17 Years Ago, A Connoisseur Was Born

Wasn’t 2007 a fantastic year? We saw the iPhone. Netflix starting streaming. The Raleigh Connoisseur starts publishing blog posts. All of these things are changing the world and today is a day to celebrate one of them in particular. With 1,527 posts logged, I’m happy to report that I’m still here.

We have our community, our meetup, and this space here of course for various topics around urban planning, transit, developments, and a little food and drink. There’s so much to talk about if you follow what’s going on in Raleigh and I’m happy to keep putting these thoughts out there where I hope it fosters good discussion and makes all readers stop and think.

Continue reading →

October 2023, What’s Going On at DTRaleigh HQ

Just the other day, I bought tickets to an event in January and noticed the year value on the date was 2024. “The year is almost over?” I said out loud and everyone around me agreed that things are just flying by.

I haven’t been posting on the blog as frequently lately as I have plenty of things going on in that thing called, “real life.” It’s all positive actually and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to balance work, family, social, and volunteering in somewhat harmony throughout this year that I wanted to share what is going on behind the scenes.

Continue reading →

Happy 16, Connoisseurs

It has now been 16 years since I started the blog and I couldn’t be happier with the current state of it. There are still new readers that are discovering it for the first time as well as long time followers who are sticking with me. I appreciate all the kind words everyone has sent in and for any of your contributions including eyes-on reports, photos, and curious thoughts.

This is an excellent time in the post to state that I also appreciate those who have contributed financially to help with the maintenance of this site as well as the chattier, sister site, the DTRaleigh Community. I only ask once a year but if you find value, in any way at all, for the online work that I do about downtown Raleigh, consider a small tip over here through my Paypal. Suggested amount is currently at $16 so get it in now before it’s $17 next year.

I can’t help but put it out there that I am having a BALL being in and around downtown Raleigh. Things are still kicking and there is no shortage of fun times to be had. Food and drinks are top of mind but I’m including other things like events, museums, music, performances, and the arts. With a little planning, a lot of people can have a great day or night out in downtown.

However, being a local, and running a blog for over 16 years, means you start to notice some things, some trends.

If you are a local news junkie like me, the headlines aren’t helping downtown Raleigh. This is a hard perspective to see, as a local, but I feel that if you have never been to downtown, or the city in general, judging us by the news and online chatter will tell you a few things. The main one I wanted to call out today is a perception that we’re demolishing all our historic buildings and replacing them with soulless glass towers.

Defining historic is tough and very subjective. What is a historic building anyway?

The underlying frustration from locals is probably seeing parking lots, some of them not even paved but made of gravel, remain in downtown while century-old buildings, perfect for renovation, are instead torn down. The opinion spectrum is wide on this topic but I have a working theory that the loss of the business inside an older building is more valuable than the building itself.

Take for example The Berkeley Café at 217 West Martin. If the building was empty, would the rezoning case that threatens demolition have been amended later to exclude the building? I don’t think it would have been. It helped that The Berkeley was there and the owners removed the rezoning of 217 West Martin and even extended the lease for The Berkeley.

Another example is Goodnight’s, the comedy club formerly at 865 West Morgan Street. Would the demolition of their location have been so news-worthy if locals thought Goodnight’s was closing for good? I’m not so sure it would have been.

Today, Goodnight’s moved over to nearby Village District but the building at 865 West Morgan is now gone. The Berkeley Café is still open in the same location but the future of the business, and the building, is still undetermined.

So which story are you reading? The possibility of Goodnight’s or The Berkeley Café closing or the demolition of the buildings they occupy?

I think the point I’m trying to make is that it’s so important to support the people, typically that’s also their local business, that is affected by the changes going on in downtown Raleigh. We have national attention on us now and while some big-time projects are good for the health of the city, it can’t come at the expense of the people who are making downtown local.

I feel this is ultimately what people want, more so than to save a building. We want local tastes to thrive and the growth threatens that, more so than just tearing down buildings from past centuries. At least that’s the theory I’m working on.

This brings me to my header image at the top. Here is West Street in October 2012. This is before The Dillon, Raleigh Union Station, Citrix, and Morgan Street Food Hall. At the time, I would have called this a pretty dead street. Other than Five Star, this area didn’t have much going on as a majority of that warehouse space was empty.

Today, the street is obviously very different and tends to be vibrant throughout the day. Even more is coming to the area and while some hate to see the demolition of the warehouses, I just can’t get behind it when you think about what is was like and what it is now. Even more so with the fact that the buildings were empty. Five Star did relocate further down West Street by the way.

Now it may be a huge hassle for a business to move like Goodnight’s or Five Star did. I don’t know, I’m not a business owner, but it can be done and I imagine it’s easier when locals like us support them through it. That’s what’s really important and what drives downtown vibrancy from my perspective.

I’ll leave it at that for today but next time, as I’m sure it’ll happen again, when an older building facing re-development hits the news, think about the local businesses that are affected and your feelings towards the building itself. As always, make sure you are spending your dollars at these places cause that is the best way to help them out and keeping downtown local as much as freakin’ possible.

A Walk Around Moore Square East

Talks of development proposals for the properties to the east of Moore Square have been in the works for years. It wasn’t until 2021 that things really started to pick up. In addition, city-owned lots to the south of Moore Square are included in this future development deal.

The city has been acquiring property in this area to kick start a mixed-use development that would supply multiple things including additional affordable housing and more retail spaces, all as a means to infuse pedestrian activity in nearby Moore Square and City Market.

At a November 2022 city council meeting, city staff presented an overview of development proposals for the city-owned properties to the east and south of Moore Square. You can watch the presentation above or on YouTube directly here.

If you look at the slide above, it shows the map with the affected properties. Moore Square East is being called the collection of parcels on the block to the east of Moore Square. Note, that this does not include the entire block but definitely most of them. Moore Square South would predominantly be the parking lots on the eastern side of City Market along Person Street.

Moore Square East is mostly a barren wasteland of parking. The land is a mix of gravel and grass so there’s little asphalt to tear up here. There’s really not much else to say. My unscientific observations as someone who walks, bikes, and drives by this site multiple times a week is that even as parking, it’s underused. Development here is more than ready to go.

The buildings on this block, closer to or facing Moore Square, as of today, include:

  • 313 East Martin – Two-story building, about 4600 square feet, used as office
  • 227 South Person – Former Killo Pest Control building, empty for at least 6 years and counting. (see this 2016 post)
  • 215 South Person – Former Salvation Army building, empty since the new facility opened on Capital Boulevard
  • 306 East Hargett – 100-year-old home that seems to change bar names/concept every year
  • 314 East Hargett – Raleigh Rescue Mission, open and active

The Raleigh Rescue Mission is kind of the key impact here. While the city doesn’t own that site and any development would not have a direct impact, it’s clear that increasing the urban density would have “neighborly impacts”, for lack of a better term.

Jumping over to Moore Square South, we can see lots of surface parking. The lot is also owned by the city and is a primary lot for City Market visitors who drive into downtown.

Closer to Moore Square, the city also owns a former Esso gas station from around 1915. The building has also been used as a dry cleaners in the 1970s and more recently as a horse barn for the Raleigh Police Department. Currently, it is empty and the city wants to encourage an adaptive reuse of the space.

And finally, the city also owns a historic house along East Martin. The Norwood House from the 1870s is currently being used by the parks department as the Moore Square Visitor Center.

So that’s what we’re working with today. Throughout the summer, city staff reviewed nine proposals for either Moore Square South, Moore Square East, or both. Skipping to the good stuff, city staff recommended proposals from Loden Properties and at the same meeting, council voted and approved for city staff to start negotiations with this developer. Final approval will come back to council next year.

I’ll include the slides for the Loden proposal below but the highlights include:

  • 160-190 affordable housing units
  • 400 market rate units
  • 135-room hotel
  • Grocery store
  • New building for the Raleigh Rescue Mission

On the positive side, this proposal is the only one that includes a hotel, the only one that mentions a grocery store, and the only one that mentions the Raleigh Rescue Mission. While some of the other proposals offer more housing units, the Loden proposal seems to have the best mix of uses. It’s also good to see all this proposed under current zoning.

On the down side, Loden and city staff mention that additional property is required in order to deliver all that’s presented. As mentioned earlier, the city doesn’t own all the land to the east of Moore Square so it’s possible that these developments may take longer to come to fruition as Loden would need to try and acquire more nearby property.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, practically anything that builds on top of surface parking is good in my book. There is still one more round of review, possibly in 2023 so this topic isn’t over yet. However, there’s a lot to be excited about here as it shows the big potential of these mostly empty sites.

Pic of the Week

Here’s an east-facing photo of the future apartment building called The Acorn. The project will bring about 100 apartments facing Person Street and is planned to open in Summer 2023. Since construction began, we now know that a Marriott TownePlace Suites hotel will later be built on the site shown in the foreground. The hotel faces Blount Street and will share the parking deck you see on the lower floors in the photo.

The hotel should begin construction in 2023. Check out The Acorn at their site here.

After 15 years of Blogging, Let Me Introduce Myself

Wow. I’ve certainly done plenty of blog birthdays but now at year 15, it feels a little special. Sure it’s a typical milestone to celebrate for a lot things. Maybe not as worthy as the ten-year post, I really liked that one by the way, but I wanted to try a little reset and reflection today. For the new followers in the room, and long-time readers, let’s start at the beginning as I (re)introduce myself.

My name is Leo Suarez and I am a downtown Raleigh resident. I started this website in January 2007 and wrote about all kinds of things including development, city council meetings, urban planning, new restaurants, and a few other topics. The focus though was, and has always been, downtown Raleigh.

While my job and hobbies are pretty typical, I am 100% dedicated to an urban lifestyle as much as Raleigh can provide me. The meaning of urban lifestyle certainly has evolved over the 15 years that I have been running this blog as well as the younger brother site, the DTRaleigh Community, but one core principle seems to be the same.

The social component in and around downtown has stood up for these 15 years and I believe it will always be a concrete principle in pretty much all aspects to downtown experiences.

I have been pro-resident from day one since I moved into my apartment as a fresh, single college-graduate on Fayetteville Street in December 2006. Now, living in a house east of Moore Square, married, with a young daughter, there’s certainly a new dynamic for some things but being social is what differentiates this area compared to the rest of the city.

And that’s what I’m here for. It’s all about people and the interactions we have between these collections of buildings. It’s quite nice to be honest.

Let’s be Social!

Speaking of socializing, a group of us meet up every second Thursday of the month, organized on our Meetup page, and I hope you can come out to the February meetup. Come say hi, there’s no agenda.

All the buildings and roads make up the playground for socializing humans. It’s a visual feast of treats from people watching to the variety of architecture.

Downtown residents are certainly a small group. The Downtown Raleigh Alliance says there are 21,000 residents within a mile-radius. That’s less than 5% of the total population of the city. It’s growing though for sure as it seems every year, hundreds of new apartments, townhomes, or condos are opening up. New residents keep coming. (Welcome by the way!)

But beyond residents, downtown plays host to visitors. For work or play, people spend time here and they are socializing to a certain degree. That’s probably why we get folks from all over Raleigh, and beyond, at our meetups and commenting on the Community. Downtown seems to be for more than just those that live here.

Socializing in downtown is probably assumed to mean eating or drinking in any of the numerous bars or restaurants here. That’s typical for sure but there’s even more. Coffee shops, records stores, grocery stores, hair salons, and office lobbies. The more time you put into it the more social it gets.

For me, people watching and random encounters have been very memorable and it’s almost addictive to be around.

Last, there’s the sidewalk. I’ve walked all over, snapping photos for the blog, for years and the sidewalk is like the nerve center of downtown Raleigh. I read it somewhere so can’t take credit for this but people attract people. Simply put, the idea of walkable mixed-use areas is always attractive, whether it be for business, for recreation, or something else. That’s why it was copied in the shopping malls of the 20th century, like at Crabtree Valley Mall, and it’s being copied right now in North Hills and other developments in our area suburbs.

15 years feels long enough to notice plenty of trends but still young enough that I need to wait and see if these trends stand the test of time. I’ll be betting on people and their desire to socialize being a driving-force for downtown Raleigh for years to come.

Here’s to being social, past, present, and future! Happy 15! See you out there.

Plans for New Apartments Land on 501 Hillsborough Street

Site review plans (ASR-0059-2021) dropped onto the city’s website recently for 501 Hillsborough Street. The plans show apartments over ground-floor retail wrapping a parking deck, a common formula we’re seeing these days. Slightly different, different to me anyway, is the fact that the plans show an eight-story building. Most apartment buildings in downtown top out at six or maybe seven if built on a hill.

The architect is Raleigh-based Cline Design. The plans state there will be 233 apartments with a mix of 1, 2, and 3-bedroom units. What is typical here is that there are a lot more one-bedroom units planned compared to two and three. (202, 25, 6, respectively)

Ground-floor retail will line Hillsborough essentially replacing the old single-story storefronts that currently line the street today. At first, I wasn’t sure about a parking deck entrance right on Hillsborough but there’s a driveway there today so I guess that isn’t so bad.

The site currently has The Violin Maker, Meg McLaurin, AIA, Flex Nightclub, and along Morgan Street, Wilson’s Outdoor Equipment. There are other spaces that have been empty for some time, at least as long as I have been running this site, but overall, this has been a quieter block on Hillsborough Street.

Apartments should do well as residential capacity is at 95.9% as reported by the Downtown Raleigh Alliance’s Q2 2021 Market Report. (read here) As always, I’m happy to see surface parking lots developed into something more.

Let’s hope the businesses can find new homes if this project actually moves forward but indicators right now look good for it. The only other large apartment building being built right now is over at Seaboard Station and 615 West Peace.