The TBJ put out an article (subscribers only) that shows a master plan for WPU. Since they own Seaboard Station also, this makes for a good topic.
You can see the rendering here:
https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2018/06/06/as-its-downtown-raleigh-campus-expands-william.amp.html
There are a lot less surface parking lots and many more buildings on that rendering. I like it but we’ll see how it goes and what they plan for Seaboard Station as well.
I’m happy to see that they aren’t expanding their campus into the Seaboard district. The possibilities for Seaboard are tremendous but it’s in serious need of a good masterplan design. It’s haphazard currently with no real unifying features. There’s a real possibility for Seaboard to be a significant mixed use center.
Didn’t WPU just put Seaboard up for sale? I’m pretty sure I read that…
You did, back in March: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article205985519.html
Also, how long will Harris-Teeter wait to start building their store? Hasn’t a location been planned there for years? The article says they are still committed but I don’t see any movement happening. Perhaps the Publix down the street has complicated things.
Yuck @ the rendered elevation; yes @ the added density.
I hope they will avoid making this a faux-urban style streetscape a la North Hills and will instead focus on a truly pedestrian-oriented redevelopment that’s able to be fully integrated with the downtown core as it extends outward. I’m not optimistic about it.
bought it for 20 mil, sold it for 34 mil 5 years later…i’m sure they are at PEACE with that decision…
The nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s uninspiring.
And we just lost the Harris Teeter…sorry team, but I do wuv my HT!
They did mention the possibility of a smaller-format grocer. It would be really neat if Trader Joe’s opened a store in this development.
650 units. Sheesh. People complain about affordable housing in DTR. Just wait 7-10 years when the pendulum swings back to the suburbs being more desirable (for all the folks that want to live near downtown right now) than urbanish living… “Live at Seaboard Station! First year rent free with a 2 year lease!”
What makes you think it’s an unsustainable fad? Tract developments with hundreds of units are approved and built all the time around here. The numbers of townhomes and SFH under construction in the burbs in this metro absolutely dwarfs downtown multifamily. But growth is still huge, never forget that. If even 5% of residential units built in wake county go downtown, that’s about 600 per year. And really, we are making up for latent demand since basically zero market rate units were built downtown between 1940 and 2000. What we are seeing right now is just restoring some balance to the market.
As for this development, it looks fine to me. Right scale for the location. I would love to see a site plan. It could range from uninspiring to quite nice depending on the materials.
Looks a lot like North Hills, which isn’t a huge compliment. But I’m excited about the possibilities here. I just really hope my Ace Hardware doesn’t go anywhere.
I’d love a TJ’s anywhere but I think the one 3 miles north would be overkill. If they put one in the Southern Gateway project, it’d bring so many people from all over the whole area.
Anyways, I’m sad about the HT but I think I’ll be happier with Publix next door, and honestly that’d probably be too similar too close if they both opened. I’m excited for any and all growth at Seaboard Station. I’m less worried about the style of development because it’s better than what’s there and it’s not the core DT. I am intrigued/worried about what buildings will be demolished (don’t faint Mark and John). I like the look of Seaboard Station, its brick, etc. and how low-key it is. I also am partial to my dry cleaners, the cheap gas at the Shell Station, 18 Seaboard, Logan Trading Co. (which I believe owns their own space and isn’t at risk), Tylers…I mean Oak and Dagger… I mean whatever goes in next, Bad Daddy’s, that weird new Italian-Japanese fusion place, the coffee shop, my wife’s hair salon, J Betzski’s…
Maybe a Lidl or Aldi instead, then? I’m not too familiar with either of those stores, though, so I don’t know if they would consider an urban format location. However, Seaboard does seem like a natural fit for TJs, regardless of the proximity of their other location.
I must say — Publix is really aggressive with where they site their locations. The Harris Teeter was already rumoured at Seaboard before Publix announced their Peace location, and that mirrors a trend that’s been observed elsewhere, particularly in Charlotte, where Harris Teeter historically has been the number one grocer. Lately, though, Publix has made a sharp push to locate new stores only blocks away from existing HT stores, and they’ve grown to take a major share in the city’s grocery economy. Just last week they announced a new store in SouthPark, across the street from a Harris Teeter and Earth Fare, and just down the road from Whole Foods. They’re not scared of competition.
Yeah that trend will probably never reverse. The suburbs are so completely soul crushing for enough people, that walkable areas with enough infrastructure to sustain them, will never go out of style. Downtowns only died because of 1) racism and white flight 2) the car was foisted on people, and conveniently enabled white flight. Perhaps if you put light rail down the middle of Six Forks, Falls of Neuse, I-40 etc. and turned downtown in a sodden, dirty, unlivable pile of dung with 100 story plain concrete buildings on every block , it might be abandoned again…but I think that’s like 500 years out…
I know you like nicely renovated buildings with things going on in them so understand where Seaboard falls in your world view. Logans is not part of the project (pretty sure) and neither is the strip that Brew and the Cleaners are in so I think you’re safe there. I’d like to see this all stay the way it is too as I go there often for Ace, the Bakery, my mom likes the ladies clothing store, the restaurants…what’s not to love as-is. Anyway, this is that point I fear in an overheated market…out of town developers showing up to maximize the money to be made. No interest in what we may actually want or need. I am pretty skeptical about how this will all go…
From a site plan perspective, that whole Seaboard area is a giant mess. There’s nothing terribly urban about it and is have very little sense of place. The whole thing is built around an undulating parking lot and it gets almost no foot traffic accessing it from Peace St. While I can’t see the article and images from the TBJ article, other than the cover image, I can’t imagine that it will be a worse experience than it already is. I’m happy to give it a shot and imagine that it will activate one of the dead zones that’s been identified in that other topic.
I don’t know why all these people on DowntownRaleighdotcom are so upset to see a lot of density replace a strip mall.
The developer’s work on their website looks a lot better than the (I’d imagine very preliminary) rendering.
Downtowns need places where density bleeds into single family residential neighborhoods. Your convenience/nostalgia/whatever and your wife’s hair be damned.
Yeah I’m totally fine with this. The current seaboard station is nothing fantastic, at least this will add density.