by Leo Suarez

Downtown Amphitheater Move Deep Dive

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.

The Latest Plans

Site plans (pdf link) were dropped for how the amphitheater could be laid out when rebuilt one block to the south of it’s current location. There isn’t anything there now except a gravel parking lot so this location shouldn’t be too controversial. What may be exciting some people is the fact that South Street is proposed to be closed to all traffic, including bicycles and pedestrians. Here is an aerial of the current condition and then a rendering showing the new amphitheater with updated convention center.

You can see that South Street, under the railroad bridge, becomes a loading zone that goes right up to the back of the stage. This helps support a 7,000 seat, compared to our current 6,000 seat, amphitheater and, from what I’m told, could bring in larger acts.

The plan isn’t finalized as it has to be approved by Raleigh City Council. That is likely to occur in September of this year.

Move the Amphitheater to Dix Park?

As with anything, there are contrarians to this plan and they are, rightfully, pointing out that there exists an opportunity to instead have the amphitheater in Dix Park. Little details exist at this point but an aspect to the Dix Park master plan is for there to possibly have an amphitheater in an area called ‘The Valley’. These are words on a pdf from what I am seeing and there hasn’t been any movement on that at this time.

The closing of South Street seems to be motivating people to bring this up and with council still undecided, this option is being mentioned in conversations only.

Public Input Session

In mid-July, the city had a community event with more details of the amphitheater move and what is being worked on behind the scenes. I could not make it but people are reporting in (again, great thread on the Community) and sharing what was shown.

First, there is an option to help with South Street being closed to traffic. With the cooperation from NCDOT, a new lane could be added south of the amphitheater to allow cars to kind of “go around” and get to McDowell Street. This seems like an easy fix and it even goes further in adding some multi-use paths alongside it for bikes and pedestrians.

If you ask me, I’m less worried about vehicles compared to bikes and pedestrians as getting around downtown by car is simple. The bike/ped path would be fantastic and could even be improved in the future to add more interesting bikeways to points south or even Dix Park. This seems like a nice compromise.

There was also a comment that stated that South Street has 3,000 vehicles per day. This is a small amount of existing traffic numbers that could easily be rerouted. It’s not like South Street is a major connector of places anyway. South connects Boylan Heights to Downtown to Chavis Park. This connection, and more, can easily be made by Lenoir Street, one block over. Cars should also be using Western Boulevard as well and maybe a left-turn from Boylan Avenue to Western is worth studying.

Why Keeping Red Hat Downtown is the Superior Plan

So far all the criticisms of this plan, can be addressed. As usual, people seem to think about their cars rather than their urban places so I’m not taking too much stock in the arguments for keeping more roads open. I just hope that our City Council thinks the same way too.

It’s important to note that the Downtown Raleigh Alliance can show that the current amphitheater is a major cultural attraction and is on pace to do $30 million in economic impact for 2024. I’m generalizing but with the amphitheater moved to Dix, we’d lose the “layering” affect of concert-goers stopping in to downtown businesses for food and drinks. A Dix Park amphitheater would end up being a drive in, drive out experience with the snack bar, run by an outside company, getting hundreds of thousands in revenue.

It’s also important to note how the amphitheater fills in a Summer dip for downtown Raleigh. If you’re new to Raleigh, you should understand that we’re not a Summer town. We do Fall and Spring very well but in the Summer, Raleighites travel. Small businesses in Downtown are not in favor of the amphitheater moving and I can see exactly why.

While Dix Park has a site for an amphitheater, what it doesn’t have is the infrastructure and parking to support it. All the new utilities would have to be built to support it as well as a parking plan which will take more time and money. If you look at the site plan for the South Street amphitheater, no parking is needed and utilities are right there.

Also, doesn’t supporting more parking at Dix just feel wrong?

Wrapping Up

This plan will have to go to a vote soon in order to stick to the convention center construction timeline, the latest outlook is September, so if you have some thoughts on this, please reach out to your city councilors. Dix Park is an amazing place and live music can certainly work there. However, you just can’t beat the momentum that we already have in downtown as well as the hospitality located right here at the southern end of Fayetteville Street. I feel this is the better choice and any concerns can be addressed locally.

Let’s find ways to make it happen!

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