It would be very nice to change zoning system
2 Likes
Durham has a 300’ height limit and everyone builds to that limit. 20 floors of office would be the same height roughly, but Raleigh has been getting mostly residential, so its height limit in much of downtown is effectively lower than Durham’s.
Raleigh has had many rezonings to DX-40 throughout downtown. It is only a matter of time before something eventually gets built in the 30-40 floor range. I think the Omni is a guaranteed win. Hoping against hope that the Nash Square apts and Legends apts are built as proposed with no scalebacks.
Both cities need to raise their height limits, which are absolutely silly since both have buildings above that height. Durham is stuck with a suburban office tower as its tallest building forever at 320’ University Tower. Raleigh has the 3 as well as the Eastern–also not downtown. When your city already has taller buildings than the limit outside its downtown I feel like automatically the limit in downtown should be higher than that.
12 Likes
Except, thankfully, The Eastern isn’t the tallest building in Raleigh.
2 Likes
Those poor cars. Deprived of essential vitamin D.
In Florida it’s a blessing to have shade, period. 
4 Likes
Precisely, in the Sun Belt we should all be so fortunate to have trees, buildings and other structure to provide a respite of cool when the mercury spikes…
New $10 billion bus terminal reconstruction project in New York.
We can’t even spare a few million to include an oculus or bridge to our new bus station.
8 Likes
Thank goodness, Port Authority is a pit.
It’s awesome NYC finally rebuilt LGA, (most of) Penn Station, and Port Authority back to back to back, but they let them decay first to the point things got really dire.
3 Likes
Hello from Oceanside California again. The beach, pier, and harbor usually get all the love so I wanted to show off some of the “regular parts” of the city. I feel there’s some architectural gold in Oside.
St Mary Star of the Sea, Originally founded by the Franciscan Friars in 1798. Current building is circa 1927.
One of my favorite buildings in Oceanside, built in 1936, was a former newspaper office, now it’s a bougie restaurant. Love the art deco style though!
The main post office circa 1936 and still in use today. This was built before the zip code was required to be displayed on the front of the building. (Or so I’ve been told.)
Pacific Coast Highway, formerly “Hill Street.” It was changed a few years back when the city was rebranding itself. It used to be sketchy af down here in the 90s. Now it’s a tourist trap. I miss the old Oceanside with drunk Marines, gang bangers in the park, tweaker skaters, hookers, and general weirdos. I digress…
Typical alleyway with long lines of sight. There would’ve been no less than 47 pairs of shoes hanging from these power lines back in the day.
This is the Oceanside Municipal Complex. It houses City Hall, the main library, meeting space, a civic center, public works, and all the admin for each city department. There’s also a fire station and an art museum tucked in here too.
Every Thursday the city shuts down 4 blocks to host the Sunset Market. It’s usually over 200 vendors and literally any kind of food you can imagine. The sensory overload walking around here is intense.
Typical houses from the 40’s. These homes supposedly sold for $25-40k back in the day. Each one is well over $1M now. Not much space, but location, location, location!
Our transit center. I think the public transportation in San Diego county is pretty solid. Lots of options available to get you wherever you need to go. Pro tip: If ever visiting Oceanside, don’t pay to use any of the city or hotel parking decks. The transit center deck is free and it’s 2 blocks from the pier.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned.
27 Likes
Love Oceanside. My family has deep roots there from
The 60’s. My dad grew up there and my grandfather started a church in Carlsbad down the road after retiring from the Navy. Karla and I ended up getting married in the same chapel in Carlsbad in 2018. It’s got a special place in our hearts for sure!
7 Likes
That’s awesome man! I remember seeing your wedding pics from back then. You’re my Oside boy and you need a Padres hat!
2 Likes
Are you sure that isn’t the name of the local drag queen?
1 Like
Cascades Overlook in Sterling, VA is a fairly conventional Harris Teeter-anchored, REIT-owned strip mall, but two elements stand out:
- At the middle is an outdoor, pedestrianized dining court between four restaurants
- The small-shop strip has a row of two-over-two condos above it, accessed from atop the hillside behind the stripmall.
This MLS listing has some fun overhead photos.
This is now one of my favorite NIMBY stories. The Efland location they’d identified earlier makes absolutely perfect sense to someone sitting at a desk in Texas: I-85 and I-40 co-signed with US 70 bypass right there, between two exits unusually 1/3 mile apart so anyone driving on three different highways can pull off without backtracking. It’s an absolutely obvious location for their business model. But whoops, it was in Orange County.
Love how the turning-tail statement included “We appreciate the support we have received from hundreds of people in… northern Orange County”.
Charlotte’s federal courthouse recently got rebuilt/expanded, and Greensboro/W-S (and Chattanooga and Norfolk) are all on the “due for new building, pending appropriation” list.
Stayed one night at one of the new pierside hotels last year, precisely because we could take the Surfliner down from LA one morning and continue on the Coaster into SD the next day. Not many places in America to take a train break at the beach!
A little bike party rode past as I was watching the sunset:
3 Likes
They need a barrel canopy built to protect everyone from the rain and cover up the architectural mistake. 
I wish the village district could get this treatment!
Okay, one more and then I’m done for a while.
I present to you, “The Top Gun House.” Color. 2024.
It’s our claim to fame y’all!
9 Likes
That was the fastest bike in the world at the time. It also launched the ‘Ninja’ name that is still used today on Kawasaki’s sportiest motorcycles. It’s crazy how much technical innovation has occurred since then…my 2009 CBR600RR has about the same amount of power from a much smaller engine (only 599cc) and weighs nearly 100 pounds less.
2 Likes
