Christmas Story Time by dtraleigh, on Flickr. Best if viewed large.
Santa and Governor Perdue read a story to children around the Christmas tree on the Capitol grounds. The tree was lit last week.
New NC State Bar HQ Construction Begins, Deals Final Blow To Former Baptist University
Dirt is being moved at the corner of Blount and Edenton Streets for the new headquarters of the North Carolina State Bar. The four story, 60,000 square foot building will have a classical exterior with a rotunda entrance to its lobby on the corner of the intersection. The new workplace for the Bar’s seventy-five employees will also seek a LEED silver certification.
According to an old post in September of 2009, the original plans were to begin construction in 2010 with everything up and running within the first half of 2012. Clearly that did not happen but assuming a similar timeline, we can estimate construction to be complete around the end of 2013 or beginning of 2014.
Corner of Blount and Edenton Streets.
State owned surface parking lots will now become offices so from an urban perspective, we’re moving in the right direction. But as typical of NC State Government, their building habits seem to disrespect more of Raleigh’s history.
The Times of Baptist University in Raleigh
Now let’s look a bit deeper as the site to this new State Bar Headquarters has a bit of history to it that I have been interested in over the last few years.
In the 2009 post linked to earlier, commenter Karl points out that this site contains the brick pillar entranceways of the former Baptist University for Women (BUW). Eventually, the university became Meredith College before moving to a new site to the west in 1925. After that, the building became the Mansion Hotel up to 1951. For a great writeup as well as some phenomenal pictures of the building, jump over to Goodnight, Raleigh at the link below:
Raleigh’s Own Castle via GoodnightRaleigh.com
In the 1960s and 70s, the state government went on a building spree with their complex along the former Halifax street north of the Capitol building. In these times, the great mansions of Blount Street were bought up with many being destroyed. The BUW building came down in 1967 but the brick pillars will stand along the sidewalk of Blount Street for another forty-four years.
In April of 2008, I visited the site of the former BUW building and found the brick pillars. This 2008 post shows an old Google Map image that still has the driveway of the former building as well. The current Google Map imagery for Raleigh has been updated with bus parking wiping out the driveway but the pillars still can be seen. (until the next update)
Sticking to its reputation of little or no historic preservation, the state government has finished off the last trace of the BUW building and now the brick pillars are no more.
The former Baptist University for Women
New NC State Bar headquarters
Municipography, The 2040 Bus Transit Plan
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.
People seem to love trains and feel that mass transit means having shiny trains rolling all over town. I wish there were more bus upgrade plans to share but perhaps that is because upgrades can be turned around quicker then a train so in depth plans haven’t been published yet. But today there is hope.
At the December 6, 2011 Raleigh City Council meeting, Transit Administrator David Eatman gave an overview of the 2040 Bus Transit plan. The video is below and you can read the Bus Transit Development Plan here. (pdf) We’ll save analysis on it for another time.
For anyone that is impatient hearing about trains running in a six to ten year timeframe should get behind the buses because upgrades will occur within 12 to 18 months after funding is secured. The buses seem to get little media coverage and in my opinion an upgraded bus system could make or break our investments in transit, regardless of how well the trains run.
For e-mail subscribers, watch or listen to the video on the blog here.
The Gramercy Apartments Eyes Glenwood South, We Dive Into The Plans
The apartment trend continues with Glenwood South landing another pack of density. The Gramercy is a seven story, 209 unit apartment building planned along North Street between Glenwood Avenue and Boylan Avenue. The building will be on the north side of North Street and partially along Anson Place. The site plan is available here.
If you are wondering how this building conforms to the 2030 Comprehensive Plan, the plan tells us in its own words:
The comprehensive plans designates the site as Central Business district which supports mixed use buildings. The proposed plan provides the following on the ground floor; retail along Glenwood, leasing/club space and services areas on North Street, and residential with stoops and planters on Boylan Street. Residential will be provided above all ground floor uses. The comprehensive plan policy DT 1.11 calls for appropriate transitions in height, scale and design along the downtown edges. The proposed development will be XX stories and provides the transition in height between the North at West building and the Wiley school and Cameron Park neighborhood. The site is within 1/4 mile of a proposed light rail transit stops, has a CAT stop 1 block away, Less than 1 block to an existing R-line stop and providing 14′ sidewalks to comply with M.2 transportation Policy’s.
It’s a good thing site plans aren’t approved based on copyediting.
The corner of Glenwood Avenue and North Street in December 2011.
The building will add retail spaces which only helps fill in the gaps within Glenwood South. There is currently nothing there now that contributes to the pedestrian experience starting at the corner of Glenwood and North, past the always changing two-floor, club building and up to Cafe Helios. Plus, retail spaces along North Street will add more shop and restaurant density to Glenwood South giving it potential to lengthen its entertainment resumé.
Looking at the floor plan for the ground level, the vehicle entrance to the 209 parking, ten bicycle spaces will be on North Street. The plan indeed does include the fourteen foot sidewalks along North Street and Glenwood Avenue. The Glenwood facing retail spaces also appear to have their front doors and windows recessed a bit to create outdoor spaces similar to what 510 Glenwood’s Red Room restaurant currently has.
The corner of Boylan Avenue and North Street in December 2011.
The site plan doesn’t contain much on the looks of the building but it looks very similar to the now under construction Hampton Inn only a few blocks to the north. It seems like this is another example of the present day “starchitecture” that is making our city look like others. The density and infill is welcome but it’s not a long, lasting iconic building by any means.
630 North
Long time readers may remember that at once this section of downtown had a project proposed at the corner of North Street and Boylan Avenue. 630 North was planned here and could have brought ten stories worth of offices and condos. How times have changed since 2007. Click the link below to check it out.
630 North sneaks up on us (April 13, 2007)
NCSU Landscape Architects Show Off Vision For Capital Blvd on First Friday
First Friday is filled with tons of great events and things to see. Since we’ve been following the Capital Boulevard corridor study, there’s one event I wanted to highlight. Landscape architecture students from NC State will be showing off some of their designs for the Capital Blvd corridor at the Urban Design Center tomorrow starting at 6pm.
Currently, the corridor study is pretty wide open so new ideas are welcome. I’m hoping to see designs for the corridor that balances the people aspects, sidewalks, parks, with the need for transit, mainly cars, which is what currently dominates there.
Urban Design Center
133 Fayetteville Street
6pm
Turkey Day Musings
Blogging has been slow but work continues behind the scenes on a new project for the website. This I hope to share within a few weeks and hopefully gets the ball rolling. In the mean time, here’s a topic for everyone to discuss over the weekend.
If you didn’t know already, the acorn in Moore Square was damaged during the tornadoes in April 2011. A few weeks ago, the council approved some money to repair it so that it could be used at First Night, downtown’s New Year’s Eve party. Could it actually have been a good idea to leave the damage in the acorn as a way to remember the tornadoes of 2011? After the trees in the cemeteries are finally cleaned up, the acorn would have been the last thing to remember this event by.
One city councilor was thinking about this back then.
Do we fix it, or leave as-is in remembrance, like the Liberty Bell? @dtraleigh: NO! The acorn's been dented! http://t.co/Jg1p3k5
— Bonner Gaylord (@BonnerGaylord) April 16, 2011
Pic of the Week
The outdoor seating and wide sidewalks on the west side of the 300 block of Glenwood are taking shape. Below is a before picture taken from another angle. This is an example of what the new comprehensive plan is going to continue bringing to new development and building renovations in our city’s more urban areas.
I believe Glenwood Avenue will actually gain a few more street parking spaces because of the loss of the driveway so the actual amount of parking lost is fewer then then the total previously under the building.
The pedestrian experience is improved with a sidewalk almost triple in size. It might make sense to move the R-Line stop that is in front Hibernian about twenty or thirty feet to the south.
Transit, Commuter Rail, and More, We Dive Into The Docs
Tomorrow is an interesting day for transit fans as Durham County steps up to tax themselves in order to bring upgrades to our region’s transit. A one-half cent sales tax increase will be on the ballot in order to make these things happen. Readers should pay close attention because Raleigh’s close buddy may be bringing some goods to this symbiotic metropolitan partnership.
The informative website Our Transit Future (OTF) has documents aplenty to read up on but in case you haven’t gone through them, I’d like to attempt to summarize some of the things that may benefit Downtown Raleigh in the near future if Durham voters approve the tax increase. The documents there describe future stations, timetables, expected ridership, and other facts that could come into reality in the Triangle within the next decade.
Clearly, this blog supports the upgrade of transit in the Triangle and I hope that this tax is passed in Durham County. Let’s see what aspects of the plan may have an impact on downtown.
Durham’s Plan Links To Raleigh
The Durham County transit plan will go towards the following Raleigh related improvements, according to the fact sheets listed on the OTF site:
Step 2 – Rail from Durham to RTP and Raleigh
- 2012 – Initial planning and engineering begins
- 2018 – Opening year of peak hour rail connection to RTP and Raleigh
– Length of corridor: 37 mi.
– End to end travel time: 51 min.
– 4 stations in Durham county
- Later Saturday and Sunday connectivity between Downtown Durham and Downtown Chapel Hill; between Downtown Durham, RTP, and Raleigh; and, between Chapel Hill, southern Durham, RTP, and Raleigh.
- More frequent express trips between Durham and Raleigh.
Here’s a map of the commuter rail line planned for the Triangle going from West Durham to Greenfield Parkway, Garner.
Click for larger
There are some explanations as to why commuter rail is being planned from Raleigh to Durham while light rail is being planned from Durham to Chapel Hill.
Why is light rail the technology for the Durham to Chapel Hill rail line and commuter rail the technology for the Durham to RTP and Raleigh rail line?
The different technology choices for the Durham to Chapel Hill and Durham to RTP and Raleigh rail systems were chosen to best respond to the characteristics of the travel markets in each corridor.
Durham to Chapel Hill Light Rail: This 17-mile corridor already has high traffic, a demand for transit and features three travel markets that include all-day trips and many short trips:
- Work and student trips to Duke University/Hospital and Downtown Durham from the west
- Work and student trips to UNC-Chapel Hill/Hospital from the east
- Low-income work and shopping trips from East Durham to retail districts along 15-501
Additionally, the corridor features significant special event attractions such as DPAC, Brightleaf Square, Ninth Street, and UNC Dean Dome. Some of the most-densely populated census tracts in the Triangle including UNC’s main campus and Duke’s east campus are within a short walk to rail stations. This rail corridor is also well-positioned to capture the already-existing 3,000 to 4,000 daily bus transit riders from points east traveling to UNC via park and ride and Triangle Transit services such as bus 805 in Woodcroft in South Durham.
Durham to RTP and Raleigh: This 37-mile corridor features multiple travel markets with long trip lengths:
- Work and student trips to NCSU/Downtown Raleigh
- Work trips to Duke Medical Center
- Work trips to Research Triangle Park
The corridor features considerable work trips but comparatively less non-work trips than the Durham-Chapel Hill corridor. There is existing heavy transit demand for NCSU, and considerable transit demand for employment trips to downtown Raleigh. These long transit trips remove large amounts of vehicle miles traveled from regional highways, and
the higher average speed of commuter rail over great distances makes it the ideal technology to attract motorists out of their cars with speeds that will most likely be unachievable by car during rush hour in the future.
The documents also predict a daily ridership of 7,000 boardings per day between Raleigh and Durham.
Corridor Studies, The Gritty Details
Outside of the documents that revolve around the tax increase and transit investment plan are others that focus on the three transit corridors with much more details. (up to date as of July 2011) Those three are:
- Durham-Orange Corridor
- Durham-Wake Corridor
- Wake Corridor
While the Wake Corridor information impacts downtown Raleigh more, tomorrow’s vote in Durham will most likely help some of the plans documented at the Durham-Wake Corridor link more. Having said that, I’ll focus only on the documents at that link and save the Wake Corridor for another time. (maybe when Wake votes for transit improvements next year?)
Commuter Rail
- The commuter rail line between Durham and Garner will run in the North Carolina Railroad Corridor.
- NCDOT will double track certain section in order to separate other rail traffic. (freight and high-speed)
- Proposed Downtown Raleigh station location:
– Location in existing railroad right-of-way neat the intersection of West and Davie Streets.
– Station would have walk-up features, at-grade, side platform and pedestrian access to future Union Station.
This table shows the Commuter Rail Station-to-Station Operating Characteristics.
Click for Larger
This table breaks down the 51 minute end-to-end trip time so with it we can predict how long it will take to get to and from popular locations.
- Downtown Raleigh and Downtown Cary: 11.7 minutes
- Downtown Raleigh and North RTP: 25.2 minutes
- Downtown Raleigh and Downtown Durham: 33.3 minutes
FYI, the North RTP station is approximately located near the intersection of Miami Boulevard and Cornwallis Road.
While weekend service is not planned, weekday service hours of commuter rail could look like what is described in this table.
Click for larger
If you are a map person and would like to view each and every section of the commuter rail line from end-to-end, jump into this 14 MB pdf here. There are also more detailed topography maps available for the entire line at the corridor link.
Below is a proposed platform layout for the downtown Raleigh station followed by an example of how other stations might look. The downtown platform would sit between the two tracks rather than having two side platforms.
Last, I’ve posted what I think is the most interesting table in all of the documents. Here are the projected ridership numbers from station to station. The table is packed so make sure and click the image to view it larger.
According to the table above, the most trafficked stations will be Downtown Cary, Downtown Raleigh, and NCSU, in that order. You can see that most of the traffic comes between Downtown Cary and to either NCSU or Downtown Raleigh. I feel this is predicting a future scenario where commuters park and ride into Raleigh.
To dissect the downtown Raleigh numbers even further, we’ll start with the 825 arrivals and 1,140 departures figures in the table. There are assumptions that about 15% of trips will be ones that do not involve a person’s home. Thinking about these numbers, this has to explain the difference of 315 between arrivals and departures. (do the math) So an educated guess as to a person’s non-home based trip would be something like leaving downtown to go to the airport for example.
So how can we have more people leave then show up each day? This is what I need to explore more as the numbers suggest that in some cases people will be arriving in downtown using some other method but leaving on the commuter rail lines. If anyone has any information on this I would most appreciate an insight to this.