One thing that was mentioned in the N&O article but hasn’t been discussed much here:
“Debnam sued on the grounds that the Raleigh City Council didn’t provide proper notice before approving the five-story cap, The News & Observer reported.”
I don’t even want to venture a guess about how likely Debnam is to prevail with this argument, but as someone who is a lawyer in real life, (and occasionally on the radio!), I can tell you that the key thing to remember about notice statutes is that you have to actually follow them. So if, hypothetically speaking, the city really didn’t provide the required notice here, then that’s going to be a problem for them.
Fair enough, in terms of the development pressure. But it does not deal with property owners’ perceived loss of value. If my property/block is the only zoned 5 stories, while all the surrounding blocks are zone 40, in theory my property is not worth as much. I am playing devil’s advocate here, because I really don’t want this historic block to be demolished.
By far the worst building on the block is excluded. I suppose you all can imagine how I feel about this. I will tie myself to Briggs if they try and touch it.
I agree and have been an advocate (really actually) for very tall buildings in lots of places to take pressure off the best historic resources. FWIW I *think briggs has covenants on it that prevent just about anything this zoning would allow. I think that because that is how Preservation NC works and they were HQ’d here for a long time.
I can’t help but wonder if this is also a classic political play where you ask for 40 story max but “settle” for 20 story max when you were never going to build over 20 in the first place. Who knows.
Yes, but the building beneath the tower was always meant to support a skyscraper above it. The original plans were scrapped during the Great Depression, and only the base was built.
Ok thanks.Its an interesting way to add more space, more like Greg Hatem did with the Mahler Building and less like the redone Father & Sons. Not sure thats really possible here without mostly destroying the impossible-to-recreate buildings on this block.
Save first 20ft or so from Front of buildings, and build new one in center of block, or at least have part of new building that rises over the facade set back 20 feet or so. At street level will look like original buildings are still there.
In case its not clear from this thread or my presence here in general, I am 100% against that. The best you’d get from me is to remove Big Easy (its not really a building) and Kimbrells and use those lots for footings,and you could squeeze footings in behind Briggs and Mahler, then go up from there perhaps.
I think there is room for as many as two towers on this block.
Do not touch Briggs. Period.
North of Briggs, obviously Kimbrell’s can go. Keep 50’ of the adjacent buildings facing both Fayetteville and Salisbury. While facadectomies or 10’ depth preservation to me is not adequate, keeping 50’ facing each street is, to me, enough to preserve the historical character of the interiors of these buildings. The block is 200’ deep, so that leaves a mid block footprint of 100x100 which is plenty for a tower. Parking would be accessed from the Kimbrell’s spot on Salisbury.
South of Briggs, I would be willing to lose the back (Salisbury) half of the building south of Big Easy if it meant connecting the Big Easy spot with the vacant lot behind Mahler. That leaves another 100x100 space immediately fronting Salisbury.
100x100 is a bit small of a footprint for an office building, although I think it could work. I certainly wouldn’t want the footprints to be any bigger than that, so if it doesn’t pencil out as office with 10ksf floor plates, then resi-only it is.
I think that would be a good compromise. I’d add a third tower at the building with the Subway. 80 ft x 65 ft. footprint would be about half the size of Skyhouse (which would look much more proportional if cut in half anyway).
