The team behind the Raleigh Convention Center have put out new renderings of the upcoming expansion and I’ll be posting them here for posterity. The expansion adds almost 300,000 square feet to our existing 500,000 foot building. That should help Raleigh land larger conventions and events. If they can keep that thing full all year round, the downtown business traffic should get a nice boost for all of us to enjoy.
Continue reading →During the July 1, 2025 city council meeting, there was an update on a collection of projects, most taking place in the downtown area and I thought briefly touching on these projects here would be a nice way to summarize what’s going on and coming up. If you want to dive in to the presentation itself, the video is above or can be seen here.
Continue reading →Above is the Raleigh City Council meeting (watch on YouTube) that included a presentation, public comments, and a vote on the plan to rebuild the Red Hat Amphitheater just south of its current location, resulting in the closure of South Street between Dawson and McDowell Streets. It’s worth watching, as you can really see the council’s thoughtful deliberation on this issue. I encourage readers to give it a view.
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The Red Hat Amphitheater turned out to be such a good idea that the latest chatter this Summer is all about making it bigger and better. We’ve talked about how the amphitheater was always meant to be temporary and now that the Raleigh Convention Center wants to expand, the amphitheater needs to move. For awhile, the plans to move the amphitheater were simple; put it one block to the south. However, with plans to close streets and the temptation to actually move it to Dix Park, this topic is getting more complicated.
If you’re not on the Community, you’re missing a great ongoing discussion so I encourage you to jump in on the conversation. If you’re staying here, let’s take a closer look at what we have on the table so far.
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Should we start calling the southern end of downtown “The Convention District” or maybe “The Entertainment District”? Those are probably the most boring names I could think of but it seems the Raleigh Convention Center is poised to grow it’s influence on downtown this decade. This month, the Raleigh City Council approved agreements with a developer to start work on a 550-room convention hotel nearby. This would support a future convention center expansion which is also working it’s way through the planning process.
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Photo taken at 9:08pm, 5/26/08
During the Canes’ implosion last night, I decided to get one last picture of the shimmer wall. I read here that the Raleigh Convention Center was lighting up the shimmer wall the color red while the Carolina Hurricanes were working their way through the playoffs. Having never seen this, or previously known about it, one last picture before the season ended was in order. Sadly, this was not to be. Did anyone see it during the last few weeks of hockey action? What do you think of the shimmer wall light show overall?
The shimmer wall always looks good during the day. See this picture large on Flickr.
Kickin Shimmer Wall from Leo Suarez on Vimeo.
Nothing new here. This is a recent video I took of the convention center shimmer wall on a very windy Sunday. I thought I would share this.
Fencing is there to keep us out. Demolition soon?