I love the giant outside lettering / signage.
Hope it stays.
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They’re not going to regrade the tracks on Hargett St. It looks like the plan is to simply close that crossing, instead.
Click here for receipts.
From the Southeast High-Speed Rail (SEHSR)'s FEIS in 2015:
Since Raleigh’s comprehensive road plans don’t go into this level of detail, I think this is the latest and most specific plan we have. After all, Raleigh, NCDoT, and USDoT have all signed onto this.
If you don’t believe me, Fig. 2-27 of the FEIS shows this map of the selected corridor:
If you look closely at the positions of the circles along the preferred (and since adopted) corridor, you’ll see that nearly all crossings (at-grade or otherwise) south of Peace St. already exist. Furthermore, out of those, every crossing except the one at Jones St. is depicted as an existing or proposed bridge/underpass, and Jones St. is shown as a pedestrian-only pathway. In other words, every relevant rail crossing except at Hargett St. is either grade-separated already or will be for pedestrians only.
Except Hargett St., because that road/rail crossing will just straight-up get shut down.
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I’m I the only one who is growing numb to the endless proposals with no actual construction?
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You’re not alone. I’ll get excited when they start construction.
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Well I’ve been to Union Station it’s there a tunnel that connects to the station.
My Gate City friend, I’m with you Lol! I’m ready to see some dirt and dust moving on at least one of these 40 story plus projects .
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I gave you the grumpy cat in jest, but yes. I feel like we have seen so many proposals in the last 2 years that have had zero action. It’s feeling like 2008 all over again.
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The difference with this one (I hope) is that federal money and timelines are involved.
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Hate to be a wet blanket but are we certain the renderings on the architect’s site are actually what they hope to build? Lots of times it seems architects will post their flashiest, unconstrained versions of projects on their website to show off their mad skills - but when the financial realities of development come home to roost, the showier elements get reduced or axed entirely.
Also, do we have an idea of what the use mix on this block will be? I know there were demands for affordable housing, but honestly I’m hoping for this to be dominated by office space.
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If this is at 30%, then I can almost guarantee that the design will be scaled back when it becomes clear that all of the flashiest details aren’t in the budget. Maybe we’ll get some, but certainly not all. The water feature is the one that I’m worried about the most.
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The project will be built. The BUILD grant is a “design-build” grant, which means there is federal money already committed to construct RUS Bus.
The only problem is to figure out what we’re building. I get @Boltman etc.'s frustration that it’s taking forever to finish that part. But at the same time,… uhh… what did you expect? Did you think the whole design process would be complete in three months, and for shovels to already be in the ground? GoTriangle, the feds, and every other formally-involved stakeholder knew that’s not the case.
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I get that this project will be built. My pessimism comes from 3 factors: the length of time from when this project was announced until it will actually be built, the lack of clarity regarding this rendering vs what actually gets built, and the number of other projects that have been announced with nice renderings or hype that are likely dead or will be scaled back and resigned.
Off the top of my head: Zimmer 40 story building, 401H, several hotels (Nash, Enterprise Lot, the one across from the L apartments), Nexus, Smokey Hollow Phase 3/4, CAM block. Still waiting on 121 Fayetteville, the Creamery, Raleigh Crossing phase 2, and Bloc83 phase 3…hopefully all of which will happen but may be 2 more years.
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Ehhh, study after study. Possibly dumbed down final product. I suppose I have just lost confidence in Go Triangle’s ability to see it through the finish line.
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Uh…we are still in a pandemic, so there’s that to consider as well.
The fact that Raleigh is even having conversations about building significant public and private projects, and continues to build high end housing downtown is remarkable on its own.
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I am optimistic that the 2020’s will be Raleigh’s break through years
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I think one of the large problems is we have a history of having the football pulled out from us right before the kickoff. There was a lot of momentum downtown circa 2005-2008 and the recession seemed to be a giant reset. Things were paused and it took another half-decade for things to begin aligning again. And now we got a pandemic and it almost feels like we could be in for another reset. Hopeful that we are in a better spot than we were then.
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I can’t predict how this will affect downtown real estate and projects, but I can tell you this. There is an almost unfathomable number of millionaires moving here everyday from CA, NY, Chi, NJ, etc. In some cases, hundred-millionaires. People that have the means to “escape” tighter pandemic restrictions, wild fires, higher taxes, more political unrest, etc. and make a profit doing so, are doing it in droves. It will be interesting to examine wealth per capita changes in this area years from now.
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It is completely true that Raleigh has had the football pulled out from us (thanks Lucy), but this pandemic hasn’t proven to have had the sort of devastating effects of the DotCom bust and the 2008 financial crisis. Unlike those, people and money have been focused on Raleigh, not away from it. It’s as if the city has somehow transcended to a place of visibility that its former size couldn’t achieve.
If we look at what happened in Charlotte in 2008, with projects literally stopping in their tracks, we don’t see that repeating itself in Raleigh during this pandemic. Projects at North Hills, Smoky Hollow, Glenwood & Hillsborough, and Raleigh Crossing kept moving forward despite the headwinds. RUSBus is yet another real project that has action and momentum going forward.
I think that we are going to see a significantly changed downtown by the end of the decade. Will every single project proposed in the last two years or so come to fruition? Probably not. Things change, and that’s okay. Even if we only get half of what’s proposed, it will be game changing for Raleigh. If we really step back and take an inventory of everything that’s being proposed downtown, it’s just staggering.
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But I want to be grumpy and pessimistic! Stop it with your logic and reason! 
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there are also a ton of projects going on throughout the area that will no doubt have some downstream impact on raleigh. RTP is on fire right now, Durham is still moving along, and even Cary has some big projects getting off the ground. I think we have to look at the region holistically to really see just how much progress is being made.
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