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.
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.
Hello, Raleigh! Since launching the New Raleigh Flag website a couple months ago we’ve received lots of questions online and in person about the new flag campaign and the flag’s design. DTRaleigh has graciously offered us this opportunity to respond to some of those questions publicly on this forum. Thanks to everyone for your support and interest. Here we go:
Q: Where is this project coming from? What’s the motivation behind it? A: Raleigh is a vibrant, thriving city with a rich history and a promising future. Raleighites love living here. We’re proud to claim Raleigh as our home town. What if we had a unifying symbol that served as a visual expression of this civic pride? We have an opportunity to establish such a symbol by adopting a new flag. A flag with a simple but memorable image can provide a sense of identity – something that, when you see it, makes you say “yep, that’s Raleigh.” That’s what we’re after.
Raleigh residents have long felt that the city could have a better flag. Our historic flag has been around for 120 years but has never been widely used. The prospect of designing a new flag came up in the Raleigh community six or seven years ago. There was a lot of chatter about it online. People posted new design ideas on Twitter and Reddit. The matter was discussed by the city council. But the conversation fizzled, and in the end nothing came of it. With time on our hands during the pandemic lockdown, a group of residents resolved to revive the initiative to take up a new flag. This campaign is the result of that effort.
Q: What’s wrong with our current flag? A: The first step is admitting that we have…well, let’s call it…an opportunity. Our historic flag has a charming story behind it, but it doesn’t function well as a flag. It doesn’t follow the principles of good flag design – it’s too complex, it’s difficult to produce, and its details get lost when the flag is glimpsed from a distance. For these reasons the city hasn’t seen widespread adoption of the historic flag.
To see a counter example, check out the flag of Durham. If you visit Durham you’ll find this flag and its image all over the place. Attend a Durham Bulls game and you’ll see tons of people wearing representations of the flag. Durham has really made their flag work for them. They’ve embraced it as their symbol. By contrast, how frequently do you see the historic Raleigh flag flying around town? How often do you see anyone wearing images of the Raleigh flag, or using it as an icon? The complexity of the historic Raleigh flag makes this sort of adoption impractical.
Q: But the old flag is endearing. And it’s part of our history. Can’t we just keep it? A: If you have an affinity for the historic flag, by all means, fly it! But we can complement the historic flag with a more recognizable standard for the city. A good outcome would be for Raleigh to do what Charlotte did and adopt a new, simpler flag as an alternate flag to live alongside the historic flag. That way the historic flag can remain an official flag of the city and can continue to be used ceremonially. And the new flag can be flown wherever a simple, instantly recognizable banner is preferred. The new flag’s emblem can also be adapted and used in other contexts, such as on clothing and other personal items.
Q: Isn’t it weird for a city to adopt a new flag when it already has one? A: Not at all. In fact many cities have adopted new flags over recent years. As awareness of good flag design principles has spread, cities across the country have undertaken revamps of their flags, resulting in some striking new designs. You can find examples on our website.
Q: Why wasn’t there any public input into this? A: This is public input. This is a grassroots movement expressing the opinion that we can have a better flag and this is how that flag should look.
Q: Shouldn’t we have started with a design competition, like the ones Milwaukee and Lincoln held? A: We’re already happy with the new design and would like to have it adopted. And in any case, the initiators of this project wouldn’t have had the time, money, or visibility to facilitate a large-scale design contest. But if someone out there would like to organize a competition, please do! We’ll be happy to enter our design.
Q: How did you choose the colors and design elements on the flag? A: We wanted to stick with the themes expressed on the historic flag: that Raleigh is known as the City of Oaks and is named for Sir Walter Raleigh. The acorn embodies the City of Oaks theme. The diamonds are taken from Sir Walter’s coat of arms, which is a red shield with five silver diamonds in diagonal. In the new design we reuse the colors from the coat of arms and the historic flag. We wanted to retain the essence of the historic flag, while boiling its devices down to a simple, eye-catching emblem.
Q: Why doesn’t the new design include other elements from the historic flag, such as the deer? A: A deer serves as the “crest” in Sir Walter Raleigh’s heraldic achievement, which is depicted on the reverse side of the historic flag. We omitted the crest and other elements of the achievement in an effort to keep the new design uncluttered, heeding a basic principle of good flag design. Detailed images are out of place on flags. For instance, city seals like the one shown on the front of the historic flag don’t work well on flags because they have too much detail to be made out at a distance. They’re better used on paper documents, for which they were designed in the first place. So instead of reproducing the seal with the oak tree in our design, we captured the City of Oaks theme with the acorn.
Similarly, while heraldic achievements can contain fascinating and fanciful symbols like Sir Walter’s deer crest, achievements are intended for display in a stationary context, not on a moving flag. Historically, heraldic achievements were commonly exhibited outside the tents of knights or other combatants, where passers-by could pause to regard them and learn about their owners. In more recent times, achievements typically appear as plaques on walls or carvings above doorway lintels. In these fixed settings, a viewer can study an achievement at leisure, taking time to appreciate its details and their symbolism. We’d love to see Sir Walter’s heraldic achievement displayed around the city on plaques and statuary. But the achievement has too much detail for a flag. A flag needs to be simple so it can be immediately recognized at a glance. For this reason we omitted the crest, torse, and motto from the new flag design. We reused only the coat of arms itself – the shield – because the coat of arms is the key component of a heraldic achievement and is always guaranteed to be unique to its bearer – in this case, Walter Raleigh. In this way we captured the two main themes of the historic flag while keeping the design free of other trappings.
Q: Why does the acorn’s cap look so smooth? A real acorn cap is bumpy. A: Of all the questions we’ve gotten, this one is probably our favorite. It’s true; the acorn isn’t anatomically correct. We stylized its body, giving it a shield-like shape to better integrate it with the coat of arms. And we rounded the cap to make it flow with the curved shape of the body. As for the lack of bumpiness: any detail added to the acorn would increase the cost of construction of the flag, because more detail means more cuts must be made in the flag material. And it’s hard to make out this sort of detail when a flag is moving in a breeze at a distance, so it’s not worth the cost. We therefore went with smooth lines all around. We feel we’ve struck a good balance between style and simplicity, omitting unnecessary details while still coming up with a cool emblem.
Q: Wouldn’t it have been better to move on from the City of Oaks and Walter Raleigh themes and come up with something completely new and different? A: Throughout Raleigh’s history its identity has been associated with oak trees and Sir Walter Raleigh. The city retained this identity even as it underwent great change through the past centuries. While we look forward to the amazing things we’ll accomplish in the future, and to seeing what Raleigh will become as it continues to evolve, we cherish the symbolism that the city has carried through history to our present day. We’ve sought to preserve that symbolism while adapting it into a modern, iconic emblem on the new flag. We love the result. And we must ask: If not this symbolism, then what?
Q: Are you just trying to make money from this? A: No. The flags and other gear for sale on our website are being sold at cost. The flag design isn’t copyrighted. It’s in the public domain and is free for use by anyone, even for commercial purposes. Our mission is simply to bring the city a great flag – not to make money. If anything, we’d love to see local merchandisers earn revenue from flag-themed gear.
Q: So what’s the plan? How will you drive this to adoption? Will flag-waving crowds be marching to city hall soon? A: At the moment this is a social issue rather than a political issue. We need to continue to build awareness of the movement and promote social adoption. As more people begin to fly the flag and display its image publicly, political adoption will flow naturally from there.
Q: Okay, I’m on board. How can I help? A: Tell your friends! Follow our social media accounts and spread the word online – every post, share, and re-tweet builds awareness. Buy some swag and sport it around town. And, of course, buy and fly a flag!
Q: I have some ideas. How can I reach you to share them? E-mail us! We’re always looking for ideas and would love to welcome new team members. You can reach us at info@newraleighflag.com.
A rezoning case (see Z-9-22 here) that’s been in progress throughout the year involves The Depot, the long warehouse situated at the end of West Davie Street fronted by the delicious Videri Chocolate Factory. Owned by the North Carolina Railroad, a desire to develop more of their properties seems to be part of their future. The rezoning would allow for up to 20 stories of new development and could possibly alter the layout of the existing Depot building.
To dive right into things, the presentation and discussion from the August 9, 2022 meeting of the planning commission, embedded below, (or watch it on YouTube) is the best place to start. The commission has recommended approval of the rezoning and it next goes to city council for overall approval.
Earlier in the year, the rezoning started at the Raleigh Historic Development Commission and that group recommended to deny this rezoning request. However, throughout the year, conditions have been added that would save some of the historic structures and possibly make the rezoning more palatable to city leaders.
Looking at the aerial photo from Google Maps as well as Exhibit A (above) from the commission presentation, we are actually talking about the The Depot building and the parking lot. The section where Videri is located currently is the head house of the building and plans are for it to remain. The rest of the Depot building could be partially or entirely removed as part of the future development.
For completeness, the request also wants to rezone a property on the other side of the tracks. If you look at the Google Maps aerial, you’ll see the former train station site. It has since been demolished and is a gravel parking lot now.
If approved in its current form, the rezoning conditions around the Depot would preserve the head house as is and any new additions to it must have complimentary materials. There also must be a 30 foot wide pedestrian walkway between Davie and Cabarrus street. That could look something like this.
The architect, Gensler, proposes a mix of uses and buildings that compliment the Depot as well as the rest of the warehouse district. A “strong retail base” was mentioned in order to support active uses along the pedestrian walkway, shown in the proposed site plan above.
The rezoning hits the city council starting at their meeting on September 20.
My thoughts on this are evolving. If you watched the commission video above, members of planning commission were definitely feeling emotional trying to find a way to preserve the building that the entire historic district is named after. It is called, “The Depot Historic District” after all so demolishing most of it seems unfortunate.
I have however always disliked the surface parking lot and welcome the new buildings and the pedestrian walkway. The Depot can be pretty active on nights and especially on weekends but I’m just not sure it’s being used to its full potential.
It always seems like it’s the parking in new developments that take up the most space and cause older buildings to be demolished. The new proposed site plan replaces the majority of the Depot with structured parking underneath new apartments. I can’t help but to continue to roll my eyes at the thought of this. Realistically, even though we don’t require any parking in downtown Raleigh, the city is just too car-dependent for new projects to offer less parking or none at all.
I do think that nearby project The Dillon gives me hope that a new development could be built that keeps some of the character in place and creates a whole new pedestrian experience with active uses. I also think being such a big transit supporter that I can’t fight more density near our Raleigh Union Station.
You also have to consider that as of today, if they wanted to, North Carolina Railroad could demolish everything and build from scratch. There are no protections in place. However, in exchange for an increasing in zoning allowances, the head house would be incorporated into the new development.
It’s not great but it feels like a strong compromise.
In June, the city’s neighborhood meeting calendar posted an update for a possible rezoning for properties along Hillsborough Street including the beloved local spot, Char Grill. The news picked it up. Comments were made. Opinions were everywhere.
To be clear, the rezoning request has not been submitted as of this writing but I want to mention two items right up front:
Char Grill owns their lot and plans to incorporate a Char Grill location in any new development
Comments from them suggest a thoughtful development with respect to any historic structures nearby
Instead of typing out comments online and looking at Google Maps (well I did some of that) it was time to get a steak junior and walk the block.
NOTE: I call it the “Char Grill Block” since that’s the most important thing there (let’s be honest) but not all properties are planned for a rezoning.
From the neighborhood meeting notes, the following properties seem to be targeted for rezoning. Char Grill is on the southern end about midway between Boylan and Glenwood.
Walk the Block
Let’s start with Char Grill and go clockwise around the map shown above. Since the rezoning application hasn’t been submitted yet, I’m also not going to get into possible heights and conditions today. Let’s just look at buildings.
Char Grill doesn’t need an introduction here. Open since 1959, the burger and fries spot has one of the best walk-up windows in downtown. It’s not exactly a drive-thru in the modern sense but plenty of space is given to parking also.
On the corner of Hillsborough and Boylan is a closed gas station. Built in 1952, it has gone through a variety of gas and car service brands. Today, it seems to be used for parking for nearby construction projects. When I was walking around, there is work going on for something in a retail space across the street at Bloc 83 and the workers were parking here.
Next is a gravel parking lot. Not much else to add here.
The environmental engineering firm Smith Gardner operates out of a few houses on this block also. Along Boylan, is this red brick house from 1910. Employees probably park in the adjacent lot.
At the corner of Boylan and Willard, we have Elmwood. Elmwood is a beautiful house from 1813 and is currently used as office space. Elmwood sits on the National Register of Historic Places. The side yard along Willard is a gravel parking lot.
Finally, there are two more 1910 homes along Willard being used as offices by Smith Gardner, shown above. Their backyards are basically gravel parking lots also. Turns out, all three houses that Smith Gardner is using is owned by the same company.
Speculation
No details are out there of what is going to be built, we’re not at that stage yet. I feel in the minority here as Elmwood, not Char Grill, is the property I’m most interested in with respect to any new developments. Of course, people are most distracted by the Char Grill being demolished, the youngest building mentioned in this post, but I’m in the camp that honestly thinks they could use an upgrade. (or at least a serious power wash)
For me, Char Grill’s walk-up window is fantastic. If the new development can get a Char Grill in there with an active walk-up window, some outdoor tables, and indoor seating like their newer locations, it’ll still be a hit.
Focusing on the older homes behind Char Grill, you can’t help admit that there is a lot of gravel parking spaces that could be used more efficiently. The brick building at 14 North Boylan could be moved to sit on Elmwood’s gravel lot. If you do that, you square up a nice property for some taller development. It could look something like this.
Again, just speculation but the houses can be saved and the red square in my sketch up here can be developed. If the houses continue to be office space, parking can be tucked inside the new development.
We’ll get back to this once the rezoning is submitted and discussion by planning commission and city council takes place. Until then, keep eating steak juniors.
Adopted this July, the North Carolina Legislature’s 2022-2023 budget has a few items worth noting for the downtown government office complex. Probably the quietest part of downtown Raleigh, the government complex is a collection of office buildings housing many departments that work and support the state-level government.
Lately, I’ve been less active on the front-side of the Raleigh House of Connoisseur but have been heads down working with creating a new map. I don’t think I’m finished and honestly, haven’t even started any type of analysis, but I wanted to put an update out there and share something with readers.
I was inspired when I stumbled on this map of Paris, introduced by the tweet shown below. Technically, it was something I wanted to see if I could build for Raleigh but also, it would be interesting to see how the buildings of today have held up. Are we seeing “mass teardowns” as some people think? What other questions might we begin to answer?
Buildings of Paris from before 1800 vs 1800-1914. A reminder of how overwhelmingly what is widely celebrated in Europe's urban heritage is really the heritage of the long nineteenth century. From this brilliant database: https://t.co/fzXP1SFIQ0pic.twitter.com/8VAwR41mMK
I then found the “ingredients” on the city’s open data websites around Raleigh parcel data and using the “year built” field, I starting analyzing over 130,000 pieces of data.
The Map
The map I put together shows Raleigh’s existing stock of buildings as of May 2022. It’s important to note that this is a snapshot in time, not buildings constructed over time. For example, if a home built in the 1950s was torn down for a new construction home in 2015, the parcel would show in the 2010s decade, not the 1950s.
Please note that the property shapes have been optimized so that the map is somewhat usable. Don’t take them literally.
I grouped properties by decades with an additional “Pre-1920s” category. This was driven mostly by number of buildings as the counts before 1920 is pretty low. Here’s a bar chart.
That it?
Probably not. I’m releasing it into the wild and see how it sits for awhile. We are discussing it on the Community on this thread so if you have any questions or thoughts, please join us.
I’m hoping to continue tinkering with this map and see what we can extract from it. Questions I have could be:
Are there neighborhoods that have been completely turned over?
Are certain neighborhoods less susceptible to teardowns than others?
Where do you see a mix of buildings being produced at a constant rate?
Why is the building count in the 2010s so much lower?
How might annexations and border expansions played a role over time?
How might protectionist overlays, like NCODs and historic overlays, played a role?
Embedded above (or here on YouTube) is the video of Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson presenting some data and observations about crime in Glenwood South for this year. The numbers are up and it’s been leading to concerns from nearby residents and the council overall.
The News and Observer started things off nicely:
The chief showed crime data comparing the 10 months leading up the pandemic and the last 10 months. Since June 2021, there have been 76 weapon violations, including 64 concealed weapon violations. That compares to 16 violations from June 2019 to March 2020.
There also is a sizable increase in traffic-related violations, but Patterson said the department increased enforcement and the number of traffic stops during that time.
Raleigh police chief makes recommendations to address rising crime in Glenwood South via newsobserver.com
The N&O article also has a graphic showing year-to-date (Jan 1 to Mar 20) figures from 2019 to 2022. Drug-related incidents are up as well as larceny and assaults. As expected, there is a dip in 2020 and 2021 due to pandemic restrictions and lockdowns.
Looking at these figures, I just had to see more as data from 2019 to 2022, with a pandemic right in the middle, may not tell us the whole story.
The Data
I went to the dataset, showing datapoints from June 2014, and built up my own app with charts and tables. You can dive into that here.
The site I built does the following:
Shows the Glenwood South map and only takes in incidents that occur inside the boundary area
Year-to-date figures for top crime categories from 2015 to 2022
Displays Total Yearly Incidents by top crime categories
Displays Total Yearly Incidents for all crime categories
Pulls data nightly and updates the year-to-date figures
What I’m calling “Top Crime Categories” are the types of crime, as identified by the data, that when summed up, represent about 2/3 of the total incidents. The remainder incident types seem to be so few in occurrence that it’s hard to know if a trend is taking place. I’ll just remove those from the “Top” charts for now.
Top Crime Categories include:
Assault
Larceny
Drugs
Weapons Violation
Vandalism
“All Other Offenses”
Drug Violations
I guess I could have added up Drugs and Drug Violations but I kept the data “pure” for now. Also, I’m not sure what “All Other Offenses” means exactly so this one might qualify to be ignored. Take it for what it’s worth.
Last thing to point out, I start with 2015 as the dataset starts in the middle of 2014 so a partial year isn’t helping that much. 2015 is great as we get five full years before the pandemic lockdowns took place starting in March 2020.
Yearly Totals
Indeed, when we look at just the top crime categories as well as all crime categories, the number of incidents has been increasing since 2015. It actually went down in 2018, not by much, but continued on its trajectory in 2019.
Again, the big drop in 2020 is most likely due to the pandemic lockdowns and we can see the recovery in 2021. If we remove 2020, some items to note:
number of assault, larceny, and weapons incidents have increased
number of vandalism and drugs are more of less the same
“all other offenses” has gone down
I’m not sure we can figure out what’s going on but there are some things to note. Consider that since 2015, more development has taken place. The number of residents have increased and the number of restaurants and bars opened has increased.
Does increased food and beverage sales lead to more crime? Not necessarily but if we think for a moment that there are more people in Glenwood South, leading to more F&B sales, we could argue that more people in a district could lead to more crime. The above figures show a 29% growth in F&B sales from 2015 to 2021 for Glenwood South. In addition:
From 2015 to 2021, Glenwood South had an 18% increase in crime incidents overall
From 2015 to 2021, Glenwood South had a 36% increase in TOP crime incidents
The real comparison, saved for a later post most likely, is to compare this activity with other districts.
Year-to-Date Figures
The app tracking the data runs nightly so if you want to check back later this year to see how we’re doing, you can do just that. Here’s the snapshot up until April 12, 2022.
Year-to-date figures are pretty much in-line with everything stated above so I’ll leave it right there.
Final Thoughts
The police chief had some suggestions to try and curb this increase in incidents including adding metal detectors at bars as well as changing Glenwood Avenue to a one-way street to keep car traffic flowing more smoothly. A catastrophic incident is not something anyone wants so it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the trends.
We’ll see if any changes come from the city to try and smooth down these numbers. What I really want to see is a comparison of this activity and the number of incidents to other areas to get a sense of context. That’s a post for later this year perhaps.
I have a soft spot for Nash Square. It’s an urban oasis with city views throughout the winter, leafless months but then becomes an umbrella during the warmer months. It’s also where I got married so there’s that.
Nash Square is more of a ceremonial park rather than one for play and big events. The firefighter’s memorial in the center generates a feeling of pause and reflection. Also, I can’t name a better spot for an outdoor lunch on a park bench than here. It’s just lovely.
While Nash Square isn’t changing any time soon, the blocks around it have some big plans or construction underway. Nash Square bridges the Warehouse District with the Fayetteville Street District. There’s plenty of topics to look at here that I had to map it out. (as I do)
Let’s look at the eight blocks around Nash Square in a clockwise order.
Block #1: Raleigh Municipal Block
The municipal block, or city government block, has the current city council chambers and the Raleigh Municipal Building, shown above. It’s more or less the center of the city government offices and there are big plans for a new municipal campus on this block.
A multi-phased project to put larger towers on the site in order to consolidate the offices of our city’s government has been in planning for a few years. This would most likely see the demolition of the building above and the former Police Headquarters, now empty, next door.
I’ll leave it there but will drop this link to the city’s website for more information. The site lists construction starting in “Late 2022/early 2023”. raleighnc.gov/projects/civic-campus
Block #2: AT&T Building
There are no updates on this block. The AT&T building facing the square has a real nice mural but for the most part, this block is business as usual. I don’t expect much from this block with most of it being the AT&T infrastructure building, First Presbyterian Church, and nice, two-story retail buildings dating from the early 1900s.
Block #3: The Nexus
To the east of Nash Square is the former location of the News & Observer. The Nexus was a multi-tower development planned for this sizeable property but the timing may have been unfortunate as the 2019 plans seemed to be put on hold due to the pandemic.
In March 2022, a rezoning request for the same property was approved, to increase the height limits from the current 20 up to the next allowable limit of 40. (see Z-43-2021, pdf link) Perhaps this suggest even grander plans from the developer? We’ll have to wait and see.
Block #4: Wake County Offices
No plans here, just Wake County office buildings including courtrooms and jail spaces as part of the Wake County Justice Center. The latter being a pretty nice building actually. I love those art deco fins lit up at night.
Block #5: Hotels Incoming
To the south of Nash Square, within the sounds and smells of Whiskey Kitchen, there are three lots worth mentioning. The first has a big crane over it today as a dual-brand hotel is coming soon. A Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites hotel is planned to open next year.
On the opposite corner, we have an empty lot for another planned hotel. Demolition of buildings took place in early 2020 and the lot has sat empty ever since. However, a rezoning is in underway for this lot (see Z-12-2022, pdf link) to increase the height limits from the current 20 stories to the next allowable limit of 40. That likely means construction won’t happen this year as new development plans may be in the works.
Finally, the third lot is the former Firestone lot. It too went through a rezoning in 2021 to increase the allowable height from 20 to 40. (see Z-24-2021, pdf link)
Block 6: Warehouse district historic
The block of 300 West Martin Street is the Warehouse District gem. I feel that without it, there’s just no point in using that name anymore. There are no projects underway but another rezoning is worth watching.
Former plans to build a residential tower behind the buildings shown above haven’t materialized. However, rezoning Z-78-2021 (pdf link) asks for more height and includes conditions to keep the buildings above. The developments are more for the surface parking lots behind the old warehouse buildings. This seems like a nice mix of uses so we’ll see how it goes if the rezoning is approved later this year.
Block #7 and #8: Highwoods Bets on Parking
The block to the west of Nash Square is mostly a mish-mash of surface lots and short buildings. From the square, the Park Devereux condos are the standard for park-side views. I love that building. As for the rest of the block, it’s mostly the same as it was ten years ago.
One exception is the demolition of buildings on the northwest corner for a surface parking lot. Highwoods properties owns this lot and as is their style, they love to sit on parking lots in urban areas.
There are other rezoning cases in place but I’ll punt this one to a July 2021 post that covers this piece of the Warehouse District more in depth.
