Actually we’ve long advocated for a moat on here with toll bridges surrounding downtown. A moat provides additional recreation opportunities that a wall does not.
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Has Baker ever said what they plan to do with this land? Do they own it? It’s an interesting spot hopefully whatever they do they can eventually work on connecting the streets in Fuller Heights it seems like so many of them just dead end
I think it’s technically feasible, but teams absolutely hate sharing their stadiums. Philly, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Cincy and San Franscisco all shared stadiums between baseball and football for decades but now they all have their own or are planning to build sport-specific facilities. With cities falling over themselves to get a major sports team, I doubt any MLB or MLS team would co-locate with another sport.
Any MLB stadium would have to be at least 35K seats, and I’m not sure any MLS team wants to play in a 60% full stadium on their best nights.
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Sometimes people in this forum seemingly forget that it’s the suburbs in Raleigh and Wake County that has made this area a great place to live. It is most definitely not downtown Raleigh. Not even close. Now downtown is beginning to alter that narrative (to a small degree thus far). We should be reasonable in the changes that we want to make for the future and we can do that without the vitriol for cars, highways, and parking decks… ALL which are extremely important and necessary and will remain that way for decades to follow.
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Cheap cost of living is what keeps Raleigh in the ranking and that is quickly fading.
Also I just discovered recently a subreddit called r/Suburbanhell and yes Raleigh area is probably the #1 most posted place on there.
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LOL. This was a thread about a stadium.
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Yeah that would be my concern. Mainly they neither team would want to do it.
But with stadium design progressing since the 60’s (when I think most of the old dual use stadiums were built). I think it’s worth at least considering.
I would be much more inclined to support public funding for one dual use stadium, then 2 single use stadiums. If they want to build them with their own money. Go right ahead. But you know both will come looking for a handout.
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First let me say I have absolutely nothing against drivers. Given our built environment and our transportation policies, driving is nothing other than a rational choice. My family was a 1-car household with 3 kids for years, but recently we had to buy a second car because I just couldn’t fight it anymore. It was frustrating and expensive to have to do this but it was the rational thing to do: my daughter changed schools to one where she can no longer ride the bus, so there was no way to make it work.
In most situations around here, in fact, driving is the only rational choice, and that is the problem. It is a product of a decades long campaign. At the grassroots level it involves people who drive and just want to improve their own lives by making driving easier (and either just don’t care all that much about alternatives, or aren’t aware that any alternative could even possibly exist). But this movement has also been backed up, since day one, by an unholy alliance of automakers, the petroleum industry, and the think tanks and politicians they bankroll. It has become the status quo, so self-reinforcing and ubiquitous by now that one could almost be forgiven for thinking it is the natural way of things: some inevitable consequence of human evolution that we should accept and celebrate.
One only has to look abroad (something that Americans are often not the greatest at) to realize how much of the way things are here is actually a product of policies and choices that have actively been putting a finger on the scale for automotive transportation, rather than some force of nature rooted in human biology and resulting from progress towards the ideal human condition.
So, what I have a problem with is the notion that transportation should be about cars to the exclusion of all else. In Raleigh, and really the entire US, we have been living under a regime of what amounts to Automobile Supremacy for at least 70 years now. Sure we have some facilities for other transportation but they are incomplete, second rate, and entirely subjugated by policy and by law to the desires of motorists for smooth flowing traffic. Motorists are by now the solidly entrenched majority here, this is true, but does this mean we should double down on policies that prioritize cars over all else? How much has our transportation policy contributed to making things the way they are?
- Can’t put a pedestrian crossing here, it might hurt vehicular LOS! The peds should walk a quarter mile up the road to push the beg button, wait 2.5 minutes, dodge right-on-red drivers who never stop at the crosswalk, and then trudge a quarter mile back to get where they are going. If they don’t want to do that, they are JAYWALKERS. Those CRIMINALS basically deserve to die for getting in the way of drivers.
- No money for sidewalks over five feet wide, and no money for sidewalks at all in many places, but plenty of money for 100 foot wide roadways all over the place.
- We have enough money to convert the Western Boulevard and Wake Forest Road interchanges to High-LOS Diverging Diamonds, but not enough money to build pedestrian facilities in a way that allows peds to cross without putting their lives in the hands of motorists who will be asked to yield while decelerating from 65+mph on a slip ramp. (Can’t put a traffic signal; LOS!) We barely have enough money to accommodate the cars; how dare you suggest we spend limited transportation dollars on the lives of pedestrians when pedestrian counts there don’t justify it today? (Hint: the reason ped counts are low at Western/440 and Wake Forest/440 is because the facilities today suck!)
- In fact, the state government says we have been spending too much state money on bike/ped so we’re going to stop doing that entirely from now on unless it’s incidental to a road project.
So do we want things to change? I do. If we do, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Incremental change without any inconvenience to motorists cannot move the needle in any real way. When I suggest taking a lane from Western Boulevard or South Saunders for buses or bikes or pedestrians, this is not a product of my hatred for drivers. It is a product of my hatred of the Automobile Supremacy that has meant motorist concerns are the only ones that matter here for the better part of a century.
In my estimation there are two ways to go about rebalancing things:
- Spend a lot more money (which I feel should come from fuel taxes or VMT fees - I can explain why that’s fair if you are interested). This would mean massively upgrading our infrastructure by adding ped tunnels and bridges all over the place, and widening roads to add cycle tracks, better sidewalks, and bus lanes. In the Netherlands they actually have lots of roads for cars. Freeways and expressways are everywhere in fact! But when they build them, they put in the cycleways and bike/ped tunnels/bridges so cyclists and peds can get around them safely, comfortably, and efficiently.
- Do it inexpensively by reallocating some of the space in existing rights of way away from cars.
The reason I suggest eliminating street parking wherever politically feasible (which, mind you, will not be very many places, at least not in 2019) is because the storage of private cars is, in my opinion, the lowest value use of public rights of way, and should only be the preferred use in cases where the roads are excessively wide. Certainly we should not be allocating a third of all the surface area of our very narrow streets downtown to vehicular parking. We are so accustomed to street parking here that it is difficult to imagine a world without it, but I assure you it is possible. In Japan, for example, there is no such thing as street parking. But there are private parking facilities all over the place. Paid surface parking lots in moderately dense areas and automatic robotic parking structures where it is denser. Parking is more expensive there than here, to be sure, but that is only because drivers are expected to cover the full cost of parking, including the opportunity cost of not using the land for something else, rather than the hefty subsidy (even after paying the meters) that street parking amounts to.
In cases like Western Boulevard or South Saunders, converting them to two through lanes instead of three seems like it might be reasonable. Especially for S. Saunders, since people coming from Garner can easily divert to South Wilmington, or people from I-40 can divert to Hammond, without any extreme inconvenience. I do not accept the idea that absolutely any inconvenience suffered by motorists is unacceptable. This is “war on cars” rhetoric when the reality is we’ve been living in a world of a “war on everything except cars” for three quarters of a century.
I also reject your framing that I “hate commuters.” I most emphatically do not. I am sorry that my opinions “sicken you” as that is not my intent. What I do desire is that everybody take a step back and realize how perfecly our infrastructure, our policies, and our attitudes match what would be expected in a world of Automobile Supremacy, and ask ourselves in a level headed way if that is really what we want.
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I understand this point of view. From my understanding, all of the other cities in the MLS race are offering soccer-specific stadiums. And, from what I can tell, the MLB speculation is mostly just daydreaming. Even if we were to get an MLB team at some point in the future any stadium we build in the next five years would already be “too old” by the time we got baseball. It’s not like we’re in serious contention to land an MLB and MLS team at the same time.
This is like the ultimate sellers market for teams, the owners have almost all the leverage.
I’m not even sure why we’re speculating about an Soccer/Baseball stadium. I think there’s a pretty clear gap in a couple of things. First, it seems we’re very likely building a soccer stadium and not waiting for MLS, which means it could happen <5 years (basic guess). It seems a possible MLB bid would be at least double that. There is no major owner behind the MLB bid to push for a pre MLB bid facility (currently) and nobody is building a baseball stadium based on spec for a team that doesn’t currently exist. We have soccer. Like it or not, at least there is a league that can occupy a soccer stadium.
I guess it’s good banter and interesting conversation, but not really something that would be considered in reality from what I can see.
With that, I’m excited for the coming years and the MLB effort gaining traction!
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Something to keep in mind is that when you diet a road cars are going to find another way to get to their route. Hillsborough was narrowed and traffic was shifted to Western and Wade. Wade is extremely constrained and has little room for expansion for the additional volume. Western handles a tremendous amount of traffic. It’s also going to get the BRT which will require more room, or impact existing traffic.
On Oberlin we’re talking about a diet with protected bike lanes, limiting driveway access to existing businesses, divided medians and removing lanes. Is that going to put more traffic on St Mary’s and Glenwood, and is that where the traffic should be going? Does a successful retailer at Cameron Village want to take a chance that fewer cars won’t hurt their business?
As long as DT employment outweighs DT residential people will have to commute in order to keep it thriving. I think the area south of DT will need to grow immensely before there’s a realistic opportunity for a road diet on either side of Penmarc. When it is time, there will still need to be at least one major vehicular corridor to the South.
I like to think that since Penmarc is directly adjacent to I-40 it will allow more people to filter into DT without adding traffic to existing roads. It’s an ideal TOD spot and people who work, live or play at Penmarc may be able to use greenways, bikeways and BRT to get to the DT core without their cars. Increasing density DT without adding vehicular trips seems much more feasible than trying to limit any type of access. When the density becomes self supporting maybe S Saunders loses a couple lanes and adds light rail and a true multi modal corridor.
I also think this could eventually have a tremendous impact on the area just South of I-40 where Sam’s, the old Winn Dixie distribution site, the Bell Investments property, and the undeveloped land at the SW corner of the S Saunders I-40 interchange. At one point the NC Equipment property was seriously looked at as a Super Walmart site so I think there’s probably substantial development potential on that parcel. There’s around 200 acres south of I-40 that are probably under-developed or potential redevelopment targets once Kane/Penmarc gets going. As a TOD node this whole area really has unlimited potential and I think it’s going to keep feeding downtown with users who aren’t going to need to drive that 1.5 miles to get to the core.
I know it’s outside the beltline, but if a soccer stadium is a success at Penmarc, gets an MLS bid and develops into a full blown TOD node with a BRT/Light Rail corridor, then there is room for an MLB stadium to the south of I-40. That area has most of the same advantages as the Penmarc site, and there could be some synergistic development between an MLS and MLB stadium.
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I just don’t see a road diet happening in the immediate vicinity of a 10,000 to potentially 20,000 seat stadium.
I’m in general agreement with you there. I’m more thinking if the BRT goes down SSaunders and becomes such a success that it leads to light rail 15 years from now, it could be worth it to sacrifice 2 lanes of the existing 6 lane section to a rail corridor. That rail would be on either S Saunders or Wilmington street with vehicular traffic improvements on the other N/S artery to handle necessary traffic volume. It also looks like Penmarc will need to dedicate about 17’ of ROW to the S Saunders corridor along the entire frontage.
As far as filling the stadium goes, I think the theory is that most people are going to come from I-40 or ITB.
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There’s an easy potential cut through from Wilmington to Water Works St (using Rock Branch Trail)., that IMO would make this pretty easy and connected to Downtown. This stretch of Wilmington already has pretty low traffic, and good sidewalks.
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Just speculating on how the city may be able to save being asked twice within 19 years to piney up money for billionaires to build a sports stadium.
But I agree that it’s unlikely.
There are three major vehicular corridors to the south — Saunders, Wilmington, and Hammond, and the latter two are very underused. I think there’s plenty of roadway to pick up any diverted traffic from a potential road diet on Saunders.
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And then develop all the way up Wilmington into downtown! That soounds like a great idea!
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Look at the entrance to the PNC arena from Edwards Mill Road. The reason they won’t have a road diet on Saunders is that they will physically need the extra lanes for the ability to shift traffic(with cones) into and out of the stadium area while maintaining a lane for non-stadium related traffic going N and S on S.Saunders. This is going to be a downtown-ish stadium. Think along the lines of PNC meets North Hills as opposed to a true downtown venue like MSG.
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Yeah, they (as JPB Holdings) own all the land Mike highlighted in yellow, plus another 8.5 acres on the south side of Maywood, abutting the railroad tracks.
I don’t think they’ve said anything about what they plan to do with the land, but obviously “sell it to the highest bidder” is one possibility. If they were interesting in requesting a rezone to allow residential construction, I would definitely be in favor of approving such a request without delay.
Yeah, I’d really like to see traffic calming on Saunders and as much of this area gridded (gridified?) as possible. Connect the eastern and western halves of Gilbert, and the two halves of Summit. It certainly looks like you could extend Prospect St. to connect with Duffy and Daladams. You might be able to extend Fuller to connect with the extension of Prospect, and you could definitely connect Moring. It would be nice to build some more housing between Maywood and Walnut Creek Trail, although that would require a rezoning as well (also a good idea).
Like @sig said, you’d probably want to extend Water Works all the way to Wilmington, although you’d want to avoid crossing the Rocky Branch Trail.
Seriously, though, I feel like the fact they’re basically going to build another North Hills at Penmarc is way, way more interesting than the stadium aspect. Maybe we could call this one … South Plains? 
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I mean, that makes the most sense, but if that’s the case, then my goodness Malik was in quite a hurry to go on TV and talk about it.
I actually strongly agree with you on this one! But a baseball stadium is definitely not one of the interesting options that would be eliminated by this. If Dylan is correct, and I suspect he is, then Kane is about to own the land, and there is never, ever going to be a baseball stadium at Penmarc. Given how the tax advantages associated with the new opportunity zones work, it creates an incentive to start developing this land as quickly as can be done prudently. If they don’t end up building a soccer stadium here, they’ll just use those acres to build more housing and/or retail and/or office space. But there’s not ever going to be a baseball stadium on this land now that it’s been sold up for other development.