Downtown construction continues and news is rather slow so here’s a little something for you to ponder over. I was reading through some of my usual blogs that I check each day and became inspired to do some research. I recommend the Inhabit blog to anyone that is interested in architecture, technology, and how it is creating a more efficient and greener world for us.

I noticed that LEED certification was a hot topic of theirs and downtown Raleigh does represent on this topic. You can find any LEED project at this link. Here is how North Carolina holds up.

Durham is way ahead of the pack with more projects then anyone else. The triangle, as a whole, has plenty of projects worth noting. The Heilig-Levine building is the only building that has received the highest level of LEED certification in NC. Click here to check out its score sheet. If you look carefully at some of the requirements to score points, you can get an idea of what a developer must do to renovate or build a structure that can be LEED certified.

Unfortunately, I do not have any expertise in what it actually costs to be LEED certified rather then not. I need to research this more. However, I believe that with more energy-efficient technology, talk of better transit, and rising costs here in the area, LEED certified buildings will become more common. The city is taking the right steps by making goals, such as reducing fossil fuel consumption by 20% over the next five years. What green elements would you like to see in downtown?

Downtown was taken over yesterday by the 24^th annual Old Reliable Run. Read about it here in the N&O.

The Old Reliable Run was more of a family affair than ever this year.

More than 2,300 runners lined up for four different races Sunday in downtown Raleigh for the 24th annual run and fundraiser for Triangle United Way.

They chose from a 10K, a 5K, and two pint-sized races geared for children — a 1-mile race for older kids and a 100-yard sprint for younger ones.

I was not able to attend because of other plans, but from what I saw; Nash square seemed to be full of people. It is not a big problem just yet but I happened to be driving back into downtown during the event. There were many officers re-directing traffic back out of downtown, unnecessarily blocking streets that the race does not involve. There were no labeled detours. Traffic southbound on capital blvd. should have been re-directed to Salisbury St. One cop told me that there is no way I could get to Fayetteville St. while this event was going on. Turned out he was wrong because I found a way to get to the Alexander Square parking deck going down Blount St. and turning on Hargett St. With rising downtown traffic and growth in population, the city must learn to handle these downtown events better.

I’ve been waiting patiently at work to hear about Campbell’s announcement of moving their law school downtown. Mayor Meeker gave the announcement on the capitol grounds today at 10:00 A.M. Yesterday, officials from the school were downtown and were taking pictures of The Hillsborough Place building at 225 Hillsborough St. The rumor was that this building will be sold to Campbell early next year. It looks like this has now become more concrete but no real details yet, just speculation. From the WRAL article:

Raleigh — City officials confirmed Thursday that Campbell University’s law school would relocate to a downtown Raleigh office building by 2009.

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Raleigh is the largest state capital in the U.S. without a law school.

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Essary, Campbell University President Jerry Wallace and other faculty members were downtown Wednesday afternoon, having their photo taken in front of Hillsborough Place, the office building at the corner of Hillsborough and Dawson streets that will house the law school.

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Tenants of the building, which is owned by former state lawmaker Art Pope, said they were notified by letter Wednesday that the 107,000-square-foot building would be sold to Campbell by early next year.

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[UPDATE]The News & Observer also has an article about the move. They have the same information but add to it somewhat. Read it here.

A letter to tenants of the building had said that the sale
should be final by March; renovations will begin next summer.

The move will bring an infusion of young people to the state capital just months before the city plans to open its new $221 million convention center, a Marriott Hotel and an underground parking garage.

In all, $2.5 billion in private and public investment is being pumped into downtown. Supporters say those efforts to remake Raleigh into a 24-hour city are working.

Wow, that investment number just keeps going up. I remember in 2005 when it was just $1 billion in investments. Campbell made a great move here. 350 students plus faculty and staff will be a big boost to the downtown area. Having met some students who go to the law school currently, I can say this move will be a step in the right direction to get more life downtown after work hours and weekends. Here’s the most important question of the day; when students are burned out from all that reading, what bar will you find them all hovering over some pints?

The Exploris Museum has now merged with Playplace at its Hargett St. location to create The Marbles Kids Museum. The Opening was on Saturday; go to WRAL for more details or watch a video.

Raleigh — Wake County has a new hot spot for kids. Marbles Kids Museum at 201 East Hargett St. in downtown Raleigh welcomed its first visitors Saturday.

The museum’s opening comes after the merger of the former Exploris and Playspace museums in July.
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the Marbles Kids Museum is in the 83,000-square-foot former home of Exploris.

Close to 11,000 people were estimated to have rolled into the museum on Saturday. Chris Babson took his four daughters to the free celebration, which featured kids’ bands, clowns and magicians.

There was a lot going on downtown this weekend. We’ll go over it all throughout the week but let’s start first with the Bike Fest on Fayetteville St. Fayetteville, Martin, and the streets surrounding Moore Square were taken over by bikers from all over. It was like a mini-fair with tons of food vendors and shops. Two stages were set up with music being played later in the day. I had fun just walking around checking out the scene. Will this be Raleigh’s largest event, the one the city is known for? More pics from WRAL.

Mayor Charles Meeker released some good information about the new convention center. From an article in the N&O:

Raleigh officials are trumpeting progress on the new downtown convention center, which they said today is now 75 percent complete.

The convention center is expected to open in September 2008, along with a new Marriott Hotel and an underground parking deck. The hotel is currently 50 percent complete, while the parking deck is 85 percent complete.

Downtown boosters say that first-year booking of the convention center has reached 164 percent of their goals, including 23 conventions. There are 58 events scheduled for the second year so far.

From WRAL:

Twenty-three conventions have been booked for the first year of operations, and 58 events have been lined up for the second year, officials said. More than 63,600 nights in the four-star, 400-room Marriott hotel next to the convention center have been booked in the first year, they said.

This obviously sounds like a success story and we are still one year from opening. Based on the numbers from WRAL, 63,600 hotel nights in the 400 room hotel means that the Marriott could be at capacity on an average of 3 nights a week just for the first year. This is also just the Marriott, I’m curious to see if the Sheraton and Clarion have seen increase in bookings. I would imagine they have. Perhaps a successful convention center, once up and running, will get the Winston Hotel Project and the LaFayette into the fast lane as these hotels have been quiet recently.

As a side note, if you really want to read a different opinion of this news, browse through the WRAL comments. Most of it is just bashing the fact that the convention center exists, with the exception of a few supporters. I am obviously no expert and am not claiming to be, but it should be great news that such a huge investment is showing great signs of being successful. The fact that thousands of people are now traveling to Raleigh for a convention is a positive thing for our city. They and their businesses will spend money in restaurants, shops, the airport, hotels, rental cars, and other services that all have a tax in some way. This tax is added revenue for the city to be used on other projects, like infrastructure or schools. I do not want to get into a numbers battle to see if the $220 million spent is worth it but thinking about it this way makes sense to me. Everyone has their own opinion and that is fine. Heck, $220 million could have gone towards a nice rail line, similar to the old proposed TTA light rail, but this is the way our city leaders went. Let’s just be happy it is a success and be proud of the city we live in.