Kudos to Cline Design for stepping up their game. Didn’t think they had it in 'em lol.
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Just get West Street extended under the tracks yesterday!!
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Any ideas for when construction could start on this? I know Clancy and Theys is moving to Somky Hollow phase 2 so I guess it’d have to be after that is complete.
On the link it says completion 2021 but who knows if that’s just made up or not.
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I actually love this massing for that location.
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Well, if there wasn’t any quid pro quo, what was Kane’s motivation to accommodate that request? If I lived in Boylan Heights, and if I cared about my neighbors who were directly across the street from this development, I would have supported trading more height in very specific areas for a more thoughtful transition to the neighbors. I would have worked with him to that end. Was there any real offer on the table to make some trades and come to an agreement, or was it simply 2 sides that didn’t want to budge? I’m asking because I’m seriously interested in knowing.
Bonner Gaylord told me it was a mix of Boylan Heights, CAC, and then-current city council perspective. He said they “will absolutely make this a fantastic project though.”
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Indeed. Reminds me of the stuff being built just east of the Durham Bull ballpark. The sort of industrial look fits well down in this area.
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And the renderings are “somewhat old” so don’t expect this to be the final.
Somehow that strikes me as ominous. Are those the pre-VE renderings? Or can we expect improvements?
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Sorry, the words were “earlier design”. That’s all I know.
Well, the neighborhood was actually pretty much fine with the 20-story element. It was the residential section closest to the existing houses that they wanted reduced to 3 or 4 stories before they would support the PD rezoning. Kane obviously didn’t want to make that tradeoff, which seems like it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal to make happen if he really wanted that 20-story building.
In the meetings I was privy to where both parties were present, the neighbors voiced concern about the residential height transition (citing the 2030 plan) and traffic due to the fact that the West St Extension is not on the radar. Dupont and S Saunders at Cabarrus are both really small streets. Kane’s reps never really said, “we can’t do that because x, y, z.” Instead they took the tone of, “if you don’t support this we’ll build a 7-story pancake.” So they weren’t winning the hearts and minds of the neighborhood necessarily.
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I do like that they are (apparently) going to be excavating out the southern approach to the West Street connection, and that their building at that corner looks like it will have active space and an entrance facing it.
Basically the only thing remaining will be building the grade separation itself.
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I was at a couple of those meetings and I think Kane’s group could have a better job of articulating to connect to the Boylan crowd but regardless, if you’re faced with an option of 7 or 5, and you want 3 or 4 but know if you don’t get 3 or 4 you’re going to get 7, don’t you settle for 5? IF the 20-story building and it’s shadows wasn’t really an issue…
I guess it’s in the past now, but I just don’t get the logic behind sticking to your guns wanting 3 or 4 knowing your alternative of not agreeing is 7. 
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I agree. I think they felt they had some bargaining power because of the 2030 Comp Plan and they assumed Kane really wanted the 20 stories. I never understood the details, but one of the Boylan residents who brought up that request is a retired city employee and worked on the plan and seemed to know what he was talking about.
Apparently the 20-story aspect wasn’t so important, and they’re still not building 7-stories closest to the existing houses (renderings show 5 stepping up to 6 away from the houses on Cabarrus). Sounds like a compromise on both sides to me. Maybe they both actually got what they wanted. 
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Whatever it ended up being, this is going to beat the Hell out of what’s there now, and really tie Boylan Heights into DT proper.
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Not if we don’t get West extended. It’s going to feel like a fragmented different section of DTR. Sure, it’s not far and walkable around through The Depot and most people will just stop at Tasty Beverage short of making it to the warehouse district ( 
) but West St extending to Cabarrus would be game changing for SoTra (South of Tracks).
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SoFoTraSta (south of former train station) 
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Since West Street is part of the BRT project, it may be added to the FTA Small Starts grant application. 
The West Street extension was initially to have been part of the TIGER grant for RUS/RGH (STIP U-5521). That didn’t happen.
And, the current FTA application for Small Starts is only for New Bern Ave’s BRT.
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SoRa (south of railroads) but then that could be confused with South Raleigh