Complete utter waste of a great old hotel.
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A “complete utter waste”? I guess we have different definitions. Seems a little overboard when it’s providing a roof over a lot of heads. There’s a lot of hotels in the works, I think the market will be ok on this one, especially since it wasn’t doing much with the building beforehand…
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Keeping roofs over people’s heads does not require sacrificing the city’s only hope of having a renovated, old school, namesake hotel in the very center of it.
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No offense, but you would not be very good at politics. The city has a say in whether the residential portion is used as affordable housing - it put $3million in to make that happen. Without doing any more research it’s a safe bet there are other restrictions keeping it “affordable”.
So if it were financially feasible to convert the building back to a hotel, and a developer were to come along with the proverbial sack of cash, I would not want to be the City Councilman that voted to kick a bunch of old people out on their ears.
*edited to add link
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If a developer were to come to the city with a sack of cash, then there’s no doubt that folks wouldn’t be put out on their ears.
No offense, but there isn’t a need to correlate the restoration of Raleigh’s grand hotel with putting people on the street. Where is it predetermined that that’s the only outcome?
No. I’m not interested in being a politician.
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I’m sure the views of the one-story barber shop, which isn’t going anywhere anytime soon (the building), would be killer! Lame joke aside, Spero is correct. So until someone with an actual plan and that bag of cash comes along, we can all be sim city amenity planners in our dreams.
Theoretically I agree that the issues should not be coupled, but the “grand hotel” at issue happens to currently house a bunch of low-income seniors. If it gets converted into a hotel they would not be able to live there. Sorry if I’m missing something - It would be great if there was a “porque no las dos” situation here.
Absolutely
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Living in the remnants of a grand hotel is not the only option for these seniors, and it’s far from being the only option downtown. There is such a thing as constructing new purpose built buildings for things such as housing.
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Nor is it the only option for a good hotel. I know we all want the Home Alone 2: Lost in New York version of the Plaza Hotel on Central Park. But even renovated and cleared of our less fortunate, that would be a tough ask. The building and site are not as large as most (if not all) of the others mentioned on this thread. The point is, it’s not a “complete and utter waste” of the space, to say so is a little concerning - especially this time of year.
Edit: Fun fact, the Plaza is 21 stories tall. Sir Walter is less than half that at 10. It is not actually the original Plaza Hotel, the original was built in late 1800s and the current version replaced it in 1907. Same as Waldorf Astoria, it is not the original and stands 47 stories.
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BUT it is the ONLY option we have for a historic hotel. Richmond has the Jefferson. Memphis the Peabody. Nashville has one I can’t remember. Hell, even Kinston has a renovated old bank that is now a hotel…and now even Wilson is getting into the historic hotel renovation game.
Any legit city that has a “historic structure” like this has renovated & restored it….long ago.
But Raleigh’s style is well……to conduct an affordable housing study….and another one, and another one
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Again, missing the logistical limitations this site has. And I personally don’t care about keeping up with the Joneses, that’s a vain and futile game. There’s a lot of shiny building fomo going around here.
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What about the building Capital Club 16 sits under? It’s also beautiful, tall(ish), and has potential to be converted. I feel like we’re really limiting ourselves by acting like Sir Walter is our only shot at a hotel in a historic building. Ace and Hoxton both have instances of old buildings that had never previously been used as hotels.
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I’m a big proponent of restoring historically significant buildings. No matter how many downtown hotels are built, I dare say none will be as architecturally grand as the Sir Walter.
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The fact some of you can’t admit the city took the easy way out and made a poor decision. With responses framed in the manner of wanting to kick poor and disabled residents out on the street is exactly how this situations happens.
Isn’t it funny people are suggesting alternate locations to recreate the Sir Walter with similar buildings downtown, but having the same conversation about relocating affordable housing to literally any other structure or location is somehow taboo?
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This wasn’t just the city’s decision. The owner could have gone a different route. Are we blaming them too? Are we blaming the others that could have offered a good business plan but probably realized this is not the best building and site to do it? All I hear is hand wringing and no proposals. If you don’t like the logistics of the obstacles, don’t blame the people pointing it out, seek to find doable ways to achieve it. If your only answer is to blame our local government and leave it at that then you’re not trying hard enough, imo.
I absolutely am. Completely agree with Drew. Framing this as kicking poor old people onto the streets is completely the wrong was to think about this. No one is suggesting that. And like half the posts on this site, of course it’s discussing what we’d like to see or have happen. I’m not a developer or absurdly wealthy, so I’m not going to buy the place and renovate it. But I sure can offer my opinion that I’d like to see it restored back to a grand hotel.
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I look at this building every day. Still not sure what the fuss is over? If someone came to the city/owner with a solid plan (haven’t seen any yet), I’d support it. But nothing much we can do right now but argue, which isn’t doing anything. And if you don’t like thinking about what’s necessary to pull this off, then don’t criticize others that realize it is part of what will need to be done. Do you know if it would actually work as a business, at that size? With that many changes to make? Seems like some are just trying to be realistic.
One Big over looked fact is that when the Sir Walter was converted into low income senior housing it was all but abandon and downtown was dead, as in no one around other than office workers going to jobs and back to burgs after work.
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As someone who works across the street, I can say that it still is empty, relative to 2 years ago. That hopefully will change, but seems like we’re arguing over something that wouldn’t even financially pencil out right now.
I believe HQ Raleigh (or whatever its current name is) occupies the top floors with co-working space. That’s probably struggling right now but will probably return eventually if they can hang on in the meantime. Unfortunately I think this would be too small for hotel, but like how you’re thinking.
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