn’t start construction until 2026 and will be done by 2028. Lots of moving parts it sounds like.
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From my understanding, Gateway Station can more or less be broken up into three different parts: trackwork and platforms, the maintenance yard that @JeepCSC is alluding to, and the actual station building and adjacent development. NCDOT is responsible for the first two efforts, and the City of Charlotte is doing a public-private partnership for the third. NCDOT is done with the trackwork and platforms and is working on land acquisition for maintenance yard. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s portion (the actual station building and surrounding development) has been at a virtual standstill for… who knows what reason. I think there were some issues selecting a developer, and I also get the impression that Charlotte City Council has been prone to infighting as of late.
So yeah, seems like most of the blame falls on the City for this one.
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It felt like there was a monumental downgrade in Charlotte leadership in the early 2010s, and the strength of the main industries is the main thing that has let the city continue to grow. There were some bold moves in decades past, well before the widespread push to urbanization, that set the city up for where it is now. Tryon St used to be six lanes wide in Uptown, and there weren’t any trees on the sidewalks. Now it is essentially one lane in each direction (with street parking occupying the other lanes) and heavily shaded from the maturing tree network. East Blvd used to be a speedway with its four lanes cutting straight through the historic Dilworth neighborhood, but saw a nice road diet that significantly cut down on vehicle speeds and made walking/biking feel much more comfortable. There were other similar investments made that we can look back on now and applaud or criticize, but I honestly do not think anything of that scale would happen under the current city council, who love to talk big and then do absolutely nothing. Building a train station should not be this difficult, and if we absolutely have to have a tower above it then just do what they did at the Epicenter; build the damn thing with future vertical expansion in mind, and sell the air rights at a later time.
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don’t hold your breath! 
For a quick update: there was coincidentally a flurry of discussion on the Charlotte board over the weekend about the new Charlotte station (Gateway Station). A few of the posters there are connected/involved with the project. All of them have said this is a MUCH more complex project than outsiders realize - far more complicated than RUS - which obviously means there are a lot more things to go wrong and delay the whole thing. In addition to the Amtrak route, they are working to incorporate (or at least factor in easy expansion at a later date) the Red Line regional rail to Mooresville, the Silver Line light rail, potential regional rail out to Salisbury, and the Greyhound bus station. Plus a ton of residential, office, and retail around and above the station developed via a public-private partnership. The Red and Silver Lines have been huge fiascos due to difficulty negotiating with NS and frustrated leaders in the lake towns who have been paying for and promised better transit to Charlotte for decades (Red Line), and funding issues thanks to state leaders/politicians who have increasingly been deliberately screwing over Charlotte (greatly affecting the Silver Line). The developer who is involved in the residential/office/retail component has also had its plans thrown into limbo due to the complete collapse in demand for office space.
One of the insiders says…
The Project is not dead, but will be right sized at some point, to respond to conditions that are certain. At the end of the day, construction will occur on the balance of the site’s potential and Charlotte will end up having a grand rail station hub, just not as soon as many of us would have preferred.
Edit - it’s especially frustrating how little support we get from the state of NC considering how large the Charlotte region’s economy is. Mecklenburg County alone accounts for about 21% of NC’s GDP with a little under 10% of the state’s population. Factor in the rest of the metro and we account for about 31% of the GDP in North Carolina from a little over a quarter of the state’s population. Yet despite some very obvious corridors that would benefit greatly from mass transit, we have been largely hamstrung by the state’s growing unwillingness to fund anything other than roads while ALSO limiting our ability to fund anything locally.
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These seems par for the course for that state government that continues to be hostile to the needs of North Carolina’s large cities. This is despite the fact that hamstringing its cities means that the state is biting the hand that feeds it.
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Alright. Some real progress is about to start!
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Check out this recent YouTube video or the image below – you’ll spot two cleared-out areas that look like perfect spots for a crane. Kinda all makes sense now…
Jump to 8:37 in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wohauRpYBwM&list=PL8Kxj_vNBXli33oZrTiffe0hAcHqWMblG&index=57
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Yell yeah baby is about to get real
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This is great- but have we even seen an updated render of what the hell they’re actually about to build with those cranes?? I swear the last render I’ve seen on this forum was pre-value engineering
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