Fourth Ward Plans 10 Townhomes For South Street Area

Corner of Dorothea Drive and Saunders Street, April 2017.

Corner of Dorothea Drive and Saunders Street, April 2017.

At the corner of Dorothea Drive and Saunders Street, ten 2-bedroom townhomes are planned for an area that’s seeing a lot of new residential. SR-036-17 shows two buildings with five units each at the corner with a driveway along Dorothea.

The property is actually much bigger than this actual townhome cluster with some of it being used as a riparian buffer to the nearby stream. (if I’m reading this site plan correctly)

Site plan

Click for larger

Site plan

Click for larger

The property is mostly wooded with a pair of houses along Saunders that are set to be demolished.

Houses along Saunders Street, April 2017.

Houses along Saunders Street, April 2017.

With the amount of activity in this area, the Fourth Ward units aren’t alone so I created a Google map showing the activity taking place in the area. If you can’t see the map, click here.

Let me know if you think of anything else to add in this area. I’ll update it as announcements come out. This also does not include any onesie-twosie house renovations that are taking place nearby in Boylan Heights and Rosengarten Park.

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27 Comments

  1. Thanks for the info Leo. I look forward to more of this type of ‘gentle’ densification in the neighborhoods surrounding DT proper. Kudos to these developers.

  2. The same developer just bought the auto body shop just south of the development on Saunders. I was told they’re going to renovate is as a temporary office and/or storage because of all of their developments in the neighborhood. They also just purchased South Street Market on South St. but don’t know their plans for that. This is Lambert Development so I’m assuming more housing.

  3. I meant Camila Auto at 716 Saunders for the office. South Street Grocery is at 516 W South St.

  4. The 4 story self storage facility on that map makes me sad. What is the DEAL with all these self storage buildings going up all over Raleigh?? Everything else on that map is exciting, that is just annoying. It will be an ugly eyesore (speculation based on, um I don’t know, EVERY OTHER SELF STORAGE BUILDING I’VE EVER SEEN) and will NOT add to the urban/street experience AT ALL.

  5. @ Stew , Daniel , Robert , & Any Other Baseball Fan , The only reason that I am posting this baseball info.on this site is because this is the only way that I know to get up with these particular guys ! When you can Google , The Triad Business Journal & read the article ,” The Atlantic League / High Point NC Baseball Project ” ! Great Article/ Pictures ! Wish we could do this at Redhat !

  6. The remainder of that property is zoned R-10 under the new UDO while the ten townhouses are going onto the part of the property that’s zoned NX-3-UL.
    I am going to investigate what this supposed buffer is all about.

  7. The greenway is no longer going through there. They just finished paving the greenway from South to Dorothea along Saunders. I think it’ll extend to Jamaica Dr eventually.

  8. @ Dwight
    Very interesting article. Thank you very much for sharing and the heads up! And by the way, have you heard the news about Fayetteville’s new baseball stadium? Baseball all around us and nothing for downtown Raleigh… sad!

  9. Jake, the deal with all the self-storage facilities being built right now in growing areas is that some group buys the land while it’s still affordable for a future resale or development, but doesn’t want the land to just sit vacant for a few years while they lose money on taxes. Storage facilities are in demand for all the new people moving here, plus it generates steady revenue with little effort or management, and when it gets torn down for some bigger project down the line, no one nearby is going to mourn the loss. Pretty smart, actually, but I completely agree that it does nothing for those of us who like interesting development. Still better than a boarded up building or gravel lot, at least.

    Unrelated, but since baseball was mentioned, has there been any update on Malik’s soccer vision? I felt like there was a ton of hype and then months of silence.

  10. Leo, DYK what’s going on at the Men @ Work site? They had a sign up recently that indicated they were relocating with sad face emoji.

  11. @ Robert , Because of a friend that loves baseball even more than me , Raleigh Baseball is not dead yet! He actually played with Darrell Strawberry & that’s all they will let me say @ this time ! @ Jeff , If you will Google “Update on cities bidding on major league soccer” , you will find 2 articles , March 7th & I believe March 21th , that will give a update on all 12 cities ! Hope this helps !

  12. N&O had a really nice article confirming that the car wash side of Men at Work is indeed being forced to move. I get my haircut at the barbershop. Happy for new development but sad to see it push out some core businesses in that neighborhood. Men at work basically runs that whole block and has done a lot of good for the community.

  13. Can’t see any businesses being able to survive the current wave of development. The only housing being developed is for the hyper-rich. That pushes the price per sq. foot to the point that its too valuable for anything commercial.

    Rapidly, ITB Raleigh is becoming a monoculture. And monocultures become deserts.

    Fast-forward a few years and it will be as boring and bland as North Raleigh…only with higher density.

  14. The hyper-rich is a bit of a stretch – People are looking at downtown Raleigh and comparing it to what it used to be and fact is thats not going to continue with the growth the city is seeing. Downtown Austin is currently pricing at nearly double the price per square foot as Raleigh (and would challenge anyone to argue its a boring place).

  15. This kind of doom and gloom stuff has always been around. Every city in the country has the same issue with new residential being entirely upper class in its core. The good news is there will be affordable neighborhoods within walking/commuting distance of downtown ITB for the next century, barring some kind of disaster.

  16. @John, are prices in Austin really double? Raleigh’s DT condos are in the $300+/ft range; could Austin’s really be $600/ft?
    Raleigh’s DT apartments are already ~ $2/ft per month. I just can’t imagine that Austin is double of that as well.

  17. @John532 In the heart of downtown Austin you are easily looking at 500+/ft upwards – working your way outside of that you’re still even at more than $400

  18. “Pretty smart, actually, ” is a refrain we hear an awful lot now, but let’s be clear…it’s only smart relative to *making money*. It’s not smart at all when comes to creating a neighborhood with character. The definition of smart IS NOT how much money you can make (or swindle by not paying taxes say…).
    And I appreciate what David is saying (even if Hyper rich is hyperbole a bit). We (I) don’t want a large chain store driven, beige world. Now “Beige” could mean a slightly creative but still predictable look…say, everything residential ends up looking like that cross between modernist and contemporary (like West and Lenoir is) and places to eat are all ala AC Restaurants. The everyman and everywoman are left out. I just got back from Philly and ate korean bbq phillies and massive plates of Malaysian food for under $7 in each case. Our food trucks can’t (or won’t) produce food of the quality I ate for that price. I am all for revitalized downtowns, but I don’t want our downtown to be only a playground for the folks making 200% of the median salary

  19. The problem is that anything built new today is going to be expensive because land values are high and construction costs are high. We have to rethink what retail and housing means in this sort of financial model. To get “affordable” housing, it’s going to be a function of reducing the size of individual units (micro-units?) and amenities to make units affordable to young people and viable to developers. The same can be said for retail. We can’t think of every storefront being the size of a suburban storefront. We need micro-stores and food establishments as well. Think walk-up counter service and sidewalk seating for an independent coffee shop with outdoor heaters for the Winter. Think mini sundries shops the size of what you see in airports. For stores the size of the Pharmacy+Market on Glenwood, that space should have twice as much stuff in it than it does today. It could support a lunch counter/grille. It could have higher shelves with more goods, etc.
    In a nutshell, we have to be more efficient and effective with our space and our development models to create the rich urban environment that we all want.

  20. I said “smart” because the purpose of a business is to make money. Not making a judgement about what we want for our cityscape.

    The complaints about lack of affordable housing/food/etc downtown is ridiculous to me. Downtown Raleigh is tiny and every city I visit has way higher prices for everything than Raleigh. It’s not like people who make less money (or don’t want to spend it on tiny luxury apartments downtown) can’t live a few miles out and take a bus/car/bike to go downtown. I love going downtown, but I don’t eat every meal at Death & Taxes. The city itself has plenty of cheap restaurants and reasonable places to live. They’re just not concentrated on the most expensive real estate in the city…

  21. The thing is Raleigh is still cheaper than a lot of other cities people compare it to. The nice thing about Raleigh, compared to Austin or Denver, is you actually have money to spend on food/recreation downtown after paying rent, and while you can’t afford to live downtown, there are many places ITB that are fair game still which is close enough.

  22. @ Dwight
    Thank you for the link information. I’ll have to keep an eye out for more updates!

  23. Has anyone heard if there are any plans for the little small white church that sits on the corner of S. Saunders and Lenoir st?

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