Author / Leo Suarez

by Leo Suarez

VeLa Longview Tower Planned for Marbles Parking Lot along Morgan Street

Images Courtesy of NoTriangle Studio

Plans came out a few weeks ago about a new 30-story building for the surface parking lot along Morgan Street and the Marbles Kid’s Museum. It’s the triangle-shaped lot where Morgan becomes New Bern Avenue at the intersection with Person Street.

Back in early 2021, the parking lot was rezoned with a height limit of 30-stories. It looks like the developer is planning to max it out with a new tower that will have 373 residential units.

The new tower, called VeLa Longview, will also have ground-floor retail and structured parking. You can see some of the developer’s other projects here.

Images Courtesy of NoTriangle Studio

I’m not exactly sure where the name “Longview” comes from but it does seem to pop up around Raleigh. On the same block is the Vintage Church which was formerly called the Long View Center. Owned by a local real estate developer, he sold it in 2013 to the current church. The same developer, Gordon Smith, helped start the Marbles Kid’s Museum and played a pivotal role in rezoning the parking lot that is now to become VeLa Longview.

Clearly, the Longview name has some significance here with someone involved. I’m going to throw this post up on the Community and see if we can’t figure this out.

Here’s the site as it sits today.
by Leo Suarez

Pic of the Week

The demolition of the warehouses along Hargett and West Street has really picked up. This shot above is from this past weekend, overlooking the site from the outdoor mezzanine at Union Station. It’s a bit surreal how much space there is here and if you have an opportunity to see it this week, I would recommend a walk around the site.

For a recap of what is planned here, see the RUS Bus tagged posts here.

by Leo Suarez

Development Plans Going for 30-stories on Peace and West Street

There certainly are a lot of rezoning requests going on for the downtown area these days. One in particular that I think is interesting to pay attention to is for a collection of properties along the 700 and 800 blocks of North West Street. This is mainly the properties to the east of West Street and north of Peace Street. Raleigh Development Co. has acquired a set of properties here and is requesting a rezoning to increase the maximum height allowed from 12 to 30 stories.

To zoom in, you can see a detailed map of the properties on iMaps here. Right now, a mishmash of warehouse buildings, built throughout the mid-1900s, dot the properties. The buildings also have plenty of surface parking. This is typical on this section of West going all the way up to Wade. Very little sidewalks exist and West really loses that urban feel that it has south of Peace.

Industrial is the theme here on this part of West Street. It’s not really a place to walk to or shop. That of course may change in the near future. To the east of the property is the pigeon house branch creek and there are plans for a future park on the nearby former city parking lots. The city is currently going through the planning process of that park, which is still years away, and you can follow that here as well as watch a cool video about it here.

To the south is Smoky Hollow which probably needs no introduction. Smoky Hollow is adding retail and restaurants as you read this and there is still has an empty property along Peace which may add more development to this area in the future.

This North West Street “wedge” of a property could produce a very interesting building or set of buildings due to the future park nearby and the fact that the land is at a higher elevation compared to the nearby area. The views of downtown should be fantastic on the upper floors.

Discussion on this rezoning will start at the Planning Commission meeting on October 25.

by Leo Suarez

Pic of the Week

The Raleigh Union Station Bus Facility is seeing some movement. There’s a combination of demolition and preservation taking place at the old warehouses along West Street. In the photo above, the metal braces are in place in order to preserve the brick façade as it’ll be incorporated into the new development. This is at the corner of West and Hargett.

Some buildings are coming down, especially the ones facing the railroad tracks. You can see plenty of photos being taken by members of the Community right here and I’m sure there will be more so do follow along.

by Leo Suarez

Park City South Phase 1 Clicking Together on Saunders Street

South Saunders Street doesn’t get to much of a mention here on the blog but that’s about to change. Today, the parking deck for Park City South Phase 1 is being put together on the east side of Saunders. Phase 1 plans for about 335 apartments and restaurant/retail spaces. It’s important to note that this project will compliment the nearby Rocky Branch Greenway with a bridge to a new walkway alongside the apartments and restaurants in the new development.

We can see those plans in the images below.

Park City South from the city’s website site plan and Design Workshop.

It’s all one structure but on the ground floor, we have separated spaces and walkways that should deliver an awesome pedestrian and biking experience. With the potential for food spaces, Park City South could be a nice pit stop while riding up and down the greenway. It even makes for a nice destination after spending time in Dix Park.

This is certainly a nice development to look forward to. If you’d like to see some aerials from a few weeks ago, hop over to the Community and follow the conversation. And here’s one more rendering of the development’s phase 1. We’ll save Phase 2 for a future post.

by Leo Suarez

Almost 300 Apartments Planned for 401 West Cabarrus

West Cabarrus is buzzing. A developer from Durham, Elmwood Development, is looking to build about 300 apartments with the building shown in the rendering above. The new project will be located at 401 West Cabarrus Street and sits on the same block as The Fairweather condos. A block down the street, you also have more under construction projects such as The Platform.

The block, today, is mostly one-story office buildings of various types from a variety of decades with some surface parking. The brick boxes could be cool inside, I have never seen them, but from the outside looking in, it doesn’t appear we’re losing much here.

The site plans indicate some ground-floor retail space as well so this could be a pretty cool project at a great location.