Author / Leo Suarez

by Leo Suarez

The State of the Warehouse District

By day, the warehouse district of Downtown Raleigh is quiet and sleepy. By night, it wakes up and comes to life, exploding on the weekends. This nightlife hotspot has seen some problems in the past, but with a convention center only a few steps away, why can’t it enjoy some traffic just as Fayetteville St. will be getting? Here is some recent updates if you have not been down there recently.

  • Penrod’s Antique Warehouse has opened up next to White Collar Crime and makes use of the entire 10,000 sq. ft. warehouse. They have very old furniture and all kinds of random plates, paintings, silverware, etc. They are open seven days a week.

  • Jibarra is re-locating to The Depot but work there has not yet started. The place is still filled with the old bars from the trio of clubs that left back in November of 2007. Jibarra seems confident on opening up this fall.
  • Renovation of a warehouse for the Contemporary Art Museum seems to be continuing. A recent ‘Pic of the Week’ entry had some good discussion from readers.
  • Discussion on the Multi Modal Transit Center is picking up and the city wants your ideas. Read their ‘Call For Ideas’ on the Transit Center and submit them by July 24th. I have not read the entire document yet but may post my thoughts later this week.

The warehouse district will need more shops and the museum to open for activity to rise during the day. The transportation center, I think, will define the warehouse district in the near future and when (if) built, this area will explode during the day.


Plenty of parking at The Depot

by Leo Suarez

One Year Ago, 222 Glenwood Before and After


222 in July ’07. Posted one year ago.


222 in July ’08. Almost done.

I remember after the warehouse on this spot was demolished that construction seemed to crawl but once the foundation was finished, the parking deck and steel rose rather quickly throughout 2007. Now, 222 Glenwood is almost finished, the sidewalk is open (officially?), and we now have some new retail coming on the ground floor. This includes:

Tobacco Road Sports Café (read their blog)
Hairdos (coming soon pic)
Bruegger’s Bagels
Dunkin Donuts / Baskin Robbins
Gianni & Gaitano’s

Via News & Observer (‘Sports Café’ On Its Way)

by Leo Suarez

Study Continues On High Speed Rail In Raleigh and NC

Discussion about a high speed rail line from Washington DC, through Raleigh, to Charlotte has been mentioned before and we now have an update in the study process. With regards to Raleigh, David Foster, a project manager on the project, states:

The environmental work is substantially complete between the VA-NC line and Raleigh. The initial railroad horizontal and vertical alignment alternatives also are complete along this section. Roadway designs are essentially complete from the VA-NC line through Franklin County, and are in progress through Wake County. The Franklin/Wake County sections are some of the most complex due to heavy development.

Section 106 consultation with the State Historic Preservation Offices in both Virginia and North Carolina is still required. Efforts to obtain the necessary effects determinations for the individual historic resources in each state will begin as the design work is finalized.

The website for the project has a plethora of information, including the entire planned corridor shown with aerial pictures.

http://www.sehsr.org/

Looking at the downtown section we can see what is planned. Before looking, it is pretty easy to guess that the plans are to use the existing rail corridor that runs along capital BLVD into downtown. This makes most sense because of the planned multimodal transit center to be built in the warehouse district. The project timeline was updated last month with an estimate to have passenger service running some time between 2015 and 2020. This is all “dependent upon funding availability” but the gears are rolling and Raleigh may be a major hub for the east coast high speed rail line in the coming decade.

by Leo Suarez

Two-way Conversion of Lenoir and South St.

Approved back in September of 2007, the two-way conversion of Lenoir and South streets is another bullet point on the long list of changes that surround the new Raleigh Convention Center. The entire street will not be converted; just a couple blocks around the downtown core. Lenoir will be a two-way street from South Saunders to Wilmington and South will get the same treatment between Dawson and Wilmington. See it on a map.

This is no surprise that these changes are for visitors to easily navigate to and from the new convention center and Marriott hotel. The three major southern downtown entrances are covered with South Saunders, McDowell, and Wilmington streets having two-way access to Lenoir. Dawson St. is a major thoroughfare for visitors coming from the north on Capital BLVD.

New streetlights are up around the convention center on Lenoir St.
by Leo Suarez

Opening Date For Boylan Bridge Brewpub

I need to give props to a reader, Kyle, for the tip. I’m pretty excited about this one.

The Boylan Bridge Brewpub will open on AUGUST 25, 2008. That’s right, in 53 drinking days we will serve our first beer. (43 drinking days if you skip Sunday, 35 drinking days if you don’t drink on the weekend, and 16 drinking days if you only drink on the weekend.)

Hit their website for more.