Hi,
Anybody in the know on the timeline of the Goodnight warehouse projects?
-Brevery Bhahana is brewing their beer there for some time now with the vision to have a taproom on the corner of S Bloodworth / Hoke. I believe they have hit some roadblocks with the required surface parking space but that information is from last Winter. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article187907499.html
Further I was wondering about the big vacant lot between S Person/S Blount and Bragg/Branch. I just saw some survey flags there the other day. It might finally sold? Previously it fell out of contract due to soil contamination issuesâŚ
I live in this area and was just wondering if anybody else is following the activities in South Park.
Cheers
Great topic! If you donât mind, Iâm going to expand the scope of this to also include the recently demolished Cargill Plant. I want to think whatever comes from that site may or may not be a driving force for this neighborhood and will really test the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District (NCOD) put in place there as well as the existing Industrial Mixed-Use zoning that borders it to the south.
I Can see something like this Pic, OfficesâŚApartmentsâŚRetailâŚall in one area where one can live and work nearby. Senior HousingâŚMedical Offices. etc. at the demolished Cargill site.
I will keep saying it, but Raleigh needs the Cargill site to be their stadium site (whether its MLS or MLB)
I know everyone wants a stadium within the immediate city grid, but if you look at new stadiums trends most are not just a stadium fit into the grid. Most are districts that are built around a stadium with ample parking and easy in/out access to the freeway **. Actually the new trend is to build in the suburbs where there is room to create that full on district around the ball park and where traffic doesnât congest the city grid before and after every event.
Raleigh actually has a chance to do build this type of district very close to the city center. They will need about 60 acres. They can get that with (and around) the Cargill site, or where the prison currently sits. (Cargill would also have the Goodnight warehouse area, plus that large piece of property in the middle of S.Person and Blount (that is currently all fenced in) for restaurants/bars, hotels.
Sure there is the fact that there residential so close, but that would kind of give it a unique vibe. Think Wrigleyville neighborhood (if youâve been there).
I know everyone is sick of talking stadiums around here, but I just feel very strongly that if you let the Cargill site be just another mixed use district and if the prison site doesnt happen, then when itâs time to bring pro sports to Raleigh, youâll be mad because theyâll be plopping down a stadium somewhere near RTP.
** The reason why stadiums need ample parking/restaurants/bars/hotels/easy free access is because the way we consume live sports is changing. Every game is on TV or streaming. Itâs easy and cheaper to stay home and watch the game. So to get people out (esp. those with families) you need to make it a full on experience, and one that requires little hassle or stress. <See the new Braves stadium or the construction of the LA Rams/Chargers stadium. >
Did i mention Cargill has rail running right through it. (the rail may have to be shifted some, but transit RIGHT into the ballpark would be a HUGE plus)
The rumor I have been hearing around the neighborhood is that mixed use housing with a Trader Joeâs may go in to the Bragg / Blount / Person / Branch block. That may just be wishful thinking though. I would be so happy to have groceries within walking distance though!
Trader Joeâs discriminates severely when it comes to locations. Hence why thereâs a massive blackhole in Los Angeles where no Trader Joeâs are found. I doubt it.
Iâm really excited about the plant going away and this site getting re-developed. My hope is that this area will be used mostly for high-density housing centered around the new commuter rail that will run right through this neighborhood. This is a fantastic opportunity to build what would be the first ever transit-oriented neighborhood in Raleigh, and it will even be walkable to parts of downtown. Like, Iâm hoping for some really high density here.
As for a sports stadium ⌠look, I am a huge, huge baseball fan. Few things would make me happier than seeing an MLB team come to Raleigh. But even I think itâs a bad idea to take land that could provide housing for hundreds of people near transit (and Iâm counting just the stadium footprint there) and instead use it for a sports stadium.
A Raleigh-centric team would be the smallest market for MLB, by far. The only way for a team in this area to succeed would be for the team to draw well from both Raleigh and Durham, and putting a stadium on the southeast side of Raleigh would be a major detriment to fans coming in from Durham. The only way to make this work would be to put a stadium on the west or northwest side of town, where it would be located closer to Durham, and also to Cary, which would be the next-biggest source of fans after Durham, by far. Even then, itâs still a really small market, but maybe you could make that arrangement work. But weâre decades away from a DTR stadium being remotely feasible, and even as the population grows, Raleigh has a very, very small downtown, in terms of size, compared to other major U.S. cities, so a downtown stadium would gobble up an unusually large share of the available land. I hate to be the party pooper, but I donât think this is either going to happen or be desirable anyway.
All of this would hold equally true for MLS, except that I donât care in the slightest whether Raleigh gets a franchise in what is Americaâs third-most-popular club soccer league.
The possibility of redeveloping the Cargill site only highlights the shortsightedness of the cityâs decision to develop publicly assisted housing (Walnut Terrace) just south of MLK and the Duke Energy Center in such a suburban model. What an enormous inefficient use of prime land. Donât get me wrong, I have nothing against public assist housing, I just donât understand the very suburban model just one block south of MLK and the central district of the city. To think that this was completed in 2015 just makes me nauseous because it will be there for the rest of my life and then some.
Could not agree more with @John re: Walnut Terrace. Building a cul de sac neighborhood literally one block away from lots zoned for 40 stories will go down as one of the all-time blunders in the history of city planning. Youâve essentially hemmed in your ability to develop and expand your DT core. I could understand if it was developed 50 or 60 years ago, but itâs brand new!!!
As for the stadium talk, I am a HUGE proponent of MLB in Raleigh (someday). If those stars aligned, odds are it would be secondary to a major influx of people to the area (read: Amazon/Apple/Army/etc.). That population spike would hopefully bring with it better transitâespecially if itâs Amazon. If that were the case, any stadium talk should be explored near the DT core and should utilize that transit system to get people in/out, relying as little on cars and parking decks as possible. Minneapolisâ Target Field and San Diegoâs Petco Park are great examples of this.
These days, urban ballparks/arenas are what work. We donât have to look far for 3 examples of this: the success of DBAP (immediately adjacent to DT Durham), and the relative failures of PNC Arena and Five County Stadium (immediately adjacent to nothing). It should come as no surprise that the ancillary development didnât happen around either of them, but the American Tobacco districtâanchored by the DBAPâis BUZZING.
Iâm not a huge fan of the Cargill site for a stadium because of its isolation from DTR due to Walnut Terrace. My preference has always been Gateway or Heritage Park because of their proximity to the grid. But, I would still be happy with Cargill if it meant we got a team.
If this ever happened, letâs just not repeat the mistakes of PNC Arena and FCS.
www.ballparks.com/baseball/national/bpkaus.htm Raleigh loves Soccer, good. But there are other folks here in Raleigh that love baseball, football, basketball, so not everyone is into soccer. I knowâŚRaleigh is known for College Sports and that Okay, nothing wrong with that, but wouldnât a MLB/MLS be a Big boosts to Wake Co. and the Triangle as a whole ? the trouble is not enough interest or momentum in getting these major teams to play here. Why would you want to Drive to Charlotte to see the Panthers play if thatâs what you want, go for it. wouldnât it be real super if a Major team played in Raleigh. there should be a county wide poll that says to people which Major league team would you want to see play in Raleigh. Not everyone can just hop in their cars and go see a game, some rely on Mass transit or others will use Uber, but I leave the Transit part for another topic. To be HonestâŚthere is Just not enough support here in Raleigh that will welcome ANY such sport here.
@daviddonovan Some interesting takes there, but I think the Triangle is a little bit of a unique situation. Itâs very easy to state that Raleigh is too small for a MLB team, but take the greater Triangle area (Raleigh/Durham/Apex/Cary/Chapel Hill) and you have some interesting numbers.
2nd (trailing by 0.032%) to Charlotte in largest TV market in the nation w/out an MLB team. Note that the greater Raleigh area is growing slightly faster than the greater Charlotte area.
There are actually 5 markets smaller than that of the greater Triangle area that currently have MLB teams.
Of 5 markets that are smaller, 4 of them are in the top 7 when it comes to per capita attendance. Meaning we would fit right in as an emerging market with serious growth trajectory, who from the start would likely run a high per capita attendance rate.
Population wise, the greater Charlotte area came in at somewhere near 2.5 million at last census. The greater Raleigh area came in at around 2.2 million. If a population of 2.5 million could support an NFL and NBA team then 2.2 million could surely support an MLB team.
I think what is going on here is that you have a situation with 2 growing cities sit 20 miles apart and in different counties. So you really have two major density points as apposed to most cities which have one. Most data you see either is on âRaleighâ or âDurhamâ but there arenât many data points that really take the greater Triangle area an lump it into one area. If they did this, people would quickly realize that this area is primed for pro sports (population and income wise) and could CERTAINLY support a pro team.
I think itâs really tough to look at other cities and try to compare, or to follow blueprints you may have seen other cities use. This area is unique with Durham/Raleigh split by such a short distance and with RTP right in the middle. Once transit is properly implemented I think it will become an area that feels a lot more connected and less confusing on how it should be built out.
That said, i feel it would be a MAJOR miss if Raleigh didnât put aside some land for a district build around a ballpark on the outskirts of the city. With the obvious fact that a lot people are going be pulled form suburbia, and neighboring city, you want a it convenient to the highway, with lots of easy parking and places to eat/drink/stay built right in.
Basically, the model is right down the road (as @RedVelvet stated)âŚwith the Tobacco Campus.
@Loup20 Yeah, I think weâre quickly getting close to the point where the Triangle could support a team, in theory. But, again, all these numbers are for the greater Triangle rather than Raleigh specifically. In order to thrive here, an MLB team (and an MLS team, too) is going to need total buy-in from Raleigh and Durham and Cary, and putting the stadium in southeast Raleigh makes it really difficult to do those last two things.
Right now, at this stage in Raleighâs development, I donât see a solution that checks off all the boxes we would need in order to make MLB work here in terms of population base, location, and urbanity. (Partly for that reason, I think MLB is more likely to go to Charlotte than to Raleigh.)
Not to really lose the thread here, but at what point does it maybe stop making sense to have the NC State Fairgrounds in the middle of an urban area? Yes, I realize the political pushback to that would be astronomical, but thereâs a lot of stuff we could be doing with that extremely valuable land other than using it to host a state fair for two weeks a year. (Yeah, I realize some other stuff happens there, but still.)
For what itâs worth, about a year ago the MLB specifically cited Charlotte as one of three cities theyâd like to expand to in the future (the others being Montreal and Mexico City). This was also during the midst of the MLS expansion speculations, but since neither Charlotte nor Raleigh has been awarded a soccer team Iâd say that itâs still a possibility.
How does SE Raleigh not check boxes? Itâs right off 40 which is accessible for Durhamites as well as the other cities/towns whoâll be attending. North Raleigh would be a nightmare.
Given that Durham is to the north and west of Raleigh, putting a stadium in the southeasternmost portion of Raleigh would place it literally as far away from Durham as you can get and still be in Raleigh.
I can vouch, firsthand, that getting from south Raleigh to downtown Durham during rush hour traffic is a sufficiently colossal pain to dissuade baseball fans from braving the traffic to go to a Durham Bulls game. I would be pretty confident that the same dynamic would work going west to east as well. Youâd be asking people to drive the entire length of rush hour traffic. If the idea is that people would mostly be taking other modes of transport to the ballpark, then it doesnât really matter if itâs near I-40 or not. And if the idea is that people would largely be taking I-40, then you have to figure out how to accommodate parking, in an area where youâd have to build that capacity from scratch.
Iâm not sure that anyone even suggested north Raleigh as a location.
I agree with @Christopher here: If MLB comes to the Carolinas, I think itâs very likely they go to Charlotte and not Raleigh, because in Charlotte you have one population center, whereas here you have two centers of density that are quite a ways apart. (And MLB has basically come out and said their plan is to target Charlotte and not Raleigh.)
@daviddonovan I thnik we are kind of looking at this in different ways. MLB isnât going to expand for a few years. So our area, right now, is probably just on the cusp of being able to support a team. Give the area 4-5 years and I think itâs a different story. Esp w/ Apple (likely) coming in and possibly Amazon.
If Raleigh were to land both, then no doubt in my mind our area trumps Charlotte for an MLB franchise. Heck, Amazon could even look into naming rights for the stadium with their size.
I also think in 5 years hopefully real transit is happening, easing traffic and really connecting Raleigh and Durham. If you choose the Cargill Mill as your stadium location, you have transit rail running literally through it. This means instead of driving to the game, people in Durham, Apex, Morrisville, etc are parking and taking the rail into the stadium/district.
As for choosing Charlotte as a frontrunner, I think all the reasons it was chosen could be the same reason that Raleigh/Durham has a shot to land a team instead.
Large gap between teams (Baltimore/Washington to the north, Atlanta to the south). NC and SC are the biggest void on the East Coast.
Large population center with high median income
Correct demographic for MLB
Great weather for an outdoor stadium
Close to major airport
Major corporations with interest nearby (only strengthens our case if Apple/Amazon come)
To me, Raleigh is the biggest âcanât missâ opportunity for MLB. This is a city on the verge of growing up with population exploding and corporations/money pouring in the area. It has all of this WITHOUT a real pro sports franchise to compete with. (ok, sure the Canes, but that is a one month overlap). People would latch on to an MLB team and the Triangle would finally have a team they could rally around together (instead of all the infighting the State/Duke/Carolina rivalries bring).
