Pic of the Week

Northeast corner of Jones and Harrington Streets, February 2017

Northeast corner of Jones and Harrington Streets, February 2017

Southeast corner of Lane and Harrington Streets, February 2017

Southeast corner of Lane and Harrington Streets, February 2017

I present two wide shots of the currently under construction The Metropolitan Apartments. Judging by the height of the stairwells relative to the wood construction apartments, the building is almost topping out along Jones Street. There is still a lot of room for more units as you go down Harrington and turn around Lane Street.

At this pace, the units along Jones could have residents moving in before the year’s end. August 2017 was a planned move-in date about 6 months ago, according to the folks behind the project.

8-Room Boutique Hotel, Guest House Raleigh, Takes Big Step Forward

400 Block of South Bloodworth Street, February 2017.

400 Block of South Bloodworth Street, February 2017.

This past weekend, two historic homes rolled through downtown Raleigh from previous sites to new ones. The two houses along the 100 block of East Lenoir Street were moved to the 400 block of South Bloodworth Street to make way for a new 12-story, Element-branded hotel. Demolition of the Baptist Convention Headquarters building should follow soon.

Catch up on that project here.

Ahead of schedule!!

A post shared by Guest House Raleigh (@guesthouseraleigh) on

As the new hotel is being worked on, one of the two historic houses will also be used for some downtown hospitality. The Gorham House will be renovated this year and there are plans for it to house an 8-room boutique hotel called Guest House Raleigh. You can follow the progress of the project on their Instagram account.

For a boutique hotel, this area of downtown is actually a great location being only two blocks from City Market and four from Fayetteville Street. It also won’t feel like the edge of town as progress on Stone’s Warehouse, to the east of Guest House, should start up as the developers finally closed on the site.

A huge congratulations to those behind Guest House Raleigh. I’m hoping big success there so others might take a stab at going the boutique route rather than the safer, more sterile hotel route.

New Townhomes at West and Lenoir Called West + Lenoir

Rendering of West + Lenoir Townhomes

Submitted rendering of West + Lenoir. Click for larger.

Now for sale are the 12 townhomes that we’ve touched on before in the West South Street area. The West + Lenoir Townhomes are billed as luxury homes with a long list of amenities including a private rooftop terrace. Location is the key selling point here, according to the realtors. The location puts you close to downtown Raleigh as well as the future Dorothea Dix Park.

The 12 units range from a 1,300 square foot, 2-bedroom, 2.5 bath with 2-car garage to 1,729 square foot 3-bedroom, 3.5 bath with a single space garage. Prices range from $469K to $579k as you can see below.

Rendering of West + Lenoir Townhomes

Submitted rendering of West + Lenoir. Click for larger.

Rendering of West + Lenoir Townhomes

Submitted rendering of West + Lenoir. Click for larger.

Rendering of West + Lenoir Townhomes

Submitted rendering of West + Lenoir. Click for larger.

Rendering of West + Lenoir Townhomes

Click for larger.

Those rooftop views look great but may get crowded if the plans at 522 Harrington take place.

Townhomes seem to be the luxury item right now in downtown Raleigh. I recall downtown condos being the “luxury” item in the mid 2000s with lots of rentals following afterwards. Perhaps we’re at the beginning of a townhome boom. Or maybe not.

Current site at West and Lenoir, February 2017.

Current site at West and Lenoir, February 2017.

Pic of the Week

Email readers: This blog post has a virtual reality image. Read the post on the blog to see it.

If you haven’t been by in awhile, there is a lot of activity taking place around The Dillon site. The parking deck is starting to rise up and both apartment buildings are in the beginning phases of their work. I’m referring to the ones on both sides of Hargett Street.

Enjoy the VR view, taken on February 21 as I get back into my blog rhythm.

Rendering of 301 Hillsborough Shows Double Tower Development

Rendering of 301 Hillsborough, provided by The Lundy Group.

Click for larger

Posted here is the latest rendering of 301 Hillsborough, which comes courtesy of The Lundy Group. It was released a few weeks ago so it may not be new to some readers but I’m putting it here for posterity.

For reference, in the foreground you’ll see a gray box of a building. That is where The Flying Saucer (and a plate with my name on it!) currently reside. Morgan Street is going from bottom center towards right center of the rendering.

To see more detail, check out this November 2016 post.

Dissecting Hotel Designs in the latest Administrative Alternates

These Administrative Alternates for Design basically write the blog post themselves.

Looking at two AADs submitted on the city’s development website, one for the Hilton Dual-Brand on Davie Street and the other for the Courtyard Marriott on McDowell Street, it looks like the building design is asking for an exception to the standards defined in the UDO. It also comes with more renderings which I’ve posted here.

I may take some time to understand the requests and get into them in the comments but for now, I want to share the information being presented as well as the included renderings.

From AAD-005-17:

The proposed Hilton Dual Brand Hotel at the corner of West Davies and South McDowell streets is a dual branded hotel with shared lobby and facilities. The hotel has a total of 259 guest rooms (Garden in has 136 rooms, Homewood Suites has 123 rooms). The parking garage provides 139 spaces (including 4 regular H/C and 1 H/C van spaces) The building has 260,890 gross square feet over 13 floors.

The lobby and public functions are at the ground floor and much of the second floor. The front of the second floor interfaces with the Lobby, with the support spaces internal to the building mass. The garage entrance is at the west, upper portion of Davie Street, leads to the back of the second floor and feeds the garage floors on the 3rd and 4th levels. The 5th-14th floors are the guestroom floors that are split between the brands; Hilton Garden Inn and Hilton Homewood Suites. The 14th floor also has a restaurant with two large patio areas open to the public. The north patio area terminates at an unoccupiable vegetative roof.

Through material use and detailing, the building’s base is articulated in stone and extends the base in brick to the 5 th floor cornice. This lower base section uses larger scale geometry to express solidity of the building. Above the 5 th floor cornice, the middle of the building expresses fenestrated massing in EIFS with varied depth planes and molding profiles. The building corners continue in brick to the 10 th floor, visually framing and anchoring the EIFS body of the building. The corner of the building over the main entrance also steps back at this point giving deference to the street. The upper three floors over the brick corners terminate lower that the EIFS body of the building. The 14 th floor at the street corner and McDowell Street steps back into a patio, giving depth and articulates the roof line so it does not appear as a monolithic mass.

The two story entrance lobby insets at the corner on both street elevations for a significant width, offering an unobstructed view through curtainwall glazing into the lobby, bar and restaurant. The second floor public functions are open to the two story lobby. The areas west (on Davies Street) and north (on McDowell Street) also have two story windows that partially screen the interior from exterior at the restaurant (Davies St) and the pool deck (McDowell).

Rendering of Dual Brand Hilton Garden, corner of McDowell and Davie Streets

Corner of McDowell and Davie Streets. Click for larger

Rendering of Dual Brand Hilton Garden, view from Davie Street

View from Davie Street. Click for larger

Rendering of Dual Brand Hilton Garden, view from McDowell Street

View from McDowell Street. Click for larger

Rendering of Dual Brand Hilton Garden, back of the building

Back of the building. Click for larger

Sad to see the more glassy version of this project, shown here in this May 2015 post, go away.

IF you want to get in to the details including floor plans, take a look at the AAD document.

Next, let’s take a look at AAD-003-17, referring to the Courtyard Marriott for McDowell Street. Only renderings with this one. As discussed in a recent post about this project, these may be slightly out-of-date, specifically that brown-brick “hat and drapes” shown below.

Rendering for downtown Raleigh Courtyard Marriot

Corner of McDowell and Cabarrus Streets. Click for larger

Rendering for downtown Raleigh Courtyard Marriot

Looking east down Cabarrus Street. Click for larger

Rendering for downtown Raleigh Courtyard Marriot

Back of the building on Gale Street. Click for larger

Taking A Look At The Future Courtyard Marriott on McDowell Street

Rendering of future hotel on McDowell Street

Rendering of future hotel on McDowell Street. Rendering comes courtesy of Winwood Hospitality Group.

That’s it. 2017 is going to be the year of the downtown hotel. However, you could probably see that coming if you really paid attention last year, right?

Anyway, let’s take a look at the recently submitted plans for a hotel on McDowell Street, one of a few in the pipeline for downtown. Above is the latest rendering submitted to the blog from the local developer, Winwood Hospitality Group. A big thanks goes out to them. (Note to the commenters who’ve talked about this already, this rendering is slightly different than the one shown in the N&O)

SR-003-17, the submitted plans on the city’s development page, shows a 192-room, 12-story hotel and parking deck for the Enterprise Rent-A-Car lot along Cabarrus Street between McDowell and Gale Street. See the map below to get an idea of the proposed hotel’s footprint.

Corner of Cabarrus and McDowell Street, January 2017

Click for larger snapshot of this 3D view from Google Maps. Site of the new hotel is highlighted.

Corner of Cabarrus and McDowell Street, January 2017

Corner of Cabarrus and McDowell Street, January 2017

The new hotel would be a Courtyard Marriott brand and the building footprint would pretty much consume the entire property. Taking a look at the site plan, you can guess that the planned restaurant and retail spaces would face McDowell Street with the lobby entrance and parking deck along Cabarrus. I’ve included it below for your convenience.

Site Plan from SR-003-17

Click for larger. Site Plan from SR-003-17.

Looking at the area, it’s unfortunate that even more parking was added to this hotel as a plethora of decks are available directly next door. I can’t back it up with stats but perhaps there might be a way to leverage underutilized spaces for the hotel rather than adding even more supply to downtown. I’m curious to see how many spaces are built here as downtown hotels only require 1 space for every 2 rooms.

Looking south down McDowell Street, January 2017

Looking south down McDowell Street, January 2017

Pic of the Week

Residence Inn construction site, January 2017

Residence Inn construction site, January 2017

Checking in on the progress at the Residence Inn on Salisbury Street. Most of the exterior materials are in place and the hotel is planning to be open this Spring.

I can’t say I’m very excited about the color palette used on this project, especially on the rear (west facing) side of the building. When someone posts an updated “money shot,” you’ll see the Residence Inn looking so bleak, so boring, that it blends in, almost out-of-sight from the view on South Saunders. (I don’t have a photo but when I see one, I’ll post it in the comments)

Here are the colors that I’m talking about, looking at it from Lenoir Street.

Residence Inn construction site, January 2017

A lot of folks clamor for better architecture in this city. What about more interesting color choices? Is beige, gray, and brown paint cheaper than greens, blues, and reds?