I feel as though Wake leaders, in general, have tried to spread it around — not focus any one place more recently. Thankfully, we seem to be at a time / circumstance where leveraging the cost / benefit of development IS bringing the market to greater focus on downtown.
Seems that’s a good thing which won’t be exclusive of development in more traditional fashion, rather it’s quickly closing the gap that used to exist between dollars falling outside the core versus inside.
We all win if that maintains pace…
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My friend it seems you are on a Downtown Raleigh forum trying to downplay the significance of Downtown. I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to get at.
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Hi Kev, I am well aware of what this blog is about. I am almost sure most people on here do not live in DTR like I do. But without the rest of Wake we would be insignificant. We are building up, it’s really moving a hell of a lot faster from when fayetteville street was a ped mall. However, with the supporting community we will only get better, not worse. DTR needs the help, it can’t be an island.
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It’s not about the amount of cash alone. All of this residential (especially SFHs) takes up how much of the city’s infrastructure footprint? How much of the city’s service coverage do these houses require? How much does this all cost the city and how much will it cost the city going forward when the infrastructure has to be repaired and replaced?
Downtown proper is a bit over 1 square mile in a ~148 square mile city. By its most generous definition, maybe one could define downtown at 2 square miles. If we can pack in highly valued projects (towers especially) into an acre of land downtown and get as much tax revenue out of it as an entire suburban subdivision, why wouldn’t the city encourage doing that?
My building downtown is only 10 stories tall, has 82 condos, and sits on an acre with a total taxable value of over $30,000,000. On average, how much taxable value sits on a typical single family home acre in the city? Let’s say that the typical acre has 4 houses on it, and let’s say that the average current taxable value is $400,000. That’s $1,600,000 in taxable value. Which acre is more valuable to the city’s coffers? Now let’s imagine if an acre of land supported 300 housing units, some ground level retail and a half million square feet of office space in a tower downtown. How much would that be worth to the city?
The city has to find opportunities to densify its land in the city BECAUSE of all of its single family housing footprint liability. This includes densification of nodes like North Hills for sure, but it’s especially important to do downtown where there is the most opportunity.
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Valid point for Raleigh. Want the surface lots developed? Make it harder for other sites to be built. Don’t allow a developer to, for example, buy a building that is perfectly functioning albeit for sale (Berkeley, Goodnights, holiday inn etc) and demolish to make “a project” work. Force the real estate community to get more creative in filling in the “missing teeth”. This is actually a logical argument for height restrictions if we care more about long term urban form and less about short term free markets. If zoning is a thing in downtown, it’s goal should be to create a vibrant, walkable city. Filling in our surface lots and redeveloping parking decks and abandoned buildings (N&O) should be prioritized over all other considerations. As we know, this has positive impacts for walkability, retail support, environment, safety, and general success of a city
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Tax the surface lots based on their potential value to the city and we’ll see them developed soon enough.
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I would assume they are taxed quite heavily. At least, assessed land values are very high DTR regardless of the building value from what I’ve seen. Anyone know the finances of a dt surface lot including taxes? I mean, they have no expenses to write off most years…
But if that were true, then wouldn’t we see them put to more productive uses then parking? I’ve always thought it amazing that privately owned land in downtown can cover their costs with surface parking.
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I doubt they’re covering their costs but at least not losing as much. If it were simply a calculation of taxes/insurance vs parking income I’m sure it’s a losing prop.
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For example, Highwoods owes $97k by Jan 5th for the 0.68 acre surface lot at Wilmington and Martin next to Skyhouse. This represents an assessed value of $8.8m. That’s only $265 per day, which is likely partially covered in parking revenue and towing contacts.
To John’s point, that surface lot is causing more damage to Raleigh than $265 per day in lost potential residents, businesses, and the multiplicative effect of a continuous streetscape with defined edges.
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This makes me think of the old gym property across from Person st. bar. They didn’t even charge for parking there for a long time. They just sit their eating taxes waiting for a big payday. That property could really contribute to the area. But the owner/incentives aren’t into that.
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Special property tax on surface parking lots in the CBD seems like a good idea
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Can you make special taxes on people’s land depending on what someone wants to see instead? Could we tax churches on the value a skyscraper would have there? Could we tax a historic 1 story barbershop more because someone could build luxury apartments there instead? I hate the surface lots, but I can think of a lot of hurdles to doing something like this.
Also, I assume any of these lot owners are like, hey we bought this for 1 million, pay 100,000 in taxes each year for ten years, that’s 2 million sunk into this. We make 100,000 in 10 years on parking revenue. So 1.9 million sunk in. And then they sell it for 10 million. I’d do that in a heartbeat, and there’s no incentive to sell until property value has maxed out. The small revenue from parking is just offsetting property taxes a little so why not?
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I’m all for this one. Why should I have to subsidize churches by allowing them to not pull their weight while they obviously influence the laws under which all of us must live?
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Reminds me of this. I’m sure there are negatives but on the surface a land value tax sounds like a great idea.
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Chuck in early ST days! Yes
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with that said i know a lot of state govt stuff is down there now i know that some state govt employees do pretty well but are those wages lower than much of the tech stuff, etc. that has moved in to dtr? if so, would it make sense to have state govt more spread out over the city (i know in some cases it already is…dmv/dot and SIPPS)? i guess in order to further densify downtown, replace some of the state govt presence with more higher wage stuff downtown so more can afford to live downtown?
Areas of Raleigh that are considered “walkable” given this tool.
Walkability scores based on being a 10-min walk from at least 6 restaurants or stores.
Play with the tool here HEAT Toolkit
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It’s a bit sad that the area around South Gate shopping center (Rock Quarry immediately s of the beltway) is considered “walkable.” Very little real pedestrian infrastructure in the area and the only remotely dense housing is the brand new apartment complex tucked in BEHIND the shopping center. But it does have six stores/restaurants, including a supermarket, drug store, and cheapo/quick-serve chinese and taqueria joints, so I can’t say that it isn’t walkable by this definition. I guess I just wish we had a more…aspirational definition.
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