I simply do not understand why our city council seems to want to stifle density and height. It is hypocritical of them as they are desperate to push busses and bike lanes that barely get used. If they would allow high density than it would make public transit and biking actually doable. I really don’t get it that should be dying for bigger development.
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To be fair, the McDonald’s was built before the current process, but yes, they did skirt the process that was in place then, but that was the city’s fault for not notifying the neighbors per the process at that time.
As for Revisn. That was deliberately skirted and that should not be tolerated. They blatantly mislead the public and were secretive throughout the process. I’m sure they had attorney’s guiding their every move and positioning their story.
I’m beginning to think that the developer of the boutique hotel had no intention of ever building. They bought the property based on it being 3 floors in the UDO, now they have 4. I have to wonder if they just wanted to make the land more valuable and then sell it off for a profit?
301 Hillsborough developers knew that they’d be in for a fight if they wanted to go higher because they’d have to engage The Dawson residents. Frankly, the Dawson residents don’t want anything as tall as what’s going there, but the UDO prevents them from making a case against it. In effect, the UDO shuts down all opposition to a project as long as it conforms.
Twenty stories in that location is not chicken feed. It’s a very significant project that will be more substantial than Dillon since it has more than one tower at that height.
As for Fallon saying that they wanted to go higher, I’d take that with a grain of salt. There’s a lot of posturing here and we don’t know the real story. They may be positioning themselves as the good guys and reasonable, with intentions to cash in on that goodwill on future projects where they will ask for rezoning. Look at what Kane is doing. He has built a reputation and a lot of good will in the community up until now. He then goes bold and asks for a huge variance. If he were new to the market, there’s no way in Hell he’d get that variance, but his chances are pretty good given his past performance and the community’s response to it.
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This is also what FNB said, except there was related to the “weight” of the building on its existing foundation/footings I believe…?
And I am actually on the fence with this issue, which means I won’t dismiss the “developers” thoughts out-of-hand either…
Maybe they called it a remodel being there was already a McD’s there.
A massive remodel from from slab up. lol.
I watched an older house near me do a remodel with add on over a two year period. They removed 1 story of house down to foundation in sections and rebuild a two story “remodel” did this 3 times until was much bigger house on same foundation. Made claim that one they started remodel found the old house was so deteriorated that
needed to replace almost all of it.
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FNB’s height was limited by the existing underground garage.
Duke U is driving DTD growth. They take a chunk of every new building. Duke > Dell.
Yeah, that’s why I say with a grain of salt. We’ll never really know, but it doesn’t hurt to keep a balance of skepticism and trust. I try to not be too cynical but also not too trusting.
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Nah, it was not a remodel. It was a complete scrape, regrade and new building.
What happened with the city is that their database was not updated with the property owners at The Paramount, even though the building was there for a few years. They were supposed to notify and engage all residents within X number of feet of the property and completely excluded The Paramount as a result.
I don’t know if I’d jump to that conclusion. I do agree his perceived good will and political capital to date gives him a better chance for approval.
@John - do you think they had no intention of building or you do you think after a year of push back from the community (paramount), its become too much to take on? I personally would love to see 5-6 story boutique hotel with a ground floor cafe with outdoor patio (similar to the cafe at the bottom of the “Bobby” in Nashville) go in. Something with really a really nice, well thought out design. I think it would be a great location and great for the area.
Developers want to have successful projects. That includes maximizing profit and building something that will attract tenants. Poorly designed, unattractive projects aren’t going to maximize profit. It generally comes down to a matter of perspective. A project may be good for the developer, good for the city, but bad for the adjacent neighbors. It has to be good for the developer to get built, it would take an extreme case for a new development project to be bad for the city at large, but there are many factors that could negatively impact those in closest proximity. That’s why we have the phrase NIMBY rather than “Not In My Downtown.”
I think Raleigh is very cautious about growth. We’re growing fast and nobody wants to make a mistake or let things get out of control, so there’s a very measured approach. I’m fine with that for now. I don’t think there’s any problem with a 40 story building, and the process is doing what it should. Going through the extra step of a rezoning allows the council to have a say about the biggest projects in Raleigh. If we see a couple of 40 story towers go up the City will look a the code and make a recommendation on if the threshold should be increased. Right now, we don’t have that many 30 story prospects coming up so I don’t think the UDO is an issue.
There are two many variables out there to say if the height limitations we have in place right now are really affecting anything. One or two developers saying they were affected doesn’t mean the entire system is broken. I would think that if we have projects right up to the height limits and some developers are fine with it, others not so much then they go the limits just right.
Personally, I’d like to see us talk about reducing the parking requirements. Those against height can keep their height limits cause we’ve now made the case for even more leasable space by allowing the developers to think about reducing the amount of structured parking. It would be great to lower these requirements significantly between now and the next 3-4 years so that developers can respond to our BRT and expanded transit options.
That’s more density, same height. A great compromise between the urban-wary and urban-advocate.
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Well, If I were a developer, I’d want to squeeze as much value out of a piece of property as I could. In the case of that property, it was marketed and sold with the 3 story limit as its context, and I presume it was appraised and purchased as such. Perhaps the developer thought it would be an easy variance to request, despite it being on the very edge of downtown? Who knows? However, it is safe to assume that since it was purchased, the property has gone up significantly in value. Now that the developer holds a variance, they might be rethinking the whole thing. Also, I am not certain if that variance is transferable or not to a new owner.
As I’ve stated in past community posts, I was not against the variance request, but I wanted to use that request for leverage to have very specific things agreed upon to minimize the impact to my neighbors on the north side. In short, they were:
- Treatment of the rear facades of the building in accordance with the street facing facades. In short, I didn’t want my neighbors to have to look into an ugly back of a building.
- I wanted the maximum rear set back distance as possible to provide some space between my neighbors, with only north facing windows, and the back of the hotel. I actually went to the trouble of creating layouts that could work, that would push the back of the hotel significantly from the property line. The hotel would take on more of a L shape with more full frontage on Peace and Boylan. I even created sections to show my neighbors our building compared to a fully realized 3 story building @ 50 feet tall built where the UDO allowed it, and a taller building further away with a possible landscaped courtyard. Frankly, the developer should have been thinking this way and telling that story to show value and gain alignment. Needless to say, they didn’t.
- I then thought that there could be a richly landscaped back patio area at the hotel that could be shared with our building, inclusive of our side property. I wanted to look for opportunities to make something special out of that space.
- Like 510 Glenwood’s arrangement with Hampton Inn & Suites and their pool, I wanted to see what sort of sharing the hotel would offer our residents. Since we have all the amenities that we need, I imagined it would be something really minimal like inviting us to partake in their breakfast buffet on Saturday mornings or free coffee or something. Something that would be seen more of a good will gesture.
- I was very concerned about how they’d be servicing the building, storing dumpsters, etc. Our dumpsters and services are inside our garage, and I wanted to make sure that all of that was contained within their building as well.
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Yes, Duke has driven a lot of growth in DTD for years now, but they have publicly signaled they are cutting back. They may still take some space on occasion, but I don’t think they will be driving multiple projects for a while.
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While I agree that parking requirements are dumb I think that realistically if they didn’t exist many developers would still be building tons of parking as in Raleigh no one is going to want their space if they do not have any parking. This is why I think density is the only way to make it so that no one feels the need to build massive garages.
I agree with you and think that will happen today. However, with the requirements in place, no developer is willing (can’t?) attempt to lower the parking limits and show the market that it can be done with less parking. We then can’t support them in building less parking by supporting them with good roads and transit for a variety of travel types.
It’s more like making the “investment” that lowering the requirements will pay off later. I think it’ll take awhile which is why I would want it to happen earlier rather than later.
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@John … I have not seen much activity in my 5ish passes by Revisn. How do you think they are doing with their business model?
It’s difficult to assess. I don’t see much action, but I’m also not really studying it that closely either. Maybe that Howard Johnson palette is turning people off? 
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We have two interns staying there now (4 over the summer) and they’ve said it’s gotten a lot more crowded since January.
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