Now now. Don’t pass judgement until you’ve seen it. ASR drawings don’t do material application any justice.
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I really can’t complain about that too much - it literally faces an active train track and empty railroad land. The Citrix building next door also just gives it a blank wall and calls it a day. It’s not like you’re going to put windows there (unless you’re Platform apparently)
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Raleigh Union Station: Reused warehouse
Citrix: reused warehouse
Dillon: partial reused warehouse
MSFH: reused warehouse
CAM: reused warehouse
RUSBus is going to have partial reused warehouse facade.
I think that they are doing a pretty good job overall. It’s not like the district had acres upon acres of interesting buildings to redevelop. Most of them were/are nondescript brick buildings.
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Honestly, and of course this is just my POV, but any parking deck screening whatsoever is ugly as shit. Any Big Blank Wall 
of any material, no matter how “quality” or “craft” that material may be, is still just an ugly Big Blank Wall
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It also faces one of the most photographed vantage points of the city (Boylan Bridge), sooooooo yeah, it’s not like it’s gonna be completely unnoticed.
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Sure, but there’s almost nothing they could do here other than some kind of blank wall. No one in a nice downtown high rise wants a freight train blowing their horn literally next to their window. The high rise is better than the abandoned warehouses, and this was an inevitable mild downside.
Besides, most people are going to be looking up at the skyline itself anyway - that scrubby railroad land leading up to the Warehouse District isn’t exactly gorgeous either.
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BIG AGREE - I understand the logistics of that site don’t allow for it to become a park or pedestrian-oriented green space - but damn, it’d be nice to at least get some landscaping in there 
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I feel like parking decks are like suburban fences in the commercial real estate realm - no one wants to spend extra money on them so most of them appear as such - commonplace to the point of ‘we don’t give a crap’ annoyance…Occasionly, though, someone does a little more and it shows - could be as simple as 'off the shelf ’ screening that just blends in…not everything can be as artistic and elaborate as the shimmer wall screening on back of RCC, but there are some examples out there that go a step or two beyond the norm…We could use more exceptions, indeed.
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OK I’ll say it again. The RR needs to sale the air rights over that area so some developer can cover over the tracks and treat ground level as 20 ft up from where it is now. Would make a nice walk-able area for 10-15 story office/ apartment buildings to cover what will be a eyesore in DTR for a long long time if something like that is not done.
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That part.
I only showed green space but could easily build too.
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Won’t there eventually be a new passenger rail platform on the backside of the RUBUS building? For S-line intercity/N-S commuter trains I think
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In theory, yeah, that’s where they’re planning to put it.
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If the Moxy Hotel they’re planning on West Street doesn’t completely torpedo the plans for HSR on the S-line, that is.
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Please explain to me why HSR requires so much more right of way into that particular spot, and why if it is so essential nobody has done anything about it (ie go get the right of way) to this point.
I’m sure there are actual reasons but it sounds very dumb, then again it is transportation infrastructure in the good ol’ USofA, so it probably doesn’t make any sense whatsoever
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Now you know why they formed up tons of concrete adjacent to the old warehouses. A tremendous amount of work to save the existing brick facade. I know we all wish there was more historic preservation in the city, but this is pretty commendable when you think about the time, design, and budgetary impact something like this adds to a project.
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When could we action on this project like in November
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I don’t think @orulz is saying that because high-speed rail inherently needs more right-of-way (though that is kind of true because of additional space so that noise barriers can be built safely and sensibly). Rather, I think it’s because it’s highly likely that high-speed trains will require their own tracks -if not two (one in each direction)- so that passenger traffic doesn’t risk getting in the way of freight operations.
If we were to use Norfolk Southern’s specs as described in this study for the O-Line commuter rail attempt in Charlotte, we’d want 26 feet of right-of-way for each track (or 13ft on each side if you drew an imaginary line midway between the two steel rails that make up a track) PLUS more than 5ft on each side. Assuming we need three tracks (26ft * 3 tracks + 10ft buffer = 88ft; 44ft each side), this means we’ll have enough right-of-way for HSR as long as the new tracks are on both sides of the existing single freight track and the existing rail track is consistently in the middle of the right-of-way.
…bad news: we have places where that’s not true. Here’s a map of city parcels around the future Moxy Hotel site (501 N. West St.) according to iMaps (Raleigh’s GIS service), with the measurement tool indicating the distance between the existing freight line tracks’ midline and the edge of the right-of-way:
That’s under the 44’ that we just guessed we’d need, which means there’s not enough land here to physically build high speed rail tracks. And because there are points north of this area (e.g. near Peace St.) where it gets even narrower, you can’t just solve this by moving the existing tracks. This means NCDOT (or NCRR or whoever) must buy parts of the land from the future hotel site and reserve it as right-of-way; it will be physically impossible to build new train tracks to existing specifications, otherwise.
They’re working on it: that’s one of the goals of the Southeast Corridor megaproject, which includes the state’s attempt to buy the S-Line. The only problem is that the state still has to produce evidence that this investment would be worth it to taxpayers (e.g. the ongoing transit-oriented development study).
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Two large excavators are now staged behind the warehouse near the train tracks. Demolition coming soon?
I’ll try to get some photos tomorrow.
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…there’s your problem right there. They will not
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Thanks! That’s very helpful. So do the current S-Line plans just take for granted that they’ll condemn a huge portion of the renovated building at 301 N West Street? I feel like all the ire is getting pointed at this lot when there are a lot of other problem children along the route.
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