Can someone please bring this up to council in the next “public” meeting?
Pleaseeeeeeeeeee and Thank you! 
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The whole premise of tapering off has no base in reality. Properties in downtown are not owned by a single group that gets to pick and chose where they build things. It’s an organic process of finding a good piece of land and finding a profitable solution on that land.
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The results were presented on 7/2 to council. I found it very powerful.
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There are arguments ‘for’ and ‘against’ everything. You don’t get to determine “reality”. Also, yes, a single entity does more or less own everything…the layers of government aka ‘the people’. Within the premise that everyone gets to voice an opinion, it is on you and others who share your opinion, to use the mechanisms available to you to get your opinion to prevail. Full, unbridled capitalism, isn’t what you want, though you seem to think it is. That would be no zoning. No permits. No building codes. No environmental rules. No nothing. If you think tapering has taken government involvement too far, present a better case than a carte blanche distaste for it. Its no better than the people saying “40 stories no way!” and stopping right there. I think in this case, the objective arguments for a 40 story maximum are pretty straight forward. So much so, that I think it’ll pass next time around. And RE the only real “no to 40” arguments, if anything, I hope traffic does go to sh&* so that transit will be forced back into the conversation.
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The “traffic going to shit” argument is one that is going to front and center in my next blanket letter to the council about this rezoning.
We can’t say that we want transit in the future if we only look through the lense of it never existing ad infinitum. We should actually make decisions at these proposed transit nodes to overload the roads so that we can justify rail.
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I thought long and hard about how to frame this so that they can’t say “see, they WANT major traffic problems!”. Thats a hard one to overcome. My counter is simply that we already have major traffic problems, the poorly planned, unbridled growth on the outskirts is what causes it, and the obsession with one building at one intersection is indicative of the underlying inability to address transit and transportation as the massive scale problem that it is.
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I am going to write a thorough letter and include this as well. Clear, concise, balanced, and thorough.
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Yeah, I am thinking long and hard about how to frame it so that it doesn’t come off as threatening. I think that it can’t be done in isolation. It needs to be packaged with revenue growth/contribution, best leveraging our infrastructure, and providing relief to the future of the suburban dwellers in the city…or something like that. Rest assured that I’ll post my letter here for comment before sending it.
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Mark turned a comment about the realities of real estate in Downtown Raleigh to mean I want a fascist ultra-capitalist society.
Amusing chuckle.
Here’s the thing, with Downtown South, Crabtree, North Hills, and Downtown. Raleigh might be one of the only cities in the US with 4 skylines. Great job city of Raleigh with the ‘tapering’ off effect.
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I like the leveraging argument. Downtown already subsidizes everywhere else with more tax revenue/service cost/acre than everywhere else in the City with perhaps Crabtree mall proper and North Hills running close behind.
Don’t forget the group of buildings just west of capital along the beltway.
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Having towers in North Hills, Highwoods, and possibly Crabtree shoots all kinds of holes in the tapering argument downtown, doesn’t it?
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This is amazing to me. We have a PRIVATE developer willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into our community to build much needed density into our city on a formerly polluted piece of land (that he cleaned up) that will add significantly to our tax base AND donate $1M to affordable housing (an unprecedented move here) and some of us have turned this totally political. Sorry for the run on sentence but I just couldn’t find a place for a period. I went to the city council meeting on 7/2 and watched this politicalization happen there too. 
Many cities would pay him an incentive (or offer tax breaks) to build the tower!
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Yup. I’m just as flabbergasted as you. That meeting was infuriating.
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You know what’s crazy? The intersection of West and Peace is the juncture of 4 different CACs. The entire Smoky Hollow project, though west of Capital, is in the North Central CAC, and it hardly affects them at all. If the council goes by those shrill NIMBY voices in Oakwood, then we’re screwed at getting the rezoning for phase 3. We have to activate the voices of the buildings just south of Smoky Hollow including West and Quorum condos, and the Link and Metropolitan apartments. They are in that same CAC with the project.
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The CAC blessed it. Twice. As did Growth & Natural Resources committee/commission. The Oakwood resident worried about shadows has been proven wrong. The number one “concern” is traffic and there will be a traffic study done before construction but after planning. If they cannot address the concerns with that study through design changes, etc., then they will re-plan the building until those issues are addressed. I sit here scratching my head.
A powerful survey of area residents and business owners resulted in 80 percent approval. That included many West owners. At least 45 people stood at Council on 7/2 in support. $1m to affordable housing. If this doesn’t get approved when McFarlane and MAB are back, our visions for Raleigh and density are doomed with this Council.
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Where is the Mayor on all of this? Been a quiet time from her since the announcement not to run, which one has to think is a reaction to the knee-jerking at many levels locally around growth / development.
Certainly a rallying cry for diverse points of view on Council and maybe a time where our reality reflects that the place and our process has outgrown its ‘big city opportunity / small town feel’.
Been a while since I posted an updated picture of Phase 1 & 2. Zoom in and you will see the foundation work for the 9 story office building well under way. What you can’t see is the many pilings that were drilled over the past few weeks. Foreground will be the parking deck and everything else will be the six story apartments (five stick built on top of one concrete I believe) and open courtyard/plaza. Believe it or not, I saw ceiling fans running in some of the lower units of Phase 1 last weekend. Lots of interior progress that is hard to see.
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I’m glad that they are finally starting to cover the parking deck
Any idea what’s going on at the very top left side of that parking deck? Is that some sort of amenity space for the building?