The McDonald’s at the corner of South and Wilmington Streets has been demolished. The plans are to rebuild it to modern standards as has been common around the country.
The fast-food rebuilds usually turn around in no time. Before the end of the year perhaps?
Sitting right on the edge of the downtown mixed-use zoning district, I feel there could have been a lot more done here especially with the city trying (but now on hold) to maximize the development potential right across the street.
Raleigh Crossing has been slowly rising up. The crews at 301 Hillsborough Street are still working on the parking deck portion of the office tower. You can’t help notice this project when walking or driving through the area as it is starting to show its presence.
There are some details that can be picked out from seeing the site. The lobby will have some nice tall ceilings. There will also be plenty of retail along Hillsborough and Dawson. The building should add some great sidewalk activity all around it.
This has been a great development to watch go up and while the office market has some question marks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m hoping Raleigh Crossing still commands some attention in the future.
Downtown mobility keeps changing. After 10 years of running the same route, the R-Line is running a little differently these days.
GoRaleigh is now running a new route that has the buses going in a two-way direction rather than the loop that was used throughout the 2010s. The new route should deliver faster and easier service.
The R-Line, more or less, services the same areas of downtown going forward with some locations being only a block away. Key highlights include:
The green and blue buses, from what I heard, are being repurposed elsewhere in the system and new buses running on compressed natural gas are being used. (shown above)
I think this is a nice change and improvement. Tweaks might be needed as BRT lines come online over the next few years but it’s good to see the system adapting a bit.
Smoky Hollow is looking pretty nice these days. With some gorgeous May weather, the building at the corner of Peace and West Streets, Peace Apartments, looks good from the top of the Capital Boulevard bridge.
If not already, residents will be moving in to Peace soon. Work on the Publix on the bottom floor continues as well. There’s no firm opening date for the grocery store yet.
Hillsborough Street is a hot zone of construction right now. Since One Glenwood opened in early 2019, the twin tower right next door has been going up without missing a step.
The whole project, Bloc 83, is a mixed-use development with office towers over retail plus the newly opened Origin Hotel along the intersection of Morgan and Glenwood Avenue. A new parking deck is being constructed along Boylan as well.
Bloc 83 is the main stage of the area now with the two towers acting as the hub of activity. Ground-floor retail mostly wraps these towers and the space between will act like a courtyard for future outdoor events.
To support it all, the Origin Hotel is now open along Morgan Street. In addition to the parking deck built for the hotel, a second is being put together along Hillsborough Street. I can’t help but prejudge the glut of parking being built here but these seem to be the times we live in.
Once completed, this should be a nice injection of office workers to Glenwood South. I’m interested to see how the courtyard can be used for events, something this area doesn’t do too often.
I feel like with a larger hub at this end of Glenwood, Glenwood South may have the epicenter that the nightlife strip was lacking in the past. Everything should be wrapped up sometime in 2021.
We’re following Bloc 83 like a hawk over on the Community. Join us!
The location for The Willard hotel has been cleared out for awhile and now a crane is being assembled on the site. Looking west, the hotel should have a pretty nice view of the downtown skyline.
In March of this year, New York City-based Turnbridge Equities bought some property in Glenwood South, the key building being The Creamery on the 400 block. While plans haven’t been submitted, renovations to the Creamery and development of the surface parking lots nearby are planned.
This map from Google, with my edits, show the properties involved in the sale.
The Creamery building is on the National Register of Historic Places and the latest plans state that they intend to preserve it as part of the new development. The more modern addition, the apartments and retail spaces, will most likely be torn down.
There’s plenty of surface parking on this block and it is likely that the developers plan to submit a rezoning for larger buildings here.
The brick, one-story buildings on the corner of Glenwood and North Street would also likely come down.
The site is almost 2.4 acres and if the Creamery is kept, which is great, I would expect some pretty tall buildings around it. The sale of the land was for $34.7 million and it’s possible the developers will go for the highest rezoning allowed, the 40-story max height.
What is desperately missing from Glenwood South is daytime activity from office workers and this site could inject thousands of daytime workers with a few office towers.
It is also located very close to a future bus-rapid transit line so I’m hoping a mammoth parking deck can be avoided but that’s how things are these days. Parking has been a sore point for Glenwood South businesses so maybe getting a large one here for daytime office workers and night life could be beneficial for this dense business area.
No plans for a rezoning have been submitted so we’ll wait and see how that progresses with respect to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
The Cameron Crest Townhomes on St. Mary’s Street are mostly in shape. These townhomes are the latest high-end offerings after The Saint townhomes were completed further up St. Mary’s.
The residences should be finished by the end of this year.