Nothing yet as of the last time I passed by. I think that was Sunday. I’ll pass by today.
Yeah it’s probably not gonna look like anything is happening for a long time while they do site-prep work on the interior, then one day it’ll be like BAM! BIG ASS CRANE AND TONS OF CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT!
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I was there last week and the most notable change I saw was West Street in front of the property was reduced to one lane. It’s actually cool how they’re mediating traffic. It’s like the traditional team of workers with the stop and slow signs except it’s all automated by computers and temporary street lights
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I noticed they do the automated lights everywhere in Europe, even in boondocks Romania. We’re pretty behind on implementing those (union contracts incentivizing higher staffing maybe?)
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I’ve been seeing more and more of that sort of automation around here. But yeah it did seem like we were behind on that.
As for the site itself, I drove by earlier today. Definitely demo work getting done on site, but nothing really we can see from outside.
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Unions can be major cost- and time-drivers (like New York’s latest subway extension), but I don’t think it’s an issue here.
North Carolina’s a “right to work” state (which doesn’t mean what it sounds like) and, at 3.4%, has one of the lowest union membership rates across all industries in the country. That amounts to just about 2,500 out of 28,500 construction workers in all of Wake County who are represented by unions. With a private contractor (Hoffman) in charge of finding construction workers within a predefined budget, I’m having a hard time thinking they would actually hire any of those 2500 potential subcontracted workers.
Click here for the math.
There’s about 142k union-represented workers (which is only 3.4% of all workers!!) in North Carolina. Wake County’s population (1.09M) is about 10.5% of all of North Carolina (10.39M); assuming that the concentration of union workers is the same, we probably have about 14,900 union-represented workers living in Wake County. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also says 17.1% of American workers were in the construction industry.
If we pretend that ratio holds true in Wake County (it’s probably lower in reality), that implies about 2,500 construction workers in Wake County may be represented by a union.
I wonder if the construction industry is just very conservative and slow to innovation? Technologies like modular design are out there that can save time, costs, and efficiency, but my guess is that most construction companies in America are either huge firms (big, bulky, slow to adopt new processes) or tiny local businesses (struggling to get by, and doesn’t have the clout to push for innovations), and there’s just not a lot of competitive pressure to innovate.
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One point on construction firms - modular buildings require exponentially more private infrastructure than a 100% subcontracted GC firm. Many successful building companies work largely from the construction site and a small central office. It can be an extremely lean operation. Whereas a modular building company essentially owns or leases a manufacturing facility and possibly a trucking fleet. I would say it’s not so much that the competitive pressure to innovate isn’t there, but that the barrier to entry is relatively high, and everyone’s too damn busy to change haha
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Spoke to a friend recently who works at the design firm doing RUSBUS. The team that’s working on this is actually located in the New York office, with some local support. As I thought, the design only just finished schematic design, which means construction on the towers is really far off. I imagine the groundbreaking happening soon is just site-work/demo.
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That’s true; the upfront capital costs are much higher for prefabricating modular components. I guess it’s just surprising to me that we have a construction boom in new urban regions plus nascent demand for denser, more walkable developments, yet we’re still relying on such a decentralized supply chain. I know lean operations have been the norm the past few decades, but it still takes a conscious decision to stick by that -a decision to optimize cost reductions and profit margins in the short term while sacrificing flexibility and robustness to disruptions.
The current construction process clearly gets things done, but in my mind, “everyone’s too damn busy to change” is exactly the vibe when new disruptions hurt the most. Sure would suck if people got blindsided by startups like these:
But until the day comes when that’s more of the norm…
That’s fair. Well, site work and demolition are still clearly construction activities of some sort (otherwise, the FTA would be chucking lawsuits at us right now); it sucks for the crane-lovers on here, but progress is still progress, right?
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Already been mentioned in news articles no major construction work until Spring of next year or so at least 11 months out.
Hopefully the Creamery tower project is still breaking ground this year.
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Right, I’m saying even spring sounds too early for the towers to begin construction for where they’re at in design. This also means the design can still change significantly from what was in the renderings. We’ll see.
For sure, though it’s pretty sad that Durham might have 3 towers over 21 stories up and under construction in their downtown way before a Downtown Raleigh even starts on a single tower over 21 stories. Haven’t heard much on either the Creamery project nor Smoky Hollow III or the up-to-30 story Mables parking lot project. There SHOULD be something, somewhere. Even murmurs.
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Oh, there are…just all at NH’s 
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dunno why “21” floors is the cutoff, but looks like downtown Raleigh is about to have 3 20 story towers under construction by summer (400H, 320 W South, Salisbury Sq) and possibly 18 story Bloc83 Phase 3 and 20 story 300 Hillsborough starting at the end of the year.
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This would be the other half of the Fallon/Pendo tower development… where are you seeing that they’ve revived plans and might be starting so soon? Last we heard, Phase 2 was on indefinite hold…
EDIT: Nevermind, see @Nickster below my comment!
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This would be the Holiday Inn replacement across the street from Pendo
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Not even going to start demoing the holiday in until late 2023 at best. Got a loooong time on that one . If ever.
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I agree that it will be a long time before that one starts, I was just clarifying the location. 
Here’s hoping that project fails.
Fallon 301 Hillsborough Phase 2 is almost certainly dead as a doornail. I may have information later this week. I’m surprised TBJ hasn’t had an article on this yet.
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