Year / 2007

by Leo Suarez

Something BIG is brewing……..

This will be a short one, sort of a follow up to this post about the almost 4 acre block north of Progress Energy’s newest building. I saw this on Raleigh’s livable streets plan website.

RFP Process results in Hamilton Merritt proposal being accepted – Mixed use hotel, movie theatre, condominiums, parking deck two 30-story towers – development agreement pending.

Such an important piece of information would not be announced this way. Who knows what this could mean or what is being planned. It may even be a leak of information or someone is playing a hoax. Either way when more information is available, I’ll be sure to post it.

by Leo Suarez

Downtown Construction Updates

I’m finally getting around to posting the pics I took last weekend. These are pictures of current construction projects and future sites.


Bloomsbury Estates

The fourth floor is rising up on the Bloomsbury Estates project. This building shown is the first of two 7 story buildings that will occupy the lot.


222 Glenwood, view from Glenwwod Ave


222 Glenwood, view from West St.

The parking deck is almost done at 222 Glenwood. The deck is in the back of the property and it looks like the condos on the front, facing Glenwood Ave, haven’t really been touched just yet.


West at North

The lot for West at North has been cleared. Hopefully we will start seeing some progress in a few months unlike 222 which seemed to take forever before any real work was done.

by Leo Suarez

Solas coming to Glenwood South

For all of you Glenwood groupies, including myself, this one is exciting. The group, Hibernia Entertainment, is opening Solas at the site of the old brake repair shop. You may have notice it vanish recently and now is the barren wasteland next to Helios. What you’ll see there soon is a 3 story building with a restaurant on the ground floor, a club on the second and a patio lounge on the third. The patio on the top floor will be pretty open and should give people a great view of the city over The Creamery located across the street.

The rendering looks pretty good and I think it will fit nicely into the Glenwood South scene. The building will probably be built right up to Helios and add some much needed density to the area. Hopefully the company backing this can land a great restaurant that draws a good lunch crowd. I’d like to see Glenwood busy at all times of the day. I already know that this will be a hit at night. I like the fact that there are lots of windows facing the street, showing the activity inside. Expect to be rooftop drinking at Solas sometime in spring 2008.

For more information, make sure to read the story in the N&O

by Leo Suarez

Raleigh’s City Plaza

Yesterday the Raleigh City Council approved the design for the city plaza that will go on the 500 block of Fayetteville St. This is the space between One Hannover Square (Bank of America building) and Two Hannover Square (BB&T building). Currently, Fayetteville Street ends at this space because construction on the Marriott Hotel and what is called Site 1 are underway. It’s all part of the Fayetteville street phase II project (phase I being completed last summer ’06)

Make sure to read the list of components in the design schematic as I feel they are important and do a good job summarizing how the space should be. As you can see from the map above, if the street continues south there will be more space on the sides because of the buildings’ placements. I like the plans for retail and restaurants to be planned along the front of the buildings along Fayetteville Street. They are even planning wireless internet for the plaza. There were a couple of stories about it on WRAL and I recall them mentioning a video monitor placed somewhere.


Digital Rendering

This city plaza comes after the downfall of the design by Jaume Plensa. His design involved a grid of lights and a stream of water. The failure of this project all came with the implosion of the old convention center, at that point the view from Memorial Auditorium down to the Capitol building was restored and city leaders did not want it touched. The project turned into a huge controversy and eventually because of the city’s mishandling, constant bickering with the design, and never accepting the artist’s changes to the work (insulting maybe?) the project was dropped. Should Raleigh have gone ahead and approved the design? We will save that discussion for another day.


Plensa’s Design

I believe the new plaza will have much potential and in a few years after it is completed it will easily see activity for 18 hours of the day. It is located in the heart of downtown and in the core business district. With Site 1 and the new Marriott hotel under construction a block away, it will be immersed in activity and should easily succeed.

by Leo Suarez

Introduction

So with all the wealth of knowledge I have acquired about the city of Raleigh, I’ve decided to put it all together on this blog. What I really want to do is follow developments as they progress throughout the city, especially in the downtown area. What you’ll see on this blog is a lot of pictures of buildings, lots, construction sites, and perhaps some other general images.

On top of all the cool buildings going up that define the downtown Raleigh structure I want to talk about some of the other cultural aspects of the city. You will be seeing lots of music posts as well. I support the local music venues and try and get out to shows as often as I can. Expect pictures and reviews of random shows throughout Raleigh.

The blog is pretty straightforward and we’ll start things off with events happening this week. Make sure to leave comments and suggestions as I am open for new ideas and projects.