I should have used emojis to convey the jokiness of my previous statement. 
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OH lmao, my fault… I think I’ve just had one too many clients who’ve had trouble not taking every single thing literally, even at the concept stage.
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I’ve been a graphic / UX / Product designer for quite some time. I feel your pain.
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Starting to watch myself.
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I posted this in the surveys thread but thought maybe it should be here, too: a new survey about the New Bern BRT Station Area.
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Oak City Overlook row houses have started construction. They’re across the street from another row house project under construction as well.
You can just barely see 301 H from street level from here.
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I took a long walk down the corridor and posted it up on the blog. Enjoy!
I still think a zoning conversation is upcoming for this area.
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Does anyone know the details of these units? pricing? size?
It looks like the only way to get it is to submit your info online and I am not shopping for a townhouse at the moment.
No club. Not a fan of wood construction so I’m not personally interested in these projects.
This is a good look at, yes, the future conversations that will be necessary. I currently live in this district, we were made aware of the height restrictions when we bought our house and didn’t think too much of it–we weren’t planning on knocking anything down or adding a second story onto our house. That said, we came here from a bigger city, and we’re excited for BRT. We only have one car now, and regularly walk downtown or to Person street, but we’ve been hoping that if they insist on building in density (which is fine, though we wish it weren’t all $500K+), we want to see some retail to go along with it.
But I hadn’t put 2+2 together yet to realize that yeah, even if they wanted to build a full condo building with retail in the Exploris lot, for example, they’d have to change the height restriction. That might get a lot of pushback.
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im not completely sure on the plans but the oct 22 walk down new bern mentioned exploris park land as possible development material. i was looking at overhead views and aside from a couple of tennis courts on inbound new bern and the adjacent community center there didnt seem to be any other quality nearby outdoor park areas for residents. didnt know if the exploris green-land could be also used for that purpose if it isnt already. workout circuit bars, a few bluebird houses etc. covered picnic tables, a sundial, etc.
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In the last few weeks, I also took some long walks down this corridor; it was the first time that I really ever explored to that extent by foot. I usually drive that corridor, especially to Cook Out.
My experience by foot was way different than my driving perceptions. My impression of the corridor by foot is more chaotic than my experience by car. I don’t mean chaotic as a necessarily negative term, rather meaning a lack of cohesion.
My initial reaction is that it’s a corridor in need of a unifying streetscape project that will introduce some cohesion.
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I would definitely agree that some form of unified streetscape would be very helpful in knitting the whole corridor together. And that means planting some street trees, and hopefully street trees that don’t suck (not bradford pears, not water oaks, not silver maples, etc). I have to imagine as the BRT corridor emerges from the realm of spells and fairies there will be some intentional streetscaping by the city, but it occurs to me that of all the surveys we’ve seen on this topic, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a question asked about streetscaping or general appearance apart from building heights and setbacks.
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I too expect that something comes with the BRT changes in the corridor. I don’t think that you have to worry about those horrific bradford pear trees. Those are Cary circa 1990!
On page 21 of this PDF is the list of trees that the city uses. Like I suggested for the newly renovated stretch of Capital Blvd, imagine how lovely a parade of dogwoods would be along this corridor! The great thing about them is that they complement both historic homes and modern homes, and they don’t get so big that they overwhelm anything.
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Early Thanksgiving morning walk, these townhomes on New Bern are going up quickly. I walked inside and these are actually 2 bedroom instead of 1, which I had originally read on the plans. They are kinda tight overall, but will probably sell in the 500k area. I hope they sell quickly to encourage more of this development along the BRT line.
Also the Oak City Overlook across the street has also broken ground. It appears most of the grading is completed with the beginning of the foundation to go down.
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Zero privacy on the outdoor roof space. Pass.
The area in the middle, between the stair towers, will suffice for your nude-sunbathing purposes.
This summer, my building organized some nice (physically distanced) balcony happy hours; finally got a chance to chat with my immediate neighbor, after 10 years of living there. You’d be surprised at how infrequently you actually see your neighbors on their outdoor space at the exact same time as you.
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With @OakCityDylan 's drone, ain’t nothing’s private outdoors anymore!
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