It’s still just a parking lot over at 320 West Cabarrus Street these days. If you didn’t know, this was the former location of our Amtrak Station before Raleigh Union Station opened up. The former train station here was demolished in 2018. Now, plans are moving forward for a small office building on the site which is still owned by the North Carolina Railroad.

Renderings of what could be built came up in a May 1, 2025 Design Review Commission meeting. The renderings show a three-story office building with surface parking facing the train tracks. There even appears to be ground-floor retail space. The renderings are shown below.

We are now in the middle of 2025 and the only entities building office space are governments. After the state completes their NC Education Campus and the city finishes their civic tower, it could be quite some time before new office space is delivered in or near downtown Raleigh.

As always, removing surface parking for buildings is very much welcome. The state also had plans for The Depot back in 2022 and there doesn’t seem to be any movement on that at this time. Could this project, all the activity across the street in downtown’s West End, and the city’s desire for a bold connection to Dix Park be enough to revive the West Street Extension, a tunnel underneath the tracks? We’ll continue to wait and see.

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