The St. Mary’s Square apartments will be partially opening to their first residents this weekend. The entire building should be completed and ready to move-in by mid-August.
Category / New Construction
The Lincoln Will Bring 224 Apartments To Emo Raleigh
Corner of Hargett and East Street as seen in March, 2011.
Emo Raleigh (East of Moore Square) may be getting a big influx of housing units if a new development gets approved by the city. According to a newly submitted site plan, The Lincoln is a full-block apartment building for the mostly empty, grassy lot bounded by Hargett, Martin, East, and Bloodworth Streets.
Currently, just a single house sits on the lot and for years the developers behind The Lincoln have been working to acquire property, move houses, and get everything ready.
The site plan tells us that the 70′ high building will be designed by JDavis Architects and offer one, two, and three bedroom apartments. Looking at the preliminary site plan we can see that there will be apartments along all four faces of the block with an enclosed parking deck and pool.
If I’m looking at this map correctly, the deck entrances look to be on Bloodworth and East Streets. See for yourself on this extracted image I created, posted below.
This is great for the Moore Square area as well as the adjacent Thompson-Hunter neighborhood. This side of town has been quiet on the development front. If successful, The Lincoln could raise more interest in new projects for East Raleigh as there is relatively cheaper land here.
Rendering of The New Holy Trinity Church on Peace Street
Rendering of the Holy Trinity Church on Peace Street.
In addition to doing a wonderful restoration job to the Jordan House at the corner of Peace and Blount Street, the Holy Trinity Church of Raleigh is building new digs.
Above is an architectural rendering of the new building which will be located along the 100 block of East Peace Street. The land was just surface parking for more than 20 years to the best of my knowledge and adds some diversity to what could be a heavily residential area if the Blount Street Commons project is ever fully completed.
Edison Office Shows Site Plan For 225′ Tower
Corner of Wilmington and Martin Street in April 2013.
Looking at the latest update at Raleigh’s Current Development Activity page, there’s a new entry for The Edison Office tower. The site plan sheds more light, and hopefully a sign of progress, on The Edison, a multi-tower project planned for downtown Raleigh.
In addition to the Edison Apartments and Skyhouse Apartments, The Edison Office tower site plan shows a 225 foot tower with retail over office across 310,000 square feet. These preliminary plans are just a sketch of what’s to come so hopefully with plans at the city, progress is being made behind the scenes.
At the same time, the website of JDavis Architects has a rendering, on display for The Edison Apartments and not Edison Office, that shows a concept of the entire block built out.
Edison block conceptual drawing by JDavis Architects.
If you’d like to analyze the floor plan, take a look at the image below and make sure to view it large to see the entire northern side of the Edison block.
A History of Charter Square
Photo taken on April 14, 2013 at the corner of Lenoir and Wilmington Streets.
A few days have gone by so I think it’s a good time to look back over the evolution of Charter Square now that the confidence level is higher and we may actually get a building on this site.
As far back as 2006, the city labeled this piece of downtown as ‘Site One.’ On top of site One was the former Raleigh Civic Center which previously bookended Fayetteville Street. But with the revitalization of downtown underway, the roof of the civic center was blown up, literally, and the site demolished to make way for the current Fayetteville Street, Site One, and the now open Marriott Hotel.
Charter Square site location
Charter Square site rendering in 2006
The first round of renderings, that I could find back in the photo vault, is the one above. Two towers were planned at Site One, an office tower on the north half and a residential tower on the southern half. With ground floor retail space, the project was mixed-use all the way.
The plan was to start building the towers after the city completed the underground parking deck that would support the Marriott Hotel and the new Raleigh Convention Center.
Charter Square site rendering in 2007
Things went quiet for a little while and in 2007, new designs popped up. The same two tower project was planned as well as a larger ad campaign to start leasing the spaces. The north tower came in at 358 feet over 20 floors and the south tower at 182 feet over 15 floors. Other towers were on the planning board for downtown Raleigh in 2007 and things seemed positive.
What was most likely due to the economic recession in 2009, Charter Square then stalled.
The underground parking deck was finished and the Charter Square block has been wrapped in a chain-link fence with advertising for almost four years now.
To The Present
Last week, there was an announcement by Dominion Realty Partners and Charter Square that they were bringing a building to the site. The south half of Charter Square would consist of an 11 story, 225,000 square foot building with class A office space. The glass covered building will seek a platinum LEED certification and cost around $50 million.
According to the press release, 35,000 square feet has already been signed with a ground floor restaurant by Eschelon Hospitality, the good folks behind Sono, Zinda, and The Oxford. The press release also says, “Construction is scheduled to begin in Fall 2013 and be delivered in Fall 2014.”
Skyline fans first nit-picked the height of this tower last week but astute readers noticed that this tower is actually taller than the one previously planned for the southern site. The 11 story office tower will be 215 feet tall compared to the previous 15 story, 182 foot residential tower. Yes, office floors are taller than residential floors in most cases.
On May 2, the developers will submit their site plans to the city for approval. Here’s to smooth sailing until groundbreaking!
Charter Square site rendering in 2013
227 Fayetteville Going For ‘Most Desirable Address’ Award
227 — this is where from 227 This Is Where on Vimeo.
Here’s a promo video for 227 Fayetteville Street, a renovation job that will bring new office space to small startup businesses and entrepreneurs.
Minus all the advertising for the building itself, the video shows off some renderings of what the spaces will look like as well as a new facade for the building. The renovation has already started and should be completed by Winter 2014.
Rendering of The New Charter Square Tower via Twitter
Want to see a rendering of the new Raleigh downtown building at Charter Square? http://t.co/KvfcjpdSkj @RaleighWake @DowntownRaleigh
— Raleigh4u (@Raleigh4u) April 11, 2013
There’s some high-level info at the N&O and the TBJ but I’m sure more details will come out soon if, according to the TBJ, the groundbreaking is in the next few months.
Innovate Raleigh Opens Up 227 Fayetteville Street, Renovations Underway
Here is some great news for the core of downtown Raleigh. The former Wachovia bank building at 227 Fayetteville Street, the building shown above, was recently bought up and renovations are underway for 110,000 square feet of office space. On top of that, Innovate Raleigh, Raleigh’s public/private partnership in fostering innovation, hosted an event last night to show off the building and how it will be built for technology companies and new startups.
I went down to the event and found a packed house with the usual players and more in our city’s ever growing startup scene. Jesse Lipson, founder of ShareFile, was showing off the new Citrix offices being planned for West Street. Adam Klein talked about American Underground in Durham. These speakers and others told stories to a crowd of close to 200 about what startups are doing across the entire triangle.
We’ve discussed coworking space, a real incubator for startups, within downtown Raleigh but 227 is a step up. The people behind this building seem to be really tied into the community and this is a perfect spot to pipeline the rising startups out of the small spaces and into real offices. The Fayetteville Street location provides easy access to all of downtown’s services and is a great location to set up shop.
So on to the building itself and the renderings. Key points to notice in these renderings.
- There is an emphasis on more natural light with many more windows being added.
- One rendering suggests street level retail along Fayetteville Street which is something the building did not have previously.
- The office entrance may be that red square along the side of the building. This may leave the Fayetteville Street facing entrance for a future retail space.
- The outdoor spaces alongside 227 Fayetteville, Exchange Plaza and Market Plaza, may also be getting a facelift.
