The only residences that are there are the Dillon and some of the condos right around there right? I did see that there are 350 apartments planned, but there are also 200 hotel rooms as well.
I would think adding higher end special occasion restaurants may be good for this area and city. It would be a major draw for people visiting the city via train and would give people a reason to make day trips since everything would be right near the station. I wouldn’t have anything against 3 star diners (since that’s where I normally eat), but since I can find 3 star diners near me, it wouldn’t necessarily bring me downtown. As it is, the only time I’m downtown is when I go out to Glenwood South, work (office is still closed), when I want to bike (since the greenway connects to downtown via the Western Blvd. section), and for special occasions/dinner (Barcelona Wine Bar, Oak Steakhouse, Second Empire all within 10 min walk). That kind of stuff draws me downtown. I’m mainly saying don’t deny the higher end restaurants; This is the one place I wouldn’t mind seeing them.
Personally I would like to see more attractions at this part of the city. CAM Raleigh is very small. The museums are an ok walk for a group of single friends (who may opt to drink instead); For people with kids, it’s a bit of a walk (anyone with kids can chime in here if that’s not bad of a walk with kids).
But the glaring reality is, the RUSBus will include a percentage of affordable housing apartments. So we really think an upscale restaurant(s) will want to be located in a building where 15+/-% of the residents could never afford to eat there? Also what does having high end retail/dining say to those tenants in the AH units… “Look at all this stuff right at your doorstep that you can’t afford” Sorry, I’m just not all that into the “luxury” lifestyle narrative that we keep trying to push with hotels/apartments/condos/dining etc. Most folks are just trying to tread water these days. Building exclusively for the high earners is only excluding the middle and lower income folks.
It’s a brand new high rise in the city center next to a major transit hub. Pretty much exactly where you’d want to put “destination” dining. Should they only be in their own buildings?
What if I wanted to put in a men’s clothing store, or a bike shop. Doesn’t that exclude women, or people who don’t bike? As long as the city center as a whole has a good mix of retail/dining, there’s nothing wrong with a little high-end pizzazz.
From the most recent / upcoming rezoning application… so 35 units?
The property owner will dedicate no less than 20 units or 10% of units, whichever is greater, as
affordable for households earning 80% area median income or less for a period of no less than 15 years from the date of issuance of a certificate of occupancy.
The whole point of creating sub-market rate housing units within “luxury” buildings (which only applies for 10% or 20 units of RUS Bus, whichever is higher) is to enable people from a wider variety of income levels to live in the same place. It should be understood at this point that most major mixed-use developments in the Triangle have fallen under some sort of affordable housing quota when they got rezoned. Translation: if you want to set up shop in a mixed-use development, your clientele may not always be as fancy as you’d like 'em to be.
In that reality, I think it would be unreasonable to expect tenant restaurants to be so classist that they’d refuse to occupy a space just because only 9 out of 10 of their residential neighbors are paying market-rate rents.
While the debate about income-based zoning for fine dining is interesting, I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that @pierretong statement was a play on words in reference to the former occupant of the site, not a concrete proposal.
Without going completely off topic, people who live in AH could probably still afford dining at 4-5 star restaurants just not every week lol. Also these restaurants would draw in visitors from other parts of town, etc.
Living across the tracks from this development, I’d vote for more mid-level restaurants vs competitors to some of the best restaurants in the state that are right downtown. Many of which are under appreciated. I mean, we have a ton of great restaurants downtown now, and not that many “affordable” options IMO. Obv a mix is a good compromise, but mid-level also generates more foot traffic.
BTW, Oak, O-Ku and Barcelona across the street and none of which are inexpensive by any means.
It’s a bus terminal after all, some of the dining is going to be geared towards people coming to and from in a rush, not always the most affluent people, either. I could see a coffee shop (Sbux or Dunkin) or maybe fast casual like Chipotle. Downtown is still very local but I feel like that’s gonna turn sometime soon as these storefronts get filled up.
There are also residents at The Hue and Park Devereux to the east, and there will be all those new residents filling 400H and 501H too. There’s others in the Warehouse District, and more residents up the hill at Boylan and Hargett. That’s a lot of residents in a ~5 minute walkshed.
