Townhomes on West Street
The townhomes called West + Lenoir are taking shape along West Street. The units are almost all sold at the time of this writing.
Category / New Construction
Pic of the Week
The NitNeil Partners storage facility on South is starting to take form. The four-story project will, fortunately, be much more urban in form than the newer ones popping up on Capital Boulevard. Just take a look at their rendering below.
Rendering courtesy of Nitneil Partners
The Apartment Mid-rise Boom is Fading in Downtown Raleigh
It hit me recently during a conversation in a downtown coffee shop that The Metropolitan apartments would have seen residents moving in this month. If you don’t know the history, the project, while under construction, met an unfortunate fate and went up in flames in March of this year.
The developers plan to rebuild and the site is currently being cleared.
If it wasn’t for the fire delaying the delivery of The Metropolitan, we could easily see the end to the multi-unit, mid-rise apartment product line in downtown Raleigh. At least for the foreseeable future.
Site of The Metropolitan Apartments fire site
Barring any new project announcements, the apartment pipeline would have ended with The Dillon opening in 2018. Taking a look at the latest list of projects released by the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, we can see that there are no planned projects similar to these.
To be clear, I’m referring to the 5-7 story, wood-construction buildings with a larger footprint. Typically to make these work, developers have had to acquire multiple properties and combine them.
That’s not to say the residential projects aren’t flowing. The product is just changing.
Smokey Hollow plans to bring 445 residential units in a 12-story building on Peace Street. FNB Tower will mix up office and 247 residential units across 22 stories. 400H will also mix office and 220 units in a 20-story building. Details are still light on 301 Hillsborough but with a similar style to the other projects there’s no reason to guess that more residential units could be included.
That’s 900 units across three projects right there.
Most recent rendering of 400H
The other side of the picture is the rise in townhome projects. These are adding infill to the periphery of downtown. Currently under construction, we have:
- The Saint – 17 units
- Hargett Place – 19 units
- 10 Arros – 10 units
- West + Lenoir – 12 units
- 611 West South – 42 units
- The Ware – 15 units
115 townhomes are in the works and more are in the planning stages.
Perhaps we’re at a point where combining multiple parcels for large footprint developments isn’t economically feasible for mid-rise buildings. There could be other changes in the market that are affecting this. Downtown could also be much more livable than before, enticing buyers to purchase units than rent.
Maybe there is a hold on projects as plans for a downtown soccer stadium and big infrastructure changes to Capital Boulevard need to pan out for developers to pitch new projects.
You could look at it from a lot of angles. It’s certainly a great topic to discuss.
Checking in on The Saint townhomes
Construction underway at The Saint
Construction for 17 new townhomes is underway along St. Mary’s Street between Jones and Lane Street. Called The Saint, these units are being billed as luxury with price tags on the higher end of the spectrum for downtown Raleigh townhomes.
A quick visit to the location recently shows the foundation work has begun and you can get a glimpse of the new alley-street that will cut from Jones to Lane to access the units.
With all high-end products comes high-end aerial video which I’ve embedded below for your enjoyment. (the views are nice, click here if you don’t see the video)
You can find out more about The Saint at their website.
Change in Design for City Gateway
Click for larger
City Gateway, the 10-story, energy-positive building planned for Kindley Street, is going through a bit of a design change. Peaking at the submitted Administrative Alternate for Design (AAD-24-17) on the city’s website, we can see some newer renderings for the building.
The change in materials and setback can be seen in these renderings compared to ones submitted back earlier in 2017.
Click for larger
The AAD hints at City Gateway being part of a “phased development” along Kindley Street with “a future extension to MLK Jr. Blvd.” Kindley to MLK, I can’t quite see it. Perhaps a connection to the northbound on-ramp but I think the elevation difference presents a challenge.
We’ll see how that one turns out but speculate for yourself on Google Maps.
Back to the building, it’ll definitely be something unique and the expanded office space is always welcome.
Pic of the Week
The Residence Inn is now complete and open for business. While the new hotel’s grand opening should be next month, it won’t stop anyone from booking a room today.
The ground-floor restaurant is still a work-in-progress and the retail space at the corner of Lenoir and Salisbury Street is looking for a tenant. However, the rooftop bar, named Tenth and Terrace, is open with some pretty nice south and southeasterly views.
Pic of the Week
Dirt is moving at the site of Boylan Flats, the five-story, 48-unit residential building along Boylan Avenue. (615 N Boylan) From what I’ve seen out there, this development is quieter than most with no released real estate info at this point in time. (and no approval drama either)
It’ll be interesting to see the layout of the building as this five-story building sits on a 0.23 acre site. Nearby, a developer wants to put a five-story boutique hotel on a 0.36 acre site which could fit nicely given that hotels have a two-to-one hotel room to parking ratio requirement.
Five stories may not sound so bad in this area of town.
Boutique Hotel Planned for Peace Street Pending Rezoning Request
At 615 West Peace Street, a request to rezone the property from 3 to 5 stories is working its way through the system. The developer wants to put a boutique hotel at the corner of Peace and Boylan.
At this point, only the request and information about the required meeting with nearby residents is posted on the city’s website. (see Z-017-17) I’m going to borrow some words from a regular commenter to the blog who was at that meeting.
In their initial pitch last night to neighbors, the developer promises a boutique hotel at that site but wants to exceed the NX-3-UG. The developer’s request came with no plans, elevations, or even design concepts to share. They have made no front-end investment in design services to sell their product but want neighbors to give their blessing to the zoning change to either 5 or 7 floors.
Thanks, John!
I kind of think that we have a wide gamut of proposed developments out there. Developers need a little salesmanship and need to do their homework regardless if they have a good idea or not. I really liked this article in the N&O comparing the pitches between 301 Hillsborough and 400 Hillsborough, both projects we’ve talked about on the blog.
You can see the reaction to a polished presentation versus the opposite.
It’s early on this project for Peace Street so we’ll see where it goes.