Category / Featured

by Leo Suarez

How Buildings Become Welcoming; The Chamfered Corner or Pan Coupé

Earlier this year, I took a family trip to Paris, and it’s easily one of my favorite cities that I’ve visited in my adult life. The sights, the food, the walking — all of it was fantastic. But with every trip I take, I typically find one small detail to hyper-analyze. It was one of those things that, once you notice it, you can’t unsee it.

I’m talking about the corners of buildings. Not the inside ones. The outside ones. The ones that meet at intersections. But in Paris — especially in the older parts of the city — they don’t just meet. They gracefully arrive at the corner with a flat or sometimes even curved face that greets the street like it’s welcoming you inside.

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by Leo Suarez

Taking a Peek at the New Red Hat Amphitheater

During the February 6, 2025 Design Review Commission meeting, there was a presentation (YouTube link here) related to the plans for the upcoming Red Hat Amphitheater, which should start construction this year. The video really speaks for itself and it’s a highly recommended watch. While the images aren’t final by any means, they do a great job of giving you a sense of what’s being built along Lenoir Street, more specifically to the south of the current amphitheater site as it sits today.

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by Leo Suarez

18 Years of RalConigraphy – The Study, and Love, of Downtown Raleigh

Today, let’s raise one up for the blog as we’ve made it 18 years since this thing has started. I am pretty sure there are some of you that have been with me since the beginning so for those folks, I thank you for sticking around. For the newcomers, as always, welcome and I hope you’ll find the content here somewhat interesting. The sister site, the DTRaleigh Community, is always interesting and I hope you’ll consider joining the conversation there as well.

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by Leo Suarez

Checking in on Fayetteville Street at the end of 2024

It’s been talked about all over the place that Fayetteville Street has still not bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. From my point of view, the street does seem to be in transition as a once office-heavy corridor adjusts to a region that has embraced work from home culture. I’m optimistic and am showing patience these days, believing that the street will find it’s way over time. That’s why I’m happy to read this article from Axios Raleigh highlighting the first glimpses of change taking place on North Carolina’s Main Street.

I thought it could be fun to go block-by-block and describe what’s to offer on the ground floor as of the end of 2024. The more places to visit, the more people there should be. That, in the end, adds to the vitality of the street.

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by Leo Suarez

Taking a Look at the GoRaleigh Frequent Network

A new bus route, the #9 Hillsborough, started service in September of this year, offering 15-minute frequency between downtown and NC State seven days a week. This got me thinking about other bus routes that operate every 15 minutes—our definition of “high frequency” here in Raleigh.

I’m guessing you probably didn’t hear about this new route as you don’t use GoRaleigh. I feel confident with the claim as it’s estimated that only 2% of the Raleigh population uses the GoRaleigh bus system. (I may be off by a few percentage points but the point is, it’s pretty low) However, as Bus Rapid Transit grabs headlines these days, it’s the small details that are going unnoticed and there’s a case to reconsider GoRaleigh as part of your mobility toolkit.

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by Leo Suarez

My Summer 2024 E-Bike Retrospective

Raleigh is Poised for a Leap in Cycling Activity Thanks to Electric Bicycles

This is my current thinking after my family purchased a pair of e-bikes in Spring 2024. After putting almost 400 miles on them between my wife and me, I’m convinced we’re closer to more bicycle adoption in Raleigh. If the infrastructure continues to improve, the numbers will keep climbing.

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by Leo Suarez

Dive Into the Final Report That Will Reinvigorate Downtown Raleigh

Recently, the Downtown Raleigh Alliance (DRA) released the final draft of the Downtown Raleigh Economic Development Strategy, the ongoing study that hopes to revitalize urban Raleigh post-pandemic. We talked about part 1 earlier this year, with a heavy focus on Fayetteville Street, and now we have the complete report which lays out new ideas and a bold vision for downtown. Here are the many ways to dive right into it:

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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.

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