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.

by Leo Suarez

Hillsborough St. Gets Taller

I realized something yesterday as I was driving home on capital into downtown. There is no real skyline that greets you as you drive in on southbound capital blvd. The newly finished Quorum Center is up which is a plus and later on next year we’ll have the West at North condo tower over in Glenwood South but there are no significantly tall buildings close by and its hard to see the cluster of towers over on Fayetteville St. I realized that I was not thinking too deeply and all that will change in the coming years.

A new 32 story tower will be built on the Dawson/Morgan/Hillsborough block. It’s across the street from The Dawson, behind The Flying Saucer, and across the street from the Clarion Hotel. This tower will add to that northern skyline that I was talking about. I like the placement of the building because it helps to connect the areas of downtown better. If more density grows around it, it will create a lively scene from Fayetteville St. all the way to Glenwood.

The current residence at the site, set to be demolished this summer

The tower does not have an official name so everyone calls it the Reynolds tower. This is because the father and son developers, Ted and David Reynolds, are behind it. They were also behind the Quorum Center, so they have strong Raleigh ties.

The tower is mixed use with 133 hotel rooms, 25 condos, office space, and ground floor retail (3 shops to be exact). No word on the brand of hotel in the building or plans for the stores on the ground. There will also be a 5 story parking deck right up next to the building.

I really like this building and I think it is the one that I am most excited about. Now that the ball is rolling, this project will move fast. It has been an almost 5 year struggle for the Reynolds to land the property and get all the paperwork figured out. I believe because of the need for the office space by the city, the tower’s construction is on a tight schedule. We can all expect this building to be completed no later than July 2009!

N&O Article


the Clarion hotel won’t be the tallest in the area pretty soon


32 stories on the left, with a 5 story deck on the right


enjoy it while it lasts

by Leo Suarez

Downtown Transportation Center In-Depth

Transportation is always a big issue in the triangle. With so many towns and different counties all part of the region, it is important to have a strong transportation infrastructure connecting us all. Hopefully you’ve heard about the TTA regional rail system that is being proposed and should get underway in the coming years. It is simply not feasible and not smart to simply add more highways or widen current ones to allow more traffic. There must be alternatives in place and the regional rail will attempt to do just that.

The main hub, or grand central station as named in this WRAL article, will be in downtown Raleigh. It will be in the area of the old train track station and warehouses that are old, worn out and unused on Hargett St. and behind the warehouses on West St.

Yellow – vehicle traffic
Red – mass transit
Purple – foot traffic
Blue – developments

The transportation center at this site will incorporate all transportation elements the city offers. Along with the rail system, there will be buses and taxis ready to move people to other locations. By looking at the current model, they plan on extending Glenwood Ave. as the entrance to the station that will feed into a round about for dropping off passengers. If you plan on parking here, then you must make your way down West St. and into the parking deck shown. The proposal also plans for development around the station which will probably be shops in the immediate area and condos close by.

I think the transportation center is a great idea. With a central hub of transportation it will be very easy for people to use an alternative mode of travel. With an easier way to get downtown, we will also see less parking decks being built, as more people will choose to ride the train into downtown. I’m sure the fairgrounds station will be a popular park and ride location for downtown and NCSU workers. It is only a five block walk from the downtown transportation center to Fayetteville St. and as the use of the station increases and with current growth downtown, some sort of trolley system will be implemented to move people around the area. The entire train system should not be built only because of pure necessity but towards smart growth and the future of the area.

by Leo Suarez

Something BIG is brewing……..

This will be a short one, sort of a follow up to this post about the almost 4 acre block north of Progress Energy’s newest building. I saw this on Raleigh’s livable streets plan website.

RFP Process results in Hamilton Merritt proposal being accepted – Mixed use hotel, movie theatre, condominiums, parking deck two 30-story towers – development agreement pending.

Such an important piece of information would not be announced this way. Who knows what this could mean or what is being planned. It may even be a leak of information or someone is playing a hoax. Either way when more information is available, I’ll be sure to post it.