Congrats! You’ve inspired a new emoji for the community. 
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Yikes, I’d rather this area stay in the 5-7 story range, with more dense housing and the preservation of the current low-rise retail shops.
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None of my ideas would threaten any current low-rise retail shops (just banks), and curious why you would be against any height over 7 stories? I wouldn’t think anything above 10 stories will ever be built here, but even that would be great for added density - plus just imagine the views of the city from the top floor(s), and imagine how much a penthouse condo would go for, in that respect!
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One word for you @Jake – shadows. 
Developing that strip along Clark would be great, but I’d like to see the height kept to 3, 4 stories max, since it backs up to a lot of houses. The two corners you speak off, particularly the BofA lot, are fair game though.
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Sure, 3-4 story apartment-over-retail would work just fine too! I’d be fine with any variation in place of that strip of banks, so long as street-level retail is a big focus - the opportunity to extend the Cam. Village shopping center across the street is too huge to miss!
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Well, First Citizens owns their land there and they aren’t known for selling much of that. Sorry to be a wet blanket.
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Well then they are the worst bank I’ve ever heard of because they could make a MINT off of that property and easily move into a different retail space literally anywhere else in the nearby area 
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FWIW, 5 over 1 actually refers to the two construction types, not floors in a building.
Type 1 is concrete & protected steel
Type 5 is typically wood frame
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I am aware. I was saying I wouldn’t mind that type of construction along Clark, so long as the bottom floor was dedicated to street-level retail, parking in the back (like a lot of the newer 5-6 story apartment buildings along Hillsborough)
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I still think Cameron Park should be a neighborhood full of apartments 
. This area is perfect for that kind of dense neighborhood like South End Charlotte. That’s just my opinion and I’m sure it’ll be like this in the next 20+/- years. The bank lot is perfectly fine in my opinion, I’d rather see larger branches that take up more land than see the banks move.
I agree with the sentiment that ITB has a lot of SFH neighborhoods (perhaps too many), but I don’t think that cameron park should be the priority for density in this area. There are plenty of low density lots on the blocks on either side of glenwood that would be much more ideal. Also, FWIW, I believe south end is only slightly bigger than what would be considered Glenwood South, and also surrounded by SFH neighborhoods (and a major highway).
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Just to be clear, this is Cameron Park.
Are you saying that this historic neighborhood should be replaced with apartments?
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For some some of it, without question, yes. For other parts, I’m conflicted.
All the undistinguished office buildings and banks along Hillsborough and Clark, as discussed upthread: absolutely. I would enthusiastically cheer it on, in fact.
Oberlin was punched through in (I believe) the 1970s and the damage is done, so, sure - there too.
Even the older single family homes along Peace and St Mary’s, I don’t think I would object.
But the houses in the middle of the neighborhood? Maybe I’m not so sure. There’s certainly room for infill and ADUs, but it I’m not sure tearing the houses down is a great idea. It would fill in the gap between Glenwood South, HIllsborough/NCSU, and Cameron Village, though, so I’m not entirely opposed either. Have to think about it.
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I see your argument here along it’s borders - Oberlin, Hillsborough, even Clark…I think some ‘smart’ development that increases height and density along these corridors in combination with townhomes, dup/tri/quad-plexes, etc tapering into the SFH would be expected, if not completely welcome by all current residents.
Without some sensible overall plan for the district though, I’d don’t really see the need or advantage to breaking up the interior fabric of the existing neighborhood of homes in what is really a pretty interesting historic node of the city.
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I think rowhouses would be better along Clark than apartment buildings. But yes, to apartment building to replace to low-rise office buildings along Hillsborough.
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No doubt that there are opportunities around the perimeter of the neighborhood along Clark, St. Mary’s, Hillsborough, and Oberlin. In fact, those areas have been seeing action on redevelopment for quite some time, and I’m sure that they will continue into the future.
As for the interior of the historic neighborhood, there are some small opportunities for infill, with some quadplexes, duplexes, etc., but the amount of opportunity is not tremendous. The idea of multifamily within Cameron Park is not without precedence. Here’s a charming example:
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Complexes like this one would fit nicely in or around Cameron Park. Sorry, I forgot how to upload Google Maps. These are the apartments across from Saint Mary’s.
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I lived in one of those once.
I’m just saying, maybe make the windows a little better sealing if you decide to mimic these.
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Those will never be mimicked at that scale, design, and land use. They’d be taller, be made of cheaper materials, and would use up all the land. Expecting something like this new is a pipe dream.
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Hot take, most of Cameron Court and Boylan Apartments on Hillsborough, and Raleigh Apartments near “The Village” should be redeveloped.
Keep a couple of the buildings from each complex for posterity, but long term, on the whole, these complexes are not nearly as dense as they could/should be for their location.
This would be basically following the playbook of the Glen Lennox redevelopment in Chapel Hill.
We have to make some hard choices - we can’t preserve everything old and grow up as a real city, long term. The low density development closes in too closely around downtown, and this includes Cameron Court, which if I recall is only about 20 or 30 units per acre. It certainly wouldn’t be my first pick for where to redevelop, since there are still plenty of empty lots and such today, but compare the size of our downtown to bigger cities. If we really want to keep growing but steer most of the growth downtown, downtown needs to expand and density at the edges quite a bit. Something has to give.
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