Totally agree. I’m just over here sipping on my glass half full…!
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Give me the shopping and I’ll be happy. Raleigh needs a downtown shopping district.
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I think that you’ll see the west side of downtown emerge as just that: from Smoky Hollow to Union Station.
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Is it 30% completion of the project, or 30% completion of Schematic Design? The image says the latter (which would mean they’re at 30% completion of a phase that typically encompasses only 15-20% of the whole project), but it could just be unclear phrasing.
In any case, I expect the design to change a lot from these renderings. It’s too early and they’re highly conceptual.
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^ True dat. No way all of that makes it to the finish line.
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Looks highly conventional to me–box on top of box with maybe some mix of facades to change up the design.
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This is 30% schematic design, not 30% of the whole project. “30% design” is a specific milestone for designing big public works projects. To my understanding of Durham’s light rail and the BRT projects, it means you have an idea of what you’re building and the basic design is finalized, but the specific materials, measurements, costs etc. aren’t set yet. I’m not sure about Raleigh, but Seattle and Minnesota’s Dept. of Environmental Quality have standard definitions for what it means to be 30/50/90/100% design-ready.
I doubt some of these features will stay in the final design (like the waterfall? Also I feel like the bridge will probably end up looking much simpler). But who knows? Unlike GoTriangle’s past projects, they actually secured the federal funds to build this project, and we’re set to learn more details throughout the year.
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@Keita ah, I see. Your explanation seems to imply they’ve completed SD, but who knows. 30% of SD would mean they’re really, really early on in the process – the basic design probably wouldn’t have even been finalized. A traditional project is structured as 15% schematic design, 20% design development, 40% construction documents, 5% bidding, and 20% construction administration, but most firms don’t really follow these milestones anymore because BIM has changed our workflows, and design efforts are much more front-loaded now.
@Fransisco Agreed, other than the glass circular court. That’s pretty ambitious depending on how they detail it. If they went with something really minimal/used structural glazing (think: Apple store), that could be $$$. But in general, I wasn’t saying that the design would necessarily change for cost purposes, but rather because these are super early. The facade probably hasn’t been designed yet, and the textural treatments on the building are just something conceptual thrown in for the renderings. A lot of the details that we tend to focus on in renderings are really just an intern throwing some entourage in to communicate the intended feel/ambiance of the project; they’re not things that are always shown with clear intention.
Those fins that make up the entirety of the ceiling below, for example? Could be a placeholder for a future element that’s to-be-designed.
This rendering in particular screams “I haven’t actually been designed but the architects are trying to sell the big idea/communicate the potential of this kind of circular glass court”
By the way, I don’t read anything in these renderings as a waterfall. Looks like they’re using that texture to suggest a graphic glass element, considering it shows up in multiple places in the renderings.
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The waterfall is not in any of the pretty pictures in Perkins-Eastman’s website, but it is explicitly mentioned in the captions for the sheet drawings I posted earlier. I cropped them out in my post, but you’ll see the Perkins-Eastman logo if you look at the original PDF.
I do agree about how things just look like placeholders, though. One more way to tell? The website contradicts with the GoTriangle renderings for what will adorn the ceiling of the bus bays.
Either way, it sounds like we’ll have a clearer idea of what’s to come throughout this year. Let’s have our fingers crossed that it’ll all get built well (with bonus points for a water-based art piece)?
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I’m getting 33 minutes plus a crown
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Second tallest building in Raleigh by floor count if that is the case.
The Walter : 35 floors
RUSBUS : 33 floors
PNC Plaza : 32 floors
121 F : 32 floors
Wells Fargo CC : 30 floors
Well unless Zimmer or Smky Hllw III are built.
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Floor count is such a bad metric. The Walter bills itself as the tallest residences due to it, though the residences don’t go as high as PNC.
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In all fairness it’s the tallest fully residential, and probably is the higher up then most other towers in the city since it’s up on a hill.
This image specifically indicates that the shorter of the two towers will cap out about 1 story taller than The Dillon (you can see the roof of the Dillon to the left in this render). But in the whole image of both towers, it appears much shorter… interesting
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A topographic map doesn’t seem to confirm that presumption if you poke around on it.
Still, in all fairness, floor count doesn’t translate 1:1 to height. Just look at how much shorter SkyHouse is compared to what many believed would be this giant residential building due to its floor count. I am not discounting The Walter; I’m just trying to check its assertions.
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I would just like to note how correct I was exactly two years ago 
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GoTriangle’s board is meeting again next Wednesday, and its agenda includes updates about what they’ll be talking about, including some updates for RUSbus. Not as many pretty pictures as my last update, though.
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Thank you so very much! 
And I will take “Schematic Design’s” if we can get those… 
Please and thank you!
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Yeah, me too…
I think it’s important to keep it in perspective, though; you can’t just magically pull out completed designs in a month, especially when there’s multiple developers working to please a long list of stakeholders.
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True, but that could do more of those cool “concept” sketches or images. You know that ones that they never build but show to get everyone excited…Lol 
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