by Leo Suarez

Details Rise Up Seven Stories For The West Apartments

Future site of the West Apartments
The 400 block of North West Street.

The Raleigh Planning Commission’s agenda for today’s meeting contains some new details worth sharing on the blog. The West Apartments is up for approval and may one day bring about 150 apartments to West Street in Glenwood South. The building, being designed by the same JDavis Architects that brought us the West at North tower, will sit adjacent to the same building you see in the picture above. You can see from the site map that the new building will remove the sales office along Harrington Street and the rest of the surface parking in the surrounding lot.

West Apartments Site Location
Screenshot from Google Maps

There’s nothing too exciting in the agenda as the 85′ tower will consist of two levels of parking (one above and one below ground) and five floors of residential. No rendering is included. The tower isn’t taking out anything anyone might miss but is bringing some retail space with it. The new development therefore brings upgraded 14′ sidewalks to West and Harrington Street. While not a requirement, 10 bicycle spaces will be provided. Check the agenda for floorplans also.

Private development is moving closer and closer to the county’s land along Capital Boulevard and while it will probably take awhile, I’m still hoping for Tucker Street to extend to the east towards Capital one day. I hope to see the east side of Glenwood South become a grid again so the neighborhood has room to grow.

by Leo Suarez

Fall Backwards For The 2012 Fall Restaurant Roundup

Fiction Kitchen on Dawson Street.

The restaurant waves keep crashing in and this Fall, there are some new options for you and quite a few announcements of things to come in the Downtown Raleigh foodie pipeline. Most of the new places are setting up in previously empty retail spaces rather then closed spaces. Downtown just hasn’t tapped out yet.

As always, make sure to bookmark the DT Raleigh Eats list when you need to find something new. Onto the roundup.

  • Pictured above is the signage for an upcoming 100% vegetarian restaurant on Dawson Street. Fiction Kitchen hopes to open within the next few months and could use your help through their Kickstarter campaign.
  • Zinda has now opened in one of the ground floor spaces in PNC Plaza. The new Asian restaurant expands Eschelon Hospitality’s takeover of the 300 block of Fayetteville Street.
  • Bida Manda, a Laotian restaurant, is now open on Blount Street across from Moore Square. Bida Manda replaces the former Fai Thai restaurant in the same space that closed in July 2011.
  • Work continues on the new spaces at Seaboard Station where a coffee shop, Blend and Grind, and a burger shop, Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar, are planned.
  • A collaboration between the folks behind Dos Taquitos and The Hibernian will result in Dos Taquitos Xoco which will open in the former space of The Diner in Glenwood South. The new restaurant is being worked on today and expected to open this fall.
  • Not satisfied yet, those behind The Hibernian are working on another pub along Person Street near Piebird. Work on the former Rosie’s Plate will bring a neighborhood beer and wine bar around Spring of next year.
  • Bolt Bistro and Bar is really taking shape and the sign is up on the space along Fayetteville Street. The sign still says opening Summer 2012 so hopefully the slip in the schedule isn’t too bad.
  • The house at 610 Glenwood Avenue has had major renovation work done to it and a new bar, View Bar, is set to open there. You can follow the progress up until opening on their Facebook page.
  • Across the street at 603 Glenwood Avenue, work continues on another bar for the renovated house at the corner of Glenwood and Johnson Street.

by Leo Suarez

Union Station Fully Funded, Could Be Open In 2016

Raleigh Union Station interior before renovation

This is a short one but a good one. Some great news out of the future Raleigh Union Station last week.

Mayor Nancy McFarlane welcomed Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo to Raleigh today for the announcement that the Union Station Project will receive the full $60 million in funding.

*Full Funding for Raleigh’s Union Station Project Is Announced

The video of the announcement can be seen below or on Youtube.

by Leo Suarez

Municipography: Union Station and R-Line Changes

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.

I recommend email readers click through to the website to see the embedded video.

At the Raleigh City Council meeting on September 4, 2012, the council discussed funding for the Union Station project as well as approved some changes at the Moore Square Bus Station that will effect the R-Line.

Union Station


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During the meeting, council discussed a future commitment of $3 million towards the Union Station project. Comments were generally positive about the station and it really feels that Raleigh and NCDOT want this project to succeed. With a 6-1 vote, the council approved the additional funds.

The city also approved the allocation of funds towards development of a schematic design for the project.

Bus Traffic at Moore Square Station

We haven’t talked about it on this blog before but there have been grumblings about the bus and pedestrian traffic along Wilmington Street and the effect it has on nearby businesses. To catch readers up, I’ll point you to a few articles from the local news media:

Business owners and residents in the Moore Square area met with the City of Raleigh on Tuesday, trying to come up with ways to address loitering, panhandling and bus congestion in the Moore Square District.

*Downtown Raleigh residents decry loitering, panhandling, ‘riff-raff’

Business owners say the crowds, coupled with bus congestion along the street, create an uninviting atmosphere for customers.

*New merchants chafe at crowds from Moore Square bus terminal

Here’s an alternative viewpoint from Barry Saunders at the N&O.

Here’s my advice to the business owners who are so dismayed that a city’s downtown transit center has people occupying various rungs of the social ladder: go out and meet them and talk to them. You may find that they are just like you, except they don’t have a car.

*Saunders: Respect needed among Moore Square’s old and new

Now that you are caught up, at the city council meeting this week, the recommendations from the Law and Public Safety Committee were unanimously approved. Those include:

  • Expand the bus zone on Wilmington Street to relieve bus congestion.
  • Move the R-16 Moore Square Deck station south of Martin Street.
  • The R-Line will now always run along the nighttime route that rounds Moore Square.
  • Immediate upgrades to the Moore Square Station including better pedestrian access, lighting, and safety upgrades.

While this may or may not solve the bus traffic issue on Wilmington Street, the R-Line may be the victim. R-Line riders could potentially experience added wait time as the bus will always make the trip around Moore Square rather than driving straight up Wilmington Street during the daytime operating hours. However, this may be a temporary solution until the Moore Square Bus Station is significantly upgraded for more bus capacity.

by Leo Suarez

New Citrix Offices In The Warehouse District Working Through The Planning Phases

The 100 block of South West Street.

The growing technology company Citrix is making plans to move into downtown Raleigh next year. The city’s website has some details of their new building that is currently under review by the planning department. More of a renovation than a new building, the company will expand on West Street in downtown’s Warehouse District. For the warehouse lovers out there, the design does include a demolition plan which may upset some but others may welcome the added retail and parking spaces.

First, for those catching up, the announcement:

Citrix today announced that in response to rapidly increasing demand for ShareFile, the secure and reliable file sharing service, it will move its North Carolina offices to an ultra-modern 130,000 square-foot office space in the warehouse district of downtown Raleigh. The facility will become the new development center for the data sharing product group which is expected to more than double in size over the next five years. This move follows Gov. Bev Perdue’s June announcement of Citrix’s plans to create 337 jobs and invest $12.5 million in North Carolina. The move is anticipated to be completed in 2013.

*On the Move: Citrix Announces Expansion in Downtown Raleigh, North Carolina – July 30, 2012.

Looking at the development plan application on the city’s website, we have some more details as to what is expected on the 100 block of South West Street. The area under design is shown in the Google map screenshot below.

Area around 100 block of South West Street, Downtown Raleigh.

The entire block is under development and I’ve included two separate colors to show what is staying and what will be brought down. The orange indicates the warehouse that will be renovated for new offices to house Citrix’s future Downtown Raleigh employees. The red shows which buildings will be demolished to make way for a parking deck-over-retail development. This includes the Men at Work stand-alone building and the shorter warehouse attached to the Dillon Supply building.

West Morgan Street.

The 100 block of South West Street.

As of August 27, 2012, there was a sign on the front door of Men at Work stating that they will be moving, not far, starting on September 1st.

The parking deck/retail combo building will not be attached to the Citrix warehouse but instead be separated by approximately 26 feet of outdoor landscaping and walkways. Preliminary sketches have the block looking like the sketch below.

Parking Deck and Citrix building, east elevation plan.

The sketches show retail spaces and vehicle entrance/exits on West Street as well as a healthy amount of retail space along Morgan Street, including space along almost the entire length of the block minus the space for delivery access. 14 foot sidewalks and street trees will be put in place as is standard in new developments thanks to the city’s 2030 comprehensive plan. About half of the Morgan Street side will actually get 24 foot sidewalks. It’s also worth noting that the sidewalk improvements wrap the entire block.

See the document for more details but the plan looks promising to bring life at all hours of the day to the warehouse district.

by Leo Suarez

Some Additions To The Downtown Arena Discussion

A Carolina Hurricanes hockey game at the RBC Center in 2010.

We talked about parking earlier in the month and now it’s time for another love affair of mine; the downtown sports arena topic. I just want to quote two articles that add to the ongoing conversation. For newer readers, a sports arena in downtown Raleigh is an idea that floats in every now and then and is by no means planned or even in concept at this time.

You could certainly argue that I think we’re not ready for an urban arena and that the location of the PNC Center is perfectly adequate. To add some points on the development topic, whether arenas spur it or not, Richard Florida asks exactly that with an article at The Atlantic Cities.

Sports boosters claim the new stadiums bring economic benefits and add to a city’s “big league” status. But objective academic studies have countered this view, noting that stadiums add little in the way of actual economic benefit.

*Do Basketball Arenas Spur Economic Development?

The study that Mr. Florida writes about does mention cities that had a positive affect on development and a rise in regional income. However, it’s possible that this rise in an area’s income is a result from the arena moving from the suburbs to the city. The net could be zero.

And then comes the taxpayer benefit from making the investment in additional teams and stadiums/arenas. Dr. Kurt Rotthoff of Seton Hall University talked on the radio at WAMC about how politicians may try to sell the idea that sports teams and using incentives to build venues are a catalyst for economic development.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on new stadiums, with the claim that they will create tens- or hundreds of millions of dollars of local economic impact; however, looking at county employment and incomes after a team enters or leaves a town, a co-author and I find mixed results on employment, with no overall impact, and mainly no impact on incomes, but a few cases of a negative impact. This means there is no impact, or possibly a negative impact, of bringing a team to town, and no impact, with the possibility of a positive impact, when the team leaves town. This primarily occurs because there is a shift in consumption, from restaurants and bars to the stadium, when these teams come to town and thus no net increase in consumption. Restaurants and bars do open closer to the stadium, but this is a result of them closing locations in other sections of town.

*Dr. Kurt Rotthoff, Seton Hall University – Economic Impact of Sports Arenas

One can just look at West Raleigh and see that development has not followed the PNC Center and it’ll be years before it does. Mr. Florida ends his article well with:

The present research is generally consistent with the notion that professional sports are not the cause of development so much as they are the effect.”

West Raleigh fans do have a lot to look forward to in the Blue Ridge Road District Study which may turn that street and all the areas around the fairgrounds and the sports complex into an active destination.

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.