I’m looking forward to the Peace Street Streetscape Project, mentioned earlier in this post. As well as the street being upgraded, the owner of the McDonald’s that sits on Peace and Boylan wants to tear down the restaurant and re-build a more modern one. This plan was proposed in November, 2006 and has been going in and out of city council meetings.

I bring this up because the N&O has an article on the situation and how the final decision has been delayed yet again to approve the plan. The article states that some members of the council are pushing toward a more pedestrian friendly design while others, including a frustrated council member James West, seem to want to approve a design and move on.

Faced with the prospect of delaying the approval of a new McDonald’s, council member James West said Wednesday that enough is enough.

Declaring that the Raleigh City Council has a bad habit of “putting things in committee and committee-ing them to death,” West took a stand for expeditious government review.
“I see no sense in us delaying this another two weeks,” he said.

I can agree with both sides of this argument. I applaud the mayor for calling for more pedestrian friendly designs near downtown but is it necessary to delay this for so long? I also agree with Mr. West, he is practically calling out the council’s “do-nothing” attitude of discussing and fine-tuning designs. There needs to be a more take-action attitude instead of delaying decisions and inevitably delaying progress downtown. If Raleigh has a council with this kind of attitude then developers may be less inclined to work with them.

A pedestrian friendly design would consist of the new McDonald’s to be built right up next to the sidewalk. The original Streetscape plan does not look like this will be the case. Below I have the current sidewalk and the planned sidewalk.

You can see that there is no real change. The lanes going in and out around the island tell me that there will be lots of traffic. There also may be parking spots lining the sidewalk. This is just speculation and to be honest I cannot think of a good way to accommodate the McDonald’s and pedestrians. How do you think it should be built? Could a 3 or 4 story building with the restaurant on the ground floor with condos or office space work at this location?

Last week the Downtown Raleigh Alliance released some data about downtown. WRAL has the information covered here:

Thirty-eight businesses opened, 92 residential units were created and 155,000-square-feet of office space not occupied a year ago were leased, the group said.

I expect those numbers only to rise over the next year.

Well not just for the college kids but I guarantee you if you ask a bunch of them on a Wednesday night at Rum Runners, they will have no idea how to get home. There is even a facebook group entitled “Been to Rum Runners a million times and still don’t know how to get there”.

Anyway, so I have heard people complain about how driving around downtown is confusing and that they always get lost. The city wants to try and change that by helping people navigate their way to attractions and parking decks. RalCon is here for that also and I’ve got plans for a nice interactive map showing you where the hot spots are but that project is still in the works. The N&O has got the scoop here. Some quotes:

The city paid a consulting firm $200,000 to come up with recommendations and design signs for its “way-finding” capital improvement project. The firm, Corbin Design of Traverse City, Mich., proposed navy blue and white signs with an oak leaf motif to guide people — in cars and on foot — to downtown attractions and parking.

City officials hope to have many of the new signs in place by the time the new convention center opens late next summer and are eager for public input, said Elizabeth Alley, the city planner who is managing the way-finding project.

……………….
Downtown’s system of one-way streets can intimidate newcomers, the consultant said, recommending that Blount, Person, Edenton and Morgan/New Bern be converted to two-way.

………………..
Altogether, the city has budgeted $1 million for the way-finding project, spread over three years. The biggest chunk, $500,000, is included in the 2007-08 budget.

There’s an article in the N&O about how apartments are on the rise in downtown. They say that higher interest rates and a growing downtown work force are to blame. This is good news for the downtown area as rental units are definitely needed. I really think that the planned apartments will do very well and may perhaps spur more development. With all these apartments coming, more people who do not want to commit so much time and money into a condo can move downtown. Some quotes from the article:

At least 179 apartments are planned and another 250 could be on the way in the biggest wave of apartment projects the downtown area has ever seen.
Crosland is expected to be first in. The Charlotte developer plans to begin next month on 179 apartments at Boylan Avenue and Tucker Street.
…………………
There are at least 18,000 downtown workers within a one-mile radius of downtown’s center — up 16 percent from two years ago, according to estimates by booster group Downtown Raleigh Alliance. The work force is projected to grow at least 23 percent in the next two years. Meanwhile, the number of bars and restaurants in the Glenwood South entertainment district has doubled to about three dozen since 2001, and more are coming.
………………
Now, Crosland estimates it will ask roughly $1,200 a month for a 1,000-square-foot apartment — 46 percent more than the regional average for the same-size unit. Smaller units will go for $650.

Ten vans with satellite dishes are lined up on the 100 block of Fayetteville Street right now. They are here covering the Mike Nifong court case happening right down the street. All the national media stations and even Court TV are here. RalCon is not the place to get coverage of the event, but check out the pics below of the scene. The last one is definitely a good one. Something like this you do not see very much here in downtown.

The Raleigh Chronicle has written up a great article about one of the most influential people for downtown Raleigh. Greg Hatem and Empire Properties have been responsible for many downtown properties including the Raleigh Times building, the Helig-Levine building, the Duck and Dumpling, and much more. From the article:

It’s hard to find any single person who has had more of an impact on the revitalization of downtown Raleigh in recent years than Greg Hatem, the founder of Empire Properties.

With a new upscale hotel on the horizon, a whole street under development, several restaurants and bar under his belt, and many other projects underway, the leader of Empire Properties has been hard at work.

But unlike other downtown developers, Hatem has focused not on erecting shiny new skyscrapers that are meant to impress, but instead has been steadily refurbishing brick and mortar buildings with character that have been central to Raleigh’s past.

The 2007 Downtown Raleigh Criterium turned out to be a success. The News and Observer blogs say that about 12,000 to 15,000 people came out for the event. I went out for the women’s race but had other plans and did not make it to the men’s. I got some fairly good pictures, posted below. WRAL has a great video on it also.

So everybody knows that Raleigh is so hot right now. CBS has come once before and now they will be coming back to do the early morning news on Fayetteville St. The Triangle Business Journal has the scoop:

It’s not often that a major network television program is broadcast live from Raleigh. But that’s exactly what will happen July 13, when CBS’ “The Early Show” will set up shop in the City of Oaks for its Summer in the City Tour.

The Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau confirmed Friday that one CBS anchor, as well as weatherman Dave Price, will be on location to tout the Capital City.