Freedom Park has it’s signature piece installed. Work has been a bit slow but that can’t come to a surprise to anyone with the state of construction these days. A lot of earth moving has taken place since we’ve last checked in with the site and today you can see the outline of the walkways. The retaining wall edges of the walkway and plazas are somewhat in place also.
Get to know more about the project right here.
A set of townhomes that have been under construction all year are starting to look real good along South West Street. Dukes at Cityview are offering eight units at the corner of West and Lenoir.
These amenity-rich units are being sold on the higher end of the spectrum but offer quite a lot in addition to being at a great location. As of this post, their site shows four units sold already. Take a look for yourself.
Good or bad, depending on how you see it, Seaboard Station is transforming right now. The construction energy is high and personally, I’m just thrilled to watch it take place. If you stop by on a weekday, it feels like every corner has construction workers moving and building. Numerous vehicles and machines are churning out materials. The hum and pure noise of the site suggests someone has the pedal to the floor here.
This is what top to bottom change looks, sounds, and feels like.
Now don’t get me wrong, I was more or less fine with the former Seaboard Station buildings. They had a nice warehouse, brick feel to them and a great collection of local businesses made their homes there. However, we’re seeing a complete transition from a suburban retail district into an urban one. That is pretty exciting to me.
The apartment building, called The Signal, on Block B (reminder of the blocks here) looks pretty good from the outside and the finishing touches are being applied now. Residents should be moving in around Spring 2023. The sidewalks are looking great (nice and wide) and when small businesses set up shop here, it’ll be on a completely urban dynamic that the retail district never had before.
Block A is starting to rise out of the hole they dug out at the corner of Peace and Halifax. More apartments and a hotel are being constructed on this block and it was announced recently that the hotel will be a Hyatt House hotel with a rooftop bar called High Rail.
Block C is the youngest site to get started but a crane is already up and work is humming along. At this pace, it won’t take long before this one goes vertical as well. You can take a look at the panorama shot at the top of this post for a peek at the site.
That’s it for the active work at Seaboard at this time. In the future, we’ll have work taking place at Logan’s after the long-time business moves out. Current plans look to move the Seaboard Station building further north and build a pair of towers at 16 and 20 stories. More on that in a future post.
I’m excited for it all and for a more urban Raleigh on downtown’s north side.
Images Courtesy of NoTriangle Studio
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.
Images Courtesy of NoTriangle Studio
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.
The demolition of the warehouses along Hargett and West Street has really picked up. This shot above is from this past weekend, overlooking the site from the outdoor mezzanine at Union Station. It’s a bit surreal how much space there is here and if you have an opportunity to see it this week, I would recommend a walk around the site.
For a recap of what is planned here, see the RUS Bus tagged posts here.
There certainly are a lot of rezoning requests going on for the downtown area these days. One in particular that I think is interesting to pay attention to is for a collection of properties along the 700 and 800 blocks of North West Street. This is mainly the properties to the east of West Street and north of Peace Street. Raleigh Development Co. has acquired a set of properties here and is requesting a rezoning to increase the maximum height allowed from 12 to 30 stories.
To zoom in, you can see a detailed map of the properties on iMaps here. Right now, a mishmash of warehouse buildings, built throughout the mid-1900s, dot the properties. The buildings also have plenty of surface parking. This is typical on this section of West going all the way up to Wade. Very little sidewalks exist and West really loses that urban feel that it has south of Peace.
Industrial is the theme here on this part of West Street. It’s not really a place to walk to or shop. That of course may change in the near future. To the east of the property is the pigeon house branch creek and there are plans for a future park on the nearby former city parking lots. The city is currently going through the planning process of that park, which is still years away, and you can follow that here as well as watch a cool video about it here.
To the south is Smoky Hollow which probably needs no introduction. Smoky Hollow is adding retail and restaurants as you read this and there is still has an empty property along Peace which may add more development to this area in the future.
This North West Street “wedge” of a property could produce a very interesting building or set of buildings due to the future park nearby and the fact that the land is at a higher elevation compared to the nearby area. The views of downtown should be fantastic on the upper floors.
Discussion on this rezoning will start at the Planning Commission meeting on October 25.
400H is still rising but now, glass is starting to grow on the sides. The building is getting it’s “skin”.
The office and apartment tower has been a behemoth down on Hillsborough Street but the planned completion date is around Fall 2023. That means new neighbors before the new year 2024, possibly.
The Raleigh Union Station Bus Facility is seeing some movement. There’s a combination of demolition and preservation taking place at the old warehouses along West Street. In the photo above, the metal braces are in place in order to preserve the brick façade as it’ll be incorporated into the new development. This is at the corner of West and Hargett.
Some buildings are coming down, especially the ones facing the railroad tracks. You can see plenty of photos being taken by members of the Community right here and I’m sure there will be more so do follow along.