Category / News

by Leo Suarez

Municipography, Downtown Retail

Municipography is a summary of current issues going through the Raleigh City Council and other municipal departments in the city. The point is to try to deliver any video, photos, and text associated with the discussions happening at City Hall or elsewhere. Since this is a downtown Raleigh blog, the focus is on the center of the city.

Downtown Raleigh Retail

At the Raleigh City Council meeting last week, David Diaz and Paul Reimel from the Downtown Raleigh Alliance (DRA) gave a report on retail within downtown Raleigh in 2012. We’ve talked about how the retail scene has become more and more noticeable and this data from the DRA supports that.

Below is the video showing their report.

Some highlights from it are:

  • Recognized the positive reaction of the retail community to rehabilitated storefronts and that there is still a need to work on more buildings in downtown.
  • In 2011, there were 83 retail space vacancies, accounting for 10% of inventory. In 2012, 27 of those 83 are now occupied.
  • 2012 also had 38 retail openings, a 28% increase from openings in 2011.
  • With the downtown load program, 3 loans were given for $150,000 total.
  • The loan program had 25 inquiries in 2012, the highest yearly amount yet.
  • Downtown Raleigh Restaurant Week continues to grow and be more popular with each year.

Downtown Remote Operations Facility

The Downtown Remote Operations Facility isn’t directly tied to downtown. This new building, planned along Westinghouse Boulevard near Capital Boulevard and I-440, will instead be the new home for city maintenance trucks. The result is that the city can then vacate the current lot along Peace Street, the site of the old Devereux Meadow baseball park between West Street and Capital Boulevard.

The council approved moving forward with the project. Details below from the agenda.

On September 6, 2011, City Council authorized the City Manager to enter into a contract with Williard Ferm Architects to provide planning and design services, through 50% construction documents, for Phase 1 of the proposed Downtown Remote Operations Facility to be located on the city-owned site east of I-440 between Capital Boulevard and Raleigh Boulevard on the former Westinghouse property.

In addition, a Request for Qualifications to provide Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) services was advertised on October 23, 2012. Eight responses were received and three firms selected for interviews. Interviews were conducted on December 12, 2012, resulting in the recommendation of Brasfield and Gorrie general contractors to provide CMAR services. Brasfield and Gorrie has submitted a proposal of $375,000 to provide the required pre-construction level services.

A status report of the design development effort is being presented to provide an update on the project and to discuss City administration recommended actions to maintain progress related to design and construction.

Recommendation: (1) Authorize proceeding with the proposed Downtown Remote Operations Facility, to include the proposed facility program, site design alternatives, project schedule, and estimated costs. (2) Authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute a Contract Amendment with Williard Ferm Architects to complete construction documents and provide for construction phase services. (3) Authorize the City Manager to execute a contract with Brasfield & Gorrie General Contractors, in the amount of $375,000, to provide pre-construction services sufficient to develop a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) for Phase 1 construction of the proposed Downtown Remote Operations Facility. (4) Authorize the following budget transfer from previously approved and completed remote operations facilities to fund additional design and pre-construction services, commissioning services, environmental management, and permitting requirements.

Transfer From:
508-2210-790010-975-CIP00-99150000 $1,200,000
Wilder’s Grove Remote Operations Center

Transfer To:
508-2210-790010-975-CIP00-93960000 $1,200,000
Downtown Remote Operations Center

by Leo Suarez

What A Destination Park on the Dix Campus Means to Downtown

View of Downtown Raleigh from the Dorothea Dix Campus

There was a lot of news last week on the future of the Dorothea Dix campus, located southwest of downtown, and how our state governor is making moves to turn it into a destination park. The controversy here is how best to use the 306 acres of undeveloped, state-owned land. Park land, sell it off, or some combination of both?

Talks have been going on for close to a decade here and now with real action taking place by the city and the governor, the politics show up.

This is a billion-dollar giveaway of taxpayer resources to Raleigh elites for another state taxpayer funded cultural amenity.

*Governor Perdue’s Dorothea Dix Giveaway Bad for Taxpayers [UPDATE 4-15-14: Broken Link]

Raleigh readers, we’re elitists apparently for wanting the campus to be a park.

We’re elitists because we’ve proved that parks are important to citizens through the voter approval of multiple bonds over the last few decades. That’s clear that using the Dix property as a park is a waste.

Opponents to the park have floated around the idea of selling the property to private developers to build new and allow more businesses to come in, creating jobs. It’s possible that incentives could be used to lure companies to this location.

At a time when results from state incentives are unchecked, what’s the cost of losing the land once it’s gone? How many times does a section of a city go from developed to park land? Is it really worth it to use incentives on businesses to set up here with this “zero-sum game?”

In my opinion in this age of the automobile, companies can set up in different locations. I can point you to Research Triangle Park for the best example. Why sell off valuable land, at a time when Raleigh is trying to build density, that will only dilute development even more?

An interesting thing to consider in this controversy is the urban versus rural politics topic. It is clear that this country, North Carolina is no exception, is becoming divided along urban/rural lines. In this great post on The Atlantic Cities:

This divide between blue city and red countryside has been growing for some time. Since 1984, more and more of America’s major cities have voted blue each year, culminating in 2012, when 27 out of the nation’s 30 most populous cities voted Democratic.

*Why the Urban-Rural Voting Divide Matters

So calling us “Raleigh elites” is clearly a jab at us city folk. I’ve driven and biked through the neighborhoods around the Dix property and there is nothing elitist about it. The neighborhoods are modest and middle-class.

But enough of the politics. For Downtown Raleighites and density fans, if 306 acres are made into park land, it helps urbanity in and around the city center.

I would imagine that to a developer, the Dix campus has a big question mark over it and there’s too much risk to develop around it. The future isn’t certain. If made into a park, the path that the land and the surrounding properties will take is more predictable and that is something businesses and developers respond too.

You could compare it to the rail versus bus comparison in terms of development. Would you rather invest close to a rail stop or a bus stop?

A park at Dix would be a huge shot in the arm for urban fans in Raleigh as resulting development around the park, therefore adjacent to downtown, would be denser. This results in more walkable, bikable neighborhoods and more Raleighites thinking more on their feet than within their car.

The NC Council of State is planning to discuss a vote whether to enter into a lease agreement with Raleigh for the property tomorrow, Tuesday December 4. Stay tuned as I think this is a big one.

by Leo Suarez

New Blog Design For Your Viewing Pleasure

I’ve completed transitioning the blog to an entirely new design. Long-time readers may recognize layout similarities between this new design and the old but there are a lot of new elements especially under the hood.

I started to work on updating the old WordPress theme that I was using but after some tweaks and frustration, I basically threw it out and re-built it all. The result is a much sleeker blog and it accounts for the variety of screens out there. The generic WordPress plugin for “mobile-friendly” has been deleted and now I control the look and feel on smaller screens. I very much enjoy going through the new site on tablets and users will now see larger photos and videos going forward.

The next project will be a complete re-do of the walking tour. I apologize for taking it down, analytics tell me it was ok, but it’ll be back and much improved.

I hope you enjoy the new site, version 3 by my count.

by Leo Suarez

Raleigh Musings, A New Banner, and Life

Another week, another disappointment. Am I disappointed with downtown Raleigh? Absolutely not. I hope everyone has had the opportunity to just be outside and to walk around these days. The trees are practically full now and the warm breezes are refreshing. Even with that going on, I’m disappointed with the amount of blogging I’ve done here on RalCon and I bet long time readers have noticed the slow down. I’m using this blog post to reflect a bit.

I’ve updated the banner image on the site and I’m a bit excited about it. For awhile I’ve had a version of this great skyline shot I took from down in the Boylan Wye. It has been almost three years since I took that photo and used it as the site’s banner image. Slowly, very slowly, I’ve started to realize that the skyline shouldn’t be what Raleigh is about at all.

Downtown Raleigh’s real life is on the sidewalks and the growth that this blog has been following for the past five years is all about the network of treasures within this small area. It’s not what you see from afar but what is happening between those buildings that make downtown Raleigh a place to be and experience. I’ve found myself becoming more and more interested in the human interactions that occur around all those structures within the five districts of downtown.

The banner image is a snapshot of humans interacting on what is clearly our main street, Fayetteville Street. This is how I want to showcase our city. I hope an image like this and ones similar to it make any new visitor to this blog see it and think, “Hey, I want to be there.”

Transit, public space, the sidewalks and the businesses that connect are just some of the topics I want to keep talking about. New buildings are a part of it and while the skyline looks great on TV in high-def it is not what is going to keep people coming back if there’s no life in downtown. I’ve realized that I’ve been taking this approach ever since day one of blogging for RalCon. All my material and photos come from walking the sidewalks and seeing things for myself.

My job is more demanding these days and life put me as the star (or the number 2 as most people tell me) of an upcoming wedding so times are tight. Along with some neighborhood projects to keep me busy I’m sometimes slammed and I can’t get to these great topics mentioned earlier.

But times may change and we’ll one day get to discuss those topics more in-depth. Get out and walk downtown Raleigh tonight or this weekend. It’s a great time to do it.

by Leo Suarez

CityCamp Raleigh Follow Up and The Council To Discuss Open Source

Campers on the last day of CityCamp Raleigh prepare their presentation.

The first ever Citycamp Raleigh was a huge success. The Friday government and business panels were thought provoking and insightful about how data can be used if it was opened up to the public. The unconference format was a perfect fit for the many discussions and brainstorming sessions that took place throughout the day Saturday and Sunday. After this weekend, I’m inspired and motivated to demand that our city, county, and state open up more data to the public for our consumption. Transit, parking, zoning, crime, pollution are all examples of the types of data being gathered already and could potentially be released to the public.

A really great story I heard during the CityCamp discussions was of an open data experiment that took place in Washington DC. The city of Washington DC opened up their transit data in a friendly format for web and app developers to play with. In a short time, many applications were created by citizens or small companies. While most failed to take hold, the few that did stick eventually became adopted by many users of the transit system.

What I like about things like this is that the city does not spend money on one application and we are forced into that one environment. What are the chances that it may fail? By opening up the data and allowing independent developers to take a stab at making an application, we can learn what works and what doesn’t before the city spends money. The risk is lessened this way.

I could go on and on about the benefits of open data and how other cities are embracing this philosophy but I’ll stop here and move on to the city council agenda for this week, the meeting on June 7th, 2011. Here in the special items section:

Open Government/Open Source Systems
During the May 3, 2011, Council meeting, Councilor Gaylord presented a resolution
concerning open government by encouraging the use of open source systems and insuring
open access to public data. It was directed that the item be placed on the May 17, agenda
for consideration.

During the May 17, meeting, several questions were voiced by Council members and it
was directed that the item be placed on this agenda for further consideration. A copy of
the proposed resolution is included in the agenda packet.

If you support this and want to see more data available to the public then I want to ask readers to e-mail their councilors and tell them to adopt this. Info to get it done is below.

E-mail the entire council at: citycouncilors@raleighnc.gov

Write your own e-mail or copy and paste this one.