Zoning and Density

I’ve been wondering what the official height was going to be. Was hoping for over 400ft but I guess with all residential floor plates it makes sense that it falls short of that mark. It will still be huge for North Hills though!

2 Likes

Wow. Last I heard was 28 floors.

Do you mind sharing the link to the plans?

https://www.raleighnc.gov/content/PlanDev/Documents/DevServ/DevPlans/Reviews/2019/SiteReview%20/ASR-0051-2019.pdf

1 Like

882 parking spaces proposed. 395 required. :man_facepalming:t3:

4 Likes

I’ll bet the real story of the parking is that it’s shared with something else. Why would be build twice as much as required?

1 Like

because of “merica”. :red_car::blue_car::oncoming_automobile::us:

3 Likes

Originally, this was to have a hotel along with apartments. Now it looks like it is all apartments plus some retail.

I believe there’s that many spaces because it’s actually sharing the deck with the 20 story office “tower 4” next to it.

1 Like

That and I think they probably plan on parking for north hills in general. Sometimes when I go into that Harris Teeter that parking deck is full. Like zero spaces available. But there are not that many people in the store.

Does this mean that the other building can forgo its parking requirements when it comes up for review?

That way you won’t have to park next to someone, or your oversize vehicle can take up more than 1 space!

1 Like

Yet they’ll still park across the line next to me and throw their door into the side of my car.

2 Likes

The parking levels for the other building are already built.

2 Likes

that is a lot of parking. Good grief…

3 Likes

Yea. It’d be an interesting exercise to add up the square footage of each type of use at north hills east. I’d guess 35-40% is parking.

Looking at the elevations in the submittal, there is additional parking to be constructed for The Walter.

Are we working towards a point here about zoning and density?

4 Likes

Just a guess, but I am betting they will eventually build something next to the hotel in the foreground of this pic (surface parking area). Maybe that new building (whatever it is) will not have any parking included onsite since it will already be accounted for in the Walter Tower next door.

I’ll make a point about zoning and density. If you increase density too much in a highly suburbanized area, it will have an oversized impact on traffic as everything is intended to be accessed by cars. The enormous parking garages we are discussing are the manifestation of that.
In North Hills, there may be a nice walkable experience within the actual development itself, but there’s little reasonable walkable connection to it from the outside for more than just a few people. Certainly the homes that are within a block or two of Lassiter Mill have the “best of both Worlds” by having a large lot SFH that is walkable to North Hills, but the majority of people surrounding the entire development are compelled to drive to get there by nature of the built environment. That said, I’ve never really seen a pattern of walkers from even the most convenient of those homes.
Kane’s Smoky Hollow development is different. To its west and south, Smoky Hollow has a built-in walk shed customer base within a few blocks that’s high density and urban in nature. Surely people will still drive to get groceries because its been made so convenient for them (that giant garage), but far more people will be walking among all of the neighborhood resources and their homes in the greater Glenwood South/Smoky Hollow area.
I hate to say it, but the Downtown South development is going to be more like North Hills and less like downtown in that regard.

8 Likes