A crane for the Skyhouse Raleigh project towers over City Market.
Under gray skies on the day before New Year’s Eve, there was activity on the Skyhouse Raleigh site. The tower crane was being put together, showing positive signs for active construction at the corner of Blount and Martin Streets in the new year.
Here’s hoping for more cranes in 2014. Happy New Year!
As 2013 wraps up, there were plenty of things to look back on. Instead of the typical ‘Year in Review’ post, I’ve listed the five most visited 2013 articles. A lot of these we’ll be tracking in the new year so expect to hear more soon. Here’s the list.
#5 Trophy and Crank Arm Bring New Breweries To Downtown Raleigh
Raleighites like their beer. In 2013, downtown Raleigh saw two great additions in Trophy Brewing and Crank Arm Brewing. Throughout the year, the two places have come alive and expanded. There was a lot of buzz about these places and if you’ve gone all year without tasting these brews, you’ve got a few days to get one or two in before 2014.
#4 Parklets Could be Popping Up In Downtown Raleigh
Divisadero Parklet – SF Pavement to Parks by jeremyashaw, on Flickr
Approved in November, the parklets pilot program could help businesses bring new urban “mini” parks to downtown Raleigh. Targeting “underutilized parking spaces,” the program attempts to help bring this new, innovative concept to Raleigh.
As of today, there hasn’t been one built yet so here’s hoping that some pop up in time for Spring 2014.
#3 The Lincoln Will Bring 224 Apartments To Emo Raleigh
The bulk of the apartment boom is happening within and to the west of downtown Raleigh but The Lincoln defies that trend. East Raleigh is ripe for new developments and The Lincoln may start a new trend as it sits one block to the east of Moore Square.
#2 Innovate Raleigh Opens Up 227 Fayetteville Street, Renovations Underway
Announced in January, 227 Fayetteville Street has been under renovation all year. Paired with a makeover for adjacent Exchange and Market plazas, this section of the 200 block of Fayetteville Street should be even more active when this project is open.
This area already sees the highest pedestrian counts in downtown Raleigh and is starting to be the natural activity hub for all that is urban Raleigh.
#1 Edison Office Shows Site Plan For 225′ Tower
Edison block conceptual drawing by JDavis Architects.
The most viewed post of the year was this one about the upcoming Edison Office tower at the corner of Martin and Wilmington Streets. Gaining attention under the entire Edison project umbrella, the office component is still in the planning phases while next door a 23-story apartment tower, Skyhouse Raleigh, is currently under construction.
The Edison project includes this entire block, with buildings wrapping the mid-block parking deck. It clearly has a lot of buzz around it as a 2012 article about Skyhouse still gets hits constantly from readers.
The 261 apartments at 425 Boylan Avenue have really taken shape after a year’s worth of construction. Plans according to the developer’s website state that the project will be completed in the Fall of 2014.
Just a recap of this upcoming apartment building for the Glenwood South district:
An interesting thought that I may queue up for another post is to talk about the walkability between Glenwood South and Cameron Village. 425 Boylan and the other apartments located on the western half of Glenwood South create a dramatic increase in density that walking to Cameron Village should be simple.
From 425 Boylan to the Cameron Village library is a 0.7 mile walk. However, will residents overcome this more barren walk between those two points? Compared to a more interesting 0.7 mile walk, like Glenwood Avenue from Peace to Hillsborough or the CBD from the Nature Research Center to the end of Fayetteville Street, the lack of urbanity between the two destinations may not promote walking as much.
That or horrendous parking at a location may force walking to the forefront.
The banners are down and construction barriers are up around the upcoming L Building. The L building project goes as far back as the summer of 2007, starting out as an office tower and now planned to be apartments.
Construction should start very soon.
Corner of Peace and Person Streets
Continuing the conversation around Blount Street Commons this week, the project at the corner of Person and Peace Streets broke ground over a few weeks ago. Peace Street Townes is an 18-unit townhome project that should pop up fairly quickly because of the smaller scale of the project. Seems there are still developers delivering outside of the crazed rental market these days.
On a walk this past weekend, the sign near the site said that 10 units were under contract which is great momentum and clearly enough to start building. Looking back, this project was announced over a year ago around the summer of 2012.
Fans of urban transition should be cheering for this project as it somewhat steps down from the denser government buildings to the single-family homes in nearby Oakwood and Mordecai.
This will be short as details are a bit light, as far as I know anyway, on this project. There’s movement on one of the apartment buildings planned for the Blount Street Commons project. The current parking lot near the NCAIA building and along Wilmington Street is being broken up.
I did some digging and this tract of land is referred to as “Block 2 Tract B” of the Blount Street Commons project. In early 2012, the Raleigh Planning Commission recommended the approval of a height amendment that was in place here. It was to go from 45′ to 62′. This was probably the beginning of plans for the upcoming apartment building.
By the way, the details are all in MP-3-11 on the city’s development approvals archive site.
I haven’t found much yet about it but the property owner, according to Wake County, is Elan Raleigh Property LLC. Their website, elanapts.com, shows some slides of some decent looking developments. The Elan Uptown project in Minneapolis looks pretty cool.
It’s taking a little more effort to find details here so I’ll post as facts come up. Please share if you have any insight to this potentially significant new residential project for the northern side of downtown Raleigh.
Construction fencing is up for the Skyhouse Raleigh project. This confirms some reports last week that the 23-story apartment building at the corner of Blount and Martin Streets is finally starting.
For those new to this project, Skyhouse Raleigh is basically a copy of the same building being done in other cities such as Austin and Atlanta. In fact, I was in Atlanta in summer of 2012 and have some photos, taken for the Raleigh Public Record, of their building during construction.
Expect this building to be done around early 2015. Cheers and bring on the cranes!
Map of both West Apartments projects alongside the current West at North tower.
I love local blogs. Last week, the DLA blog talked about a new proposal on the table for West Apartments II and then the major media jumps on it. Nice.
We’ve talked about West Apartments before, about a year ago, with no new details since but now there are plans for more according to the city’s development website. Another project from local developer Gregg Sandreuter, West Apartments II plans for 177 units (1 and 2 bedroom) right along Harrington Street in a ~100 foot building.
Harrington Street elevation rendering of West Apartments II. Click for the full width rendering.
The elevation has a bit of a dip on this section of Harrington so the building looks to be about four floors on the highest end of the lot and six on the lowest. The plans on the proposal show some open space for retail but not much, maybe 6,000-10,000 square feet.
An interesting detail that I noticed while looking at these plans is that there is a space on the ground floor labeled ‘Bike Shop.’ If I recall correctly, this is a result of the new Unified Development Ordinance and this may be a common amenity built into these new, denser developments. Below is a screenshot of it.
Proposed plans for a bike shop/storage in the West Apartments II
West Apartments II looks like phase 2 of the overall West Apartments project as the two buildings seem to integrate together. As more residents move in, perhaps we can bring back the name of the old Smoky Hollow neighborhood that once was this area.
Current buildings along this side of Harrington Street