by Leo Suarez

Dense Downtown Neighborhoods

It does not take a scientist, or some fanboy blogger, to tell you that more people are spending time downtown. Overall, more restaurants are opening up and being patronized by people outside of the nine to five work week hours. It still takes a major event to bring more people downtown on a weekend day then a weekday but the once sleepy ghost town has recently found new life. Visitors are on the rise because of the options on nights and weekends and the amount of downtown residents have slowly risen as well. I’ve always thought that downtown is at an interesting point with new businesses and new residents. New places may not open because of the lack of residents living close by. At the same time, people may not want to move downtown because of the lack of available shops and convenience stores. Slowly, downtown Raleigh will break this cycle when it reaches a certain amount of residential density and I see potential in Dawson St. leading the way.

I want to mention The Hue condo building and how it may be a key boost in residential density in downtown. The Hue and its neighbors, Park Devereux and The Dawson, form a cluster of people living close to each other unlike any other area. According to the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, these three buildings have 319 units between them. Spanned across only two blocks, this will be the densest residential area when The Hue opens. (dense by Raleigh standards) Putting their look and architecture aside, I think I like what has been built here. The five to seven story buildings do not feel overwhelming and create a more livable environment compared to a corridor of twenty plus story towers. If another condo building in the seven to ten story range was built across the street from The Dawson, we may have a condo neighborhood district forming.

With a couple hundred or even a thousand homes so close to each other, new types of restaurants and shops may pop up. This location, away from the more ‘touristy’ centers of Fayetteville St. or Glenwood South, should see neighborhood style cheap eats, convenience stores, and could support a small grocery store too. I’m not knocking on some of the great places to eat and drink around Fayetteville St., I spend most of my time there right now. The only problem with the core downtown area is the higher cost, resulting in much higher rents. The places that are now open need to draw in people from outside of downtown and become a destination to be very successful. They also rely heavily on pedestrian traffic. Downtown Raleigh will really reach a new level when we have businesses that can solely survive by the condo-dwellers that live within a few hundred feet around them.

I’d be curious to know if the Urban Design Center has any plans or strategies to encourage this kind of density.

by Leo Suarez

BeerCon: Foundation

Foundation sits below the sidewalks of the 200 block of Fayetteville St. and is a real highlight to the downtown drinking scene. The menu has some tasty, handmade cocktails and a very thorough list of bourbon. The beer list is short, but Foundation does serve some of the better beers brewed in this state and always has a few seasonals to choose from.

The bar is small and cozy. If you can gather your crew around a table, everyone should enjoy the warm atmosphere and light music during any engaging conversations. Get a membership and visit sometime on a weeknight.

Non-smoking

Website: http://foundationnc.com/

213 Fayetteville Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
(go to map)
(919) 896-6016

by Leo Suarez

Go Canes!

I’ll be at the game tonight, game 3. There is such a great energy in this city when the canes make the playoffs and I’m having fun going along for the ride. It will never touch the college basketball scene around here but maybe one day every regular season game will be on the TVs at bars and restaurants each night, no questions asked. I don’t want to continue to beat the downtown arena idea even more but while making tailgating plans earlier today, I had a thought. I think the tailgating culture out at the RBC center is great but would definitely die out if the arena was in an urban area.

by Leo Suarez

Turning Up The RalCon

It has been a couple weeks but now is finally the time to get this blog thing rolling again. I’m back from my China adventure and finally feel caught up with the latest Raleigh news. This time of year usually is pretty busy in downtown Raleigh as a lot of events are going on and the weather starts to warm up, bringing lots of people out. I just wanted to update to show people that I am still alive and have some ideas that I may or may not write about. Development is real slow these days but that does not mean there is anything to talk about. Here are a couple ideas for future posts.

  • Beer drinking in Raleigh, the success of The World Beerfest, and places that support the scene.
  • Wayfinding signs review.
  • Redesigning Moore Square; are people asking for green space upgrades in downtown or is the city hoping it will encourage more usage? Do we need this at all right now?
  • Transit. There’s always something to talk about here.
  • Maybe a rant about how many people want by-the-slice pizza but no one will open a place.
by Leo Suarez

Shutting Down RalCon

Not permanently, take it easy. I’ll be out of the country for the next two weeks starting Wednesday so I’m not going to worry about updating the blog from thousands of miles away. If anyone has ever been to Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong and can recommend something unique to see, post it below.

by Leo Suarez

Should City Market Be Pedestrian Only?

Plans for any of this are not in the works to my knowledge so this discussion is purely speculative but what if cars were not allowed on the stone streets of City Market? I thought about this recently while I was walking down the skinny sidewalk on Blake St. (some of you know what I’m talking about) and was maneuvering through parked cars in order to get around. Granted, I could have just walked in the road since traffic is always light but it is still a road and cars have 24 hour access here. Would the shops in City Market benefit if cars were taken out of the picture?

City Market only occupies about a half block of space so we are not talking about a huge area. The parking lot to the east provides plenty of space for cars any time. What hasn’t been available before that is now is the parking deck across Blount St. There are over 1,000 spaces here and even on this month’s busy First Friday, there was a ton of room available here. (I know because we went up to the ninth floor to take pictures, great view)

So if the cars are gone, we would need to make the area more pedestrian friendly. One idea would be to make the sidewalks flush with the street. That way, pedestrians have plenty of room to walk and are not confined to a four or five foot sidewalk. Next, more trees would be needed for shade during the summer months. There are already some so a few more would make the area cozier, especially if more outdoor seating was offered. And as for the larger lot on Wolfe St., a public plaza could go here. Events are already held in Moore Square, and in the future City Plaza, so I think a larger gathering space would be appropriate. (maybe some public art?)

I really do not see taking the cars off the streets to have a negative impact on the businesses in City Market. In most cases, people do not come to a shop in City Market because they noticed it while driving by. This is because those short streets do not really take you anywhere so it is not a route many drive through. If City Market was marketed more as a place to stroll around with cool shops, places to eat and hang out then I think it would get a nice boost. Right now, the R-Line stop helps pour more pedestrians into this area so getting rid of the cars can make things easier and more inviting. And if anything, this might help land a solid tenant in the empty historic City Market building.