The permits for the foundations state for a 23 story building and they only mention one building. So they could be considering the whole structure as one building with two towers, but that is not clear. And, I don’t think that they have actually submitted for building permits for the tower(s), just for the foundations and the bus station/parking deck.
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Here’s a little trip down memory lane:
Then the first major downgrade:
And at this point I have a feeling it’s going to end up more like Kane’s proposal:
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I hope they build the picture on the fence that’s nice
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are there reasonable projections done as to just how many of these new core residents that will ride transit to a great degree? a degree that makes any noticeable traffic difference? if the building is underwhelming as you say is the builder then just building to the market that will move in there? say they didnt provide a parking deck at all and marketed it as transit/district oriented…“living in downtown, for downtowners”… would it sell as well?
I am just praying I don’t end up like Kane prosed tower hell mine well sell it
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I am honesty less disappointed with the scope reduction (never thought the 37 stories was realistic to begin with) vs the uses being 100% residential.
Offices and hotels are a better use next to a central transportation facility like this, even in the face of rising office vacancy. Let Fayetteville Street become more of a residential neighborhood (which would revitalize it) and let the offices be where people can walk right off a train and into an elevator. Additionally, having a hotel integrated into Raleigh’s future high speed rail station would be awesome. Business travelers could catch an evening train down from DC or wherever and just walk right upstairs to their hotel room, then walk to their meeting in the morning.
Meanwhile if we’re only putting residences next to train stations but no commuting destinations, what’s the point of rail transit in the first place? I feel like people have this romantic notion of riding the train to a brewery and then safely getting back home at midnight. Worldwide, that is an insignificant share of total transit use relative to commuting, even in the post covid era.
Ah well, gotta build what the market will bear I suppose.
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I am heading to Cary and I will be visiting downtown Raleigh
Edit:
I’d have to disagree with that. Having housing on top of a transit hub will allow for ridership for GoRaleigh and potentially Amtrak and NC Train to increase more so than it would if there were office space. This is because many residents would be more likely to utilize transit everyday (if reliable) and not just 2-3 times a week. Housing near transit stations, in theory, encourages people to utilize transit for multiple purposes (commuting to work, casual rides, grocery shopping, etc.). Workers on the other hand would prefer to drive if parking was available or only use transit on weekdays (home → work) like many of my
co-workers.
I would understand your argument more if there were no affordable units included but since they are included (60 AMI?), there’s a high chance that they will use GoRaleigh buses for their everyday travel.
To add, if this building were an office building it would most likely be half empty for months to a year at the developer and city’s expense. I believe the Dillan was having issues with leasing pre-Covid.
I have to confess I don’t fully understand your argument. that office workers don’t use transit (because they have cars) but residents will be more likely to use it (even though they will also have cars.)
In the pre-covid era, concentrated employment was a much stronger driver of transit use than residential density. This is somewhat less so today, at least in the US, but it does still remain the case.
Think about it this way. Every transit trip has three conceptual legs:
- Origin->Transit Stop,
- Transit
- Transit Stop->Destination.
Figure for this case, “Origin” is home, and “Destination” is work.
These three legs are not weighted equally in the minds of riders. You potentially get something in return out of a longer leg 1 (aka living further from a transit station): could be lower rent, more space, a different neighborhood, a quieter environment, etc. Leg 2 is a time cost but it’s passive and you can potentially relax. Leg 3 is perceived as pure cost and so should be as short as possible.
Put another way: people who live on Fayetteville Street or Glenwood South aren’t much less likely to ride the train than people living at RUSBUS, but people who work on Fayetteville or GloSo are less likely to ride compared with people who work at RUSBUS.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be housing near Union Station, I’m just saying it’s kind of a waste to focus on housing at a location that’s about 100 yards from the platform.
Besides, where will the people living atop RUSBUS ride the train to anyway, if we prioritize housing near all the train stations? Will transit ridership be driven by people riding around on trains to visit their friends?
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IMO, and as a downtown resident for nearly 30 years, I think that we often forget that there are other benefits to reducing traffic by living in downtown Raleigh. I am not a transit (bus) rider as a matter of course, but my driving miles per year substantially dropped when I moved downtown for 2 other reasons.
- I walk places. Walking’s effect on my personal miles driven can’t be overstated, and the more folks who live downtown, the more walkable options will be provided to serve them. It’s a win-win. Get more people and get more robust urban experiences and options.
- When I drive, I drive fewer times and shorter distances. Clearly it’s nearly impossible to live in Raleigh without a car at all, but it’s not so difficult to live with a much lighter dependency on one. When I was in the burbs, I was filling up my car every week. Now I’m only filling up my car every 4-6 weeks or so because I’m not constantly driving from one far flung suburban location to another.
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If you are waiting for a new significant office building to go you are going to be looking at a lot of quiet construction sites for many years to come.
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It looks like residential is the choice to bet on for construction. Cities across the country are having trouble building office towers.
Am I missing something? For the life of me I cannot understand why they still do not have a final rendering to offer the public. It’s clear they are pretty much done in the design review and moving forward. This project seems all over the board.
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It makes no dam sense
The first tower crane is going up. The one closest to the Citrix building.
Looks like its “driver seat” is about as tall as the 5 story Dillon apartments across the street.
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…hopefully it’s at least one of those cranes that can extend to become taller once the deck/bus depot part is finished?
I swear to god if this ends up being just another 5-over-1 style apartment box that’s mostly parking deck I’m gonna scream…
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A simpler way of looking at it is just population density – the square footage per user. 1000 sq ft of building yields approximately:
- 1 apartment
- 2 hotel rooms
- 4 office cubicles
- 35 restaurant seats
Even assuming substantially lower occupancy rates for commercial, there are many more trips to a commercial building than to a residential building of the exact same size. So when you have a site whose primary distinguishing characteristic is its capacity to handle a whole lot of trips, it’s best for everyone to put land uses there that maximize the number of trips.
(You can also see why retail, office, and hotel uses generally gravitate to higher-value land, and why the economics can be tough to replace commercial uses with residential – the same rent check gets divided among fewer people.)
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Ok no way this crane extends to become taller… WTF gives? Can we get a damn design update from this project? What THEE hell are they doing here?