Rockway Apartments - S. Saunders/Lake Wheeler Developments

I’ll ask at trophy maywood next time I’m there > what the impetus of the rezoning was

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It seems that the terms of the rezoning would actually allow up to 9000 units if no office were built. For every residential unit over 3000, the office entitlement is reduced by 250 square feet.

The end result appears to be a sliding scale: 3000 units/ 1.5m sf office to 9000 units/0sf office.

200k sf of retail, and 500 hotel rooms, would be permitted regardless.

Count me as thinking 9000 units of resi would be better and more transformational here. I would rather see all office development happen within walking distance of Union Station. Park City South is half a mile so it counts; this is twice as far, so should be mostly residential as far as I’m concerned.

Of course, office developers will see the excellent access to I-40 and think differently. Oh well

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It’s not that many owners. JPB owns a lot of this. There’s a handful of other LLC’s and businesses with just a few actual individuals. Maybe 10 different owners total, and that’s assuming those LLC’s with different names aren’t shell companies owned by JPB or affiliated in someway. I didn’t go through and click every property, but I clicked a number of them and kept getting the same three or four owners over and over.

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True true, it looked like more on the application but many are same entity

https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2022/05/26/sli-capital-raleigh-dix-park-development-plans.html

TBJ article on the 2 Mixed Use Hammel Towers. Construction to begin later this year.

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Not sure, but they may have already begun some work, at least demolition. Was playing the temporary disc golf course at Dix earlier and spotted construction equipment on what I’m pretty sure is the Hammell site, and it appears that land clearing and demolition of the single family houses on the site may already be taking place.

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Below is a link to the Dix Edge Study that shows the city’s suggested future land use for Lake Wheeler and surrounding areas. Here are some screen shots too.





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They are going to regret not having an outdoor space at the top of the building.

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Oh, the views that would have.
:star_struck:

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This is cool, I’m glad it is preferred to to have urban centers and corridors along Lake Wheeler and Saunders which at least from a land use map perspective connects downtown to downtown South and Dix Park at some future date. I don’t understand a 120-ft wide lot anywhere in this area for future land use, unless this whole area abolishes single family home exclusivity.

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Nobody get mad at me but I am in favor of additional design standards for non-affordable housing units. Those examples look so much better than just about anything we see built in this city. Also stricter parking maximums (the adopted ones were not at all ambitious) and an incentive for solar or green rooves would be great. I saw so many projects with them up in DC and Maryland, yet almost nobody seems to build them here; which would seem to point to a policy difference.

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The reason so many things die in concept is because people want some far off future today. It’s the same thing with green energy, we can’t just stop using oil tomorrow - billions of people would literally starve to death within 3-4 weeks. The goal shouldn’t be eliminating car spaces - it should be figuring out how to build buildings where parking decks can be easily converted into some other useful space when needed. (i.e. don’t build slanted decks, have one side that is for up/down and all other floors flat, possibly with the ability to add windows later, etc.). Or even force them to be entirely separate structures with no building above - so they can be quickly demolished when the underlying land can command a higher value/alt use.

The other problem is developer’s today have no real pride in ownership or construction. They build something on financing, then plan to sell it as soon as it’s leased - to some far away insurance company, pension fund, or sovereign wealth - who truly doesn’t care if it has a rooftop or if it’s beside Dix Park or on the moon, they see occupancy at 95% and a cap rate of X%. That’s the world.

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We need to take positive action to reduce, and eventually eliminate, how much parking is included in each new development. Eliminating minimums was the first step; imposing very liberal maximums was the next, and from here on the maximums should be gradually reduced. This will gradually increase what it cost to park, and as options like BRT, commuter railn and better bike facilities become available, encourage people to try them.

We need to get more people to arrive to downtown without their cars.

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I’m a little curious how you got “we should stop burning oil tomorrow, no matter what” from me saying “Raleigh should do more to incentivize low impact development.” Rooftop solar and green rooves aren’t some far off fantasy, they’ve been around for decades.

Additionally, I don’t think that adopting parking maximums that actually impact built form (the current ones are higher than what any rational developer would build anyway) is actually very extreme of an idea if the city is committed to expanding transit and active transportation modes. Ensuring that garages can be retrofit is an entirely separate but also important step to take.

Your last point would only seem to bolster my own, that if we want to achieve better development outcomes, we need to adopt stricter design standards to ensure them.

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Concrete being poured! This can only be one thing, right? Crane pad!

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Here it is as of this morning. Still no crane, but there’s a lot of activity pretty much every day.

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Much better activity than a lot of planned development that hasn’t broken ground yet.

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Please excuse my ignorance, but is there a difference between the Park City South development and the Downtown South one? I think the former is by Merge Capital and the latter is by Kane… but I’m not quite sure.

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Yes. Park city south is 7 and 20 story apartments.

Downtown south is maybe a dozen or so mid to high rise towers in phase 1, hopefully a stadium, and then two future phases in the next couple of decades.

To confuse even more, across the street from park city south is two more 20 story towers.

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This is not ignorance. It’s incredibly hard to keep track of for me too, and I’ve been trying pretty hard. Lol

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