The building pictured is 1200’ tall but has not been completed yet.
Ah…I thought that Marina City was being attributed to a female architect. gotcha!
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Are these from various towns? At least one looks like Greenville SC. This is one of those strange/unique things about Raleigh - for the time it was the only capitol not on a navigable water way. Heck, it still might be the only one . . . save a few in the inter-mountain west - Phoenix & Salt Lake?
These are definitely all from Greenville, SC
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I know that everyone is gaga over Greenville, but it looks like a nice suburban environment to me, not a downtown.
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Used to live in Greenville before moving to Raleigh. Greenville has a very nice downtown. Granted it’s nowhere near the size or height of Raleigh, but it’s very walkable with tons of restaurants & shops. People are out in droves downtown all the time.
The pictures are from Falls Park which is right downtown. Beautiful park. Something we can envision for Dix.
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That’s how we build cities these days.
I’ve been recently and it feels more like a park really. Greenville is nice, I like visiting, but I didn’t see anything there that Raleigh could learn from. They may have more downtown retail than we do (maybe?) but when it’s really just one street, it’s pretty easy to create that shopping “corridor”.
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The nice river that many other cities have isn’t something Raleigh can use.
But the cool water feature in Durham at the American Tobacco Campus is great. A version of that in Raleigh be be doable.
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I see the relationship of Falls Park to DTG as being very similar to Dix and DTR. Walking through Greenville there are numerous fountains and water features that seem to be leading you to the park. At the park they’ve created their “postcard moment” for the City with the Liberty Bridge.
What I would take from Greenville is the strong pedestrian connection to Dix, incorporating water features and sculptural elements along the way. At Dix I would reclaim Rocky Branch Creek and try to have features that draw people to the “postcard moment” at the top of the sledding hill.
Greenville also has a very mature, intimate, tree canopy over main street and a plan on how to maintain, remove and replace those trees in succession so that the canopy is always present. That’s not really applicable to Fayetteville Street, but some of the other streets in DTR could make better use of the small islands and silva cells to provide some natural shade outside of Nash and Moore Square.
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This is a really good point. I’d love to see an arborist’s plan for using trees to unify the downtown experience. Besides providing shade to encourage walking and dining al fresco, they could become a strong part of the city’s brand. I mean, really, isn’t Raleigh called a park with a city in it? In any case, a consistent language of trees in the public right of way could also provide a framework for holiday lights and other expressions for the city. Imagine a color pattern of flowers in the Spring & and a color leaf show in the Autumn.
Maybe instead of water, it could be the language of the trees that lead us to Dix Park?
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Here are some pictures of Main Street with all the trees.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3613/3435118163_cc90d6015d_b.jpg
Would be nice to something similar in parts of DTR.
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Absolutely that sort of water feature is something Raleigh should have, indeed needs!! #fountainlife
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Yes, well said. I did notice the mature trees on Main in addition to the more complex layout of shrubs and railings at intersections. It dresses it up well.
The oaks on Fayetteville Street are coming along great in my opinion but more complex sidewalk layouts could really create a sense of place in other areas. I don’t think sidewalk dining was really a priority (it certainly isn’t these days) when the makeover was being planned back in the early 2000s but instead a wide walking street as well as event space and parade route. Fayetteville Street seemed to be planned for flexibility.
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I went to Indianapolis in May and they had a really cool canal in downtown. You could rent bikes, kayaks, and paddle boats. It was really awesome. My hotel room actually opened right up to the canal. It reminded me of the canal in Richmond, but the one in Richmond was functional when it was built, and from my understanding, the one in Indy was built as more of an attraction/park than anything actual functional. Either way, it was pretty neat.
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Is it like the “River-Walk” in San Antonio TX?
They do look a lot alike…
I saw something interesting in the Midtown Small Area Plan survey last night that proposed turning part of that area into a waterfront area along Crabtree Creek (question 10: https://publicinput.com/4552/)
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