Category / New Construction

by Leo Suarez

Municipography, Downtown Hotel Parking and Moore Square Transit Station Renovation

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Municipography is a summary of current issues going through the Raleigh City Council and other municipal departments in the city. The point is to try to deliver any video, photos, and text associated with the discussions happening at City Hall or elsewhere. Since this is a downtown Raleigh blog, the focus is on the center of the city.

Downtown Hotel Parking Requirements

If the video above does not show for you, click here to watch it.

If the development of hotels in downtown Raleigh is of interest to you then you first need to jump back to this October 2015 post about the Downtown Hotel Market Study. (if you haven’t seen it already)

A point from that study that was discussed at this council meeting was the fact that the hotel parking requirements in downtown were the same as the rest of the city. One parking space was required for each hotel room built. However, with higher land prices and alternative transit options, that need was recommended to be too high and the city should explore reducing it.

From the council agenda:

At the October 20, 2015 meeting, City Council directed staff to investigate reducing parking requirements for downtown hotels in response to a recommendation presented as part of the Raleigh Downtown Hotel Market Study. The current requirement downtown is the same as the citywide standard: one parking space per room. Staff analysis finds that the parking requirement can be reduced by half or more without adverse impact, which would greatly improve the economics of downtown hotel development.

In the video above, there was some discussion among the council about sending this piece to the planning commission for a recommendation.

Councilor Mary-Ann Baldwin wanted the planning commission to explore reducing it to more than half. Councilor Bonner Gaylord even wanted to expand the reduction to other property types. Councilor Kay Crowder suggested that a trial be done first before implementing the changes.

The main takeaway from the discussion was that these reductions are a move that supports mass transit. With momentum building for the new Wake County Transit Plan and a possible referendum this year in order to finance this transit plan, the reduction in parking would further support these initiatives.

City Manager Ruffin Hall mentioned that a downtown comprehensive parking study was underway, looking at hotel parking and other uses so more data will be available in the near future.

It was decided that the request to planning commission would be only on the hotels parking piece rather than all parking due to the fact that some hotels are being planned in the immediate future. They might benefit from a quicker decision rather than wait for a complete parking strategy overhaul for downtown.

We’ll follow this next in planning commission.

GoRaleigh (formerly Moore Square) Transit Station Renovation

No video is attached to this one as this line item was in the consent agenda and approved during the council meeting without discussion. From the agenda:

Bids were opened for the GoRaleigh (formerly Moore Square) Transit Station Renovation Project December 3, 2015. The GoRaleigh Transit Station project will provide a comprehensive renovation to the Downtown Raleigh Transit Transfer Facility. Improvements will include but are not limited to new restrooms, crew quarters, northern stairwell, elevator, and ticket/information office. The facility will have enhanced passenger waiting areas and advanced technologies for customer convenience, such as Wi-Fi-access and real-time arrival and departure information. American South General Contractors Company submitted the lowest responsive bid of $9,560,000; the proposed award contains the addition of five alternates with a final proposed bid award of $9,671,000. American South General Contractors Company submitted the lowest base bid and remained the lowest bidder when factoring the alternate options. American South Contractors Company proposes to utilize 9.9 percent Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and 15.5 percent Small Disadvantage Minority and Women Owen Business (SDMWOB) firms. The Raleigh Transit Authority unanimously recommended this bid award during the December 10,2015 meeting.

I missed the renaming of the Moore Square Transit Station to the GoRaleigh Transit Station. I’m not surprised as the new branding is being pushed pretty hard throughout the system.

The overhaul of this station will be pretty extensive and could start this year. For more, here are two links for you as well as a rendering of the completed station below:

by Leo Suarez

Checking In on Market and Exchange Plaza

Exchange Plaza, December 2015

Exchange Plaza, December 2015

The overhaul of Market and Exchange plazas started in the Spring of 2015 and this project is hopefully nearing completion. Taking a looksee recently though, the plazas might not be ready for New Year’s. It would have been a nice bonus to be done before First Night but I’m sure plenty of events will take advantage of the new plazas next year.

Exchange Plaza (shown above) still has crew workers digging and most of the sitting wall hasn’t been installed yet. There’s better news for Market Plaza (shown below) as it really is starting to look like its renderings.

Market Plaza, December 2015

Market Plaza, December 2015

I’m really looking forward to these spaces being activated and creating new uses that weren’t taking place before.

by Leo Suarez

Union Station December 2015 Update

Future Raleigh Union Station

Not a breaking update but rather, here’s what we know so far. I walked by the site recently and still nothing new since the groundbreaking took place in May. (that’s seven months ago)

It seems we’ve been going through a financial obstacle course with this project. All interested should jump to the project page on the city’s website where you will find this piece of information:

At the March 3, 2015 Council meeting, the Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) team was authorized to proceed with bidding and finalization of a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) not to exceed $44,737,870.

In July and September of 2015, bids were received on the project which exceeded the estimate. The bid yielded a GMP of $60,000,000, which yielded a project gap of $15,300,000 when compared to the March estimate. Value engineering and steel rebid resulted in project savings, lowering the GMP to $54,700,000, leaving a $10,000,000 gap. Project partners have addressed the funding gap by identifying scope reductions totaling approximately $2,900,000. Remaining additional funding of $7,200,000 is required.

Various options were presented to Council at the Work Session on Oct. 20 and at the Nov. 3 City Council meeting, full funding, no scope reduction for Raleigh Union Station was approved with gap funding of $7,200,000, and a revised total project budget of $54,700,000.

*Union Station: Raleigh’s Multi-Modal Transit Center

The way I read it is that they wanted to do the project for about $10 million less than anyone was willing to do it for but in November, they figured it out.

Let’s have a good holiday season and then build a train station!

by Leo Suarez

Pic of the Week

The Link Apartments, November 2015

The Link Apartments on the corner of West and Jones Street is nearing completion. At the leasing office, I ran into someone that told me they could start having residents move in as early as this month but there are some floors that aren’t finished yet.

We’ll check back in when the sidewalks are done and the place is 100%. Until then, jump to their website for more information.

by Leo Suarez

A Walk Around the News & Observer Block

The News & Observer building in downtown Raleigh

It’s great to introduce a new project to follow here on the blog. Just this week, it was announced that the News & Observer has reached a deal to sell their headquarters site in downtown Raleigh to local developers. The deal is one of the biggest, coming in at $20.2 million for the 3-acre site. Having walked by there hundreds of times, I had to do it again but this time with this deal in mind.

The News & Observer owns a majority of the land on their block but not all of it. Here’s a quick map of the block and the properties involved.

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Between Martin/Hargett and McDowell/Salisbury Streets, the yellow and orange areas shown in the map are properties that were owned by the News & Observer. The yellow area is open for development. The orange indicates where McClatchy Interactive currently has a lease and this area is not part of the development deal.

According to the N&O, things will start taking shape on the southeast corner of the block.

The first phase will involve renovating the building at the corner of Martin and Salisbury streets that now houses The N&O’s printing presses. The N&O has signed a long-term lease to occupy about 50,000 square feet in the renovated building, which will also include street-level retail.

*N&O reaches deal to sell downtown Raleigh headquarters

That makes sense as the employees need space to work before demolishing the current site. It’s great to see the N&O employees staying in downtown Raleigh.

Corner of Martin and Salisbury Street

Corner of Martin and Salisbury Street

After that, there will be plenty of room for new construction and the development group will most likely work on the plans throughout next year. The article mentions a hotel and apartments.

There really are a lot of positives to this downtown site from what I see. The location puts you a few blocks from Fayetteville Street and Moore Square as well as the Warehouse District. There is easy in and out access using McDowell and nearby Dawson Streets when driving. Raleigh Union Station will be three blocks away and downtown’s main bus station is two blocks away.

Salisbury Street

Salisbury Street. I will not miss this crumbling parking deck.

For a hotel, the convention center is within walking distance as well as all the dining and amenities on Fayetteville Street. Government and private sector workers should easily consider a hotel stay here because of its close proximity to so many companies and government buildings.

While Fayetteville Street dominates the pedestrian population counts these days, the Martin and Hargett pair are becoming key east/west walking corridors. Being right in between these two streets, the new development could really add more retail space to Martin Street, keeping that “block after block” of active space theme that’s needed to create some real shopping activity.

It’s yet another fun-to-watch development in the pipeline for us.

by Leo Suarez

Diving Into The Site Plans for The Dillon

Preliminary rendering of The Dillon

Preliminary rendering of The Dillon, released in June 2015

Last week, site plans for The Dillon were submitted to the city and posted on their website. You can dive into it yourself here (when I looked, it was incorrectly spelled “dillion”) or follow along with the highlights below.

Some quick background first. The Dillon is a two building project in the warehouse district. It combines multiple properties that will result in an all-block building plus a smaller building across the street. The all-block building will consist of the Dillon Supply Company warehouse located between Martin/Hargett and West/Harrington Street and the surface parking lot on the northern end of the block. The smaller building will be to the north, across Hargett Street and will replace the surface parking lot.

Here’s a map that shows the location.

Location of The Dillon

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The mixed-use project (both buildings) will consist of office, ground-floor retail, and residential. Here are the key takeaways from this site plan submission:

  • The main block will have a 17-story, 226′ tower with some heavy setbacks. The new construction will be more complex than just a 17-story box as parking, residential, office, and retail will take place here.
  • The secondary building will be 6-stories tall at 81′.
  • 1040 parking spaces will be built.
  • Residential units will clock in at 262 with 1, 2, 3 bedroom units breaking down to 176, 76, and 10 units respectively.
  • Retail spaces will be heavily concentrated on Hargett and Martin Street.
  • Each building will have a parking deck entrance on West and on Harrington Street. With the addition of a loading dock on Harrington Street, that will be five driveways total for The Dillon.
  • The site plan shows a 2,680 square foot portico on the corner of West and Martin Streets.

Ground floor retail was a big discussion point in the earlier rezoning cases for this project. I took a screenshot of the preliminary site plan and filled in the ground-floor retail spaces in red to give us an idea of how much sidewalk space will be going to retail.

Retail spaces in The Dillon

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My first reaction is that there isn’t enough retail space. However, you could almost argue against it when you consider a few things.

  • The retail spaces in the main block of The Dillon are very large in footprint.
  • The Dillon’s parking deck will support the nearby Raleigh Union Station.
  • The secondary building also needs its own parking.

I’ll admit that some spaces in this site plan aren’t labeled, or not labeled clear enough, so there COULD be more retail space but I just can’t see it at this time.

We’ll see how the discussion goes as if The Dillon provides enough retail space for the warehouse district. It certainly is much, much more than the zero square feet we have today in that location.

Another interesting tidbit I found on the city’s website was a request for an amendment to the stepback requirements:

The current stepback requirements for building massing standards requires a 15′-0 stepback between the 3rd and 7th story for all street frontages. A different configuration for this project is proposed that includes more significant stepbacks on the north and south with not stepping back on the east and west as well as stepping back after the 8th story. The massing solution proposed meets the intent of the regulations by providing more access to light and air at the street level, mitigating wind impacts, maintaining a consistent street scale, and visually reducing the perceived scale of the building.

Or better, you can see the sketch below.

Location of The Dillon

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You can get a sense of how the main building steps back as it rises up, hiding its height along Martin Street but still showing vertical along West and Harrington Streets.

The portico on the corner of West and Martin Streets may be considered the “main” entrance to the building as it will face the future Raleigh Union Station. Travelers that are still using a car are most likely going through this corner in-between the parking deck and the station.

Lastly, the retail spaces being mainly positioned along West and Martin Street do help extend the pedestrian and retail corridors that are in their infant stages along these streets. This is a recommendation from the Downtown Plan and should be kept this way with more utility or residential along West and Harrington Streets.

It will be fun to watch this one up until construction starts.