by Leo Suarez

Hotel development in the works

Nice article in the N&O about some hotels, the Winston’s want to bring to Raleigh.

RALEIGH – Winston Hotels wants to bring another tall tower to downtown – one that could rise 25 stories and feature two hotels and hundreds of condominiums on an entire city block.

…….

Winston’s plan to include two hotels from two chains in one building is part of a strategy to take on two emerging, diverging sectors of downtown’s hospitality landscape: boutique and business class. It attempts to do so in two merging sections of downtown: Fayetteville Street and the Glenwood South entertainment district. It’s on the one-acre block bounded by Hillsborough, Edenton, West and Harrington streets, where weathered, one- and two-story buildings now sit.

……

The project will also include a 120-room Hampton Inn, which is expected to attract visitors who like uniformity in services and amenities – stuff big chains are known for.

“But it will have a little more panache than a typical highway Hampton,” said Winston Hotels CEO Bob Winston.

……

Plans for 200 to 250 condominiums are still fluid. Construction is expected to begin in early 2008 and wrap up two years later. By then, the housing market could change radically.

“We think now it makes sense to do the condos,” Winston said. “But we’re flexible about that.”

With the condos, the tower would rise 22 to 25 stories high. Without the condos, the project would stand half as tall.

Location

by Leo Suarez

630 North sneaks up on us

This project has been a little under the radar and I keep forgetting about it. It seems that the 630 North website has posted a rough schedule of events. It says that the groundbreaking will occur in June of this year, with the building being completed in the fall of 2008.

This ten-story, mixed-use building will have a parking deck for its offices and condos on the upper floors. There is no on street retail, which I think is disappointing. However, most of the foot traffic in the area will be on Glenwood, which will work out in the near future. If the area continues to grow and develop, then I think it is possible to turn the ground floor space into some kind of shop for the local residents.

Overall, I like this project and it adds some good infill to downtown and the Glenwood South area. Also, no one should feel bad about the church that’s getting demolished in order to build this building. I think they came out pretty well in the end.

Where’s at?

by Leo Suarez

Demolition occurring at 712 Tucker

The Raleigh Chronicle is reporting that there are warning signs placed at the future site of the 712 Tucker project about demolition taking place.

An entire city block just off of Glenwood Avenue where the Raleigh Office Supply used to be located will be demolished soon.

The large brick structure will be torn down along with another smaller office building on the other end to make way for new luxury condominiums to be built this summer called 712 Tucker Street Luxury Condos.

……..

A large green fence held in place by sandbags has already been erected at the site and signs warning of the impending demolition have already been posted. According to people at the site, the fence has been in place for about two weeks and workers have been busy removing materials from the warehouse already.

If the Raleigh Office Supply warehouse has any sentimental value to you, then you better get down there and say goodbye before it vanishes. Check the bird-vision for its location.

Bird-vision!

by Leo Suarez

A new prez for the Raleigh Convention Bureau

I was going to piggy-back this with the last post but decided to separate the two. This is just a little snippet of information that I think is important. Since Raleigh is becoming a convention kind of city, with its new convention center opening up next summer, it has now hired a new chief to lead the way. The N&O reports the following:

With Raleigh’s new convention center on track to open in the summer of 2008, the Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau has named a new president and chief executive officer.

The new leader, Denny Edwards, was senior vice president for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau for the last 10 years and has 25 years experience in the business. He succeeds Dave Heinl, who started Raleigh’s convention and visitors bureau in 1987. Heinl announced his retirement in August.

Russ Smith, chairman of the Raleigh bureau’s board of directors, said Edwards was named after a national search that included community and business leaders.

…………….

Edwards’ first day will be May 7. He’ll earn an annual salary of $175,000.

With 25 years of experience, I think it’s a great hire and should really put that convention center to good use, as well as helping raise Raleigh’s national prestige. I am from south Florida and continue to visit a few times a year, so I am familiar with the type of market in that area. I am confident that that much experience in a strong, world-class metropolitan area can only be beneficial to Raleigh’s economy.

by Leo Suarez

Mystery Construction

We’ve discussed some plans recently for a complete development of the block mostly owned by Progress Energy. This is the block bounded by Blount, Martin, Davie, and Wilmington st, shown here. They are planning to possibly do some big things to this block but no plans have been released.

It is odd however that fencing on this block has been put up and lots of the surface parking has been destroyed. Refer to my little sketch up of the block below to get an idea of what is going on at the moment.


Yellow – Fences, Red – Demolished lots

The fencing encompasses most of the block and even some of the store fronts, which are currently empty. It is interesting to see some kind of activity on this block, especially to this extent, without anyone knowing about what is going on; there is no news or media information about it.

The area is used for the RBC Plaza construction staging area, which is being built across Wilmington St. There is also a parking deck that will be constructed on the northern portion of the block, shown in this map. It may be reasonable to assume all this activity is for this deck and that the mid block structures are going to be demolished in the coming weeks. No concrete information can be found on what is going on exactly. As usual, I will post when more information comes about.

by Leo Suarez

In 2007, we get a facelift

Things have felt a little slow recently as no major announcements have occurred. It seems that the initial wave of projects of the last few years have gone through all the paperwork and are off the drawing board, becoming a reality. Initial projects that are up and running include The Paramount, The Quorum Center, and Fayetteville Street Phase I. This is just the beginning of a list of new buildings and projects coming to the downtown area.

This year, 2007, will be a year for all the planned projects to grow. We will all see towers and buildings sprout out of the ground and reshape the skyline. Currently, Raleigh is overrun with tower cranes. Construction is everywhere and here is a list I compiled to give you an idea of what to expect throughout the year. These are all estimates but I’m confident they are somewhat correct based on all the activity I have noticed.

· RBC Plaza – 32 story tower will be at its full height before 2008

· Convention Center – Outer shell will be complete

· Mariott Hotel – 16 story hotel will be at full height with outer shell complete.

· City Plaza will be well under construction

· The Lafayette Hotel will finally break ground

· Reynolds Tower – Groundbreaking and less then 10 stories built

· Bloomsbury Estates – Construction of the first building nearly complete

· 222 Glenwood – All 7 floors built with an out shell

· West at North – 15 story condo tower will be at full height

The Fayetteville St. and Glenwood South districts are seeing significant growth. I mentioned the major projects here in this list. There are of course, lots of renovation projects going on along the two districts. We’ll save that list of minor projects for a later post.

by Leo Suarez

Blount St. Revitilization

After checking out the historic Blount St. area, and taking pictures of some of the houses that are in this post, I remembered that there was a plan to revitalize this area over the next four years. The area desperately needs it; houses need to be spruced up, landscaping needs to be maintained, barren parking lots, some paved, others gravel, add nothing to the character of the area, and all the empty lots sit unused. Blount St. is a major entrance to the downtown area from the north and would be a great welcome mat to the core downtown district.

The city acquired about 23 acres for this project and the affected area is shown in the map below. They acquired the land and all the buildings on them. Currently the historic houses are being used as offices for small firms and government branches. They are all on a schedule and will be moved out of the coming years.


Target area of about 6 blocks

The area might not be as popular as the other livelier areas of downtown, since it is shadowed by most of the government buildings that become a ghost town at night and on the weekends. These two maps below show the area I’m talking about. There are 6 blocks around Blount St. that represent the target area. You can see on the map below that the area is very close to the Glenwood South and Fayetteville St. (south of the capitol building) districts. The area is also south of Peace College, West of Oakwood and Mordecai neighborhoods, east of the Government complex, and North of the downtown core. It is obvious that this is an important area to downtown Raleigh.


Parking lots are plenty in the area now, but will be all gone soon enough


Glenwood South and Fayetteville St. distrcits are close by

The overall plan is shown in the following map. It includes revitalization of the historic homes along Blount St., filling in the empty lots with new homes, and selling them all to be used as residential rather than commercial. The area will also be filled with dense development including row houses, carriage houses, and flats. Some of the denser developments will include 3 or 4 story mixed-use buildings with on street retail. Wilmington and Peace St. will include the densest developments. I’ve also included some of the building renderings below.


Notice the Krispy Kreme sign


You can see Peace college in the background, this is Wilmington St.

I think this is one of the most important revitalization projects in the downtown area. It is not on everyone’s radar and I believe the work will be slow on this one, like I mentioned earlier, it will take 4 years to complete. The work will be done in phases and before you know it there will be a very unique area of downtown with dense, smart development and a street with rich, historic houses that the city can be proud of.


Each block will be revitilized one at a time in phases.