The Boylan Pearce building on Fayetteville Street is getting a makeover. Out front, the renovation includes a new awning and a good cleaning of the front facade. You’ll notice the white paint has been stripped off giving it a darker, bolder look.
The 200 block of Fayetteville Street continues to make the case for being the heart of downtown Raleigh. For a comparison, here is a photo from July, 2012.
Hopefully soon, news comes out about possible tenants for the Boylan Pearce Building.
In April 2014, Raleigh’s premier bicycle festival, Oaks and Spokes, took place. The week long event combined community rides, cycling education, and a public forum that all focused around the idea of spreading the love of cycling culture in the city. Between the fun events and public information that took place that week, I had a thought about where we are heading with regards to bicycle infrastructure.
Are we spreading ourselves too thin with mediocre (at best) bike infrastructure here in Raleigh? Are bike lanes and sharrows really spreading the cycling culture throughout our city?
In my opinion, it almost feels like the efforts we’ve made are a bit timid while a lot of other cities are really cranking up the bicycle lanes, making them protected, scenic, and comfortable to use.
I’ll pick on one of the city’s currently ongoing bicycle projects. Through a $1.1 million grant, the city will install “27 miles of marked, on-road bicycle facilities.” This project has been mentioned on the blog before and the post lists several streets in and around downtown Raleigh that will get these bicycle facilities. The rest of the city is getting some bicycle love as well so it’s important to note that this is a city-wide effort.
The project page on the city’s website has now been updated with draft plans for each street. Take a look and get your feedback to the city before May 9.
Click for larger
For downtown, the proposed bike facilities include bike lanes on Wilmington and Salisbury between Peace Street and MLK Boulevard. Also, sharrows will be added to Hillsborough and Cabarrus Streets under the current draft. This is just a small piece of the larger network that is being built across the city.
Dedicated lanes and sharrows might be just paint on the road but it is a step towards creating that bicycle-friendly city. Certainly there is room for improvement on what’s being installed but $1.1 million can only do so much.
Is this a quantity (coverage) versus quality (safety) situation?
Certainly more miles of “marked, on-road bicycle facilities” sounds better than less but let’s discuss an alternative approach. If you think about other forms of transit, rail lines connect major areas to each other and then over time, new lines link up to that and form a network. Highways connect cities and over time have formed their own quality network. Just like them, one mega-bicycle project could be a success in Raleigh, sacrificing total coverage but being of a much higher quality.
Instead of 27 miles of paint for bike lanes and sharrows, what if we could get 5 miles of cycle tracks and/or protected lanes? A 5 mile direct route like this could really connect places, for example:
Granted, these are highly simplistic ideas making a lot of assumptions and not taking into account a mountain of factors. However, if major connections are made between these centers of activity with high-quality bicycle facilities there may be more chances of cycle adoption, increased bicycle use in the city, and possibly giving more political backing for future projects just like it.
The Network
Mega-projects don’t just happen though. Our bicycle network, at least up until a few years ago, has been implemented from almost nothing in the city budget and some creative thinking from city planners. This includes adding bike lanes or sharrows when a road is due to be repaved, taking advantage of the need to re-stripe the street anyway.
What the city is doing to deliver our bicycle network is subtle and can be described as a slow boil. Just like the greenway network, which started being built in the 1970s, the bicycle network is being put together in any way that it can be, piece by piece.
When you look at the greenways, it is only recently that the they have really been making major connections to form that comprehensive network across the city.
So while huge projects can be fun and exciting, working towards that day when the bicycle network all comes together could be even more magical. That is one way to make Raleigh, from downtown to the outskirts, a complete bicycle friendly city.
[Today’s post comes from Lauren Pritchett, a Triangle native and resident of Cameron Park, a surrounding downtown neighborhood. Lauren has helped bring the locally led walking tours of Jane’s Walk to Raleigh. You can follow her through her blog or Twitter, @hilgspritch. (Leo)]
“Raleigh’s Second Renaissance” has been a wildly trending phrase since the DRA’s 2014 State of Downtown in mid-April. Raleigh is indeed experiencing a new chapter of development. As much excitement that a renaissance can bring, it can be equally as daunting. We must make decisions that will affect our overall quality of life.
On May 3rd and 4th, Raleigh will be celebrating its inaugural Jane’s Walk to encourage open conversations about the city’s development. Jane’s Walk is a global initiative honoring urban activist Jane Jacobs’ birthday. It is designed to promote urban literacy through locally lead neighborhood walking tours, each focusing on a different theme. As part of the event, I will be facilitating the DTR History of Commerce Tour. We will stop at 10 different landmarks starting at the COR Museum on May 3rd at noon.
I’ve found that evidence of Raleigh’s resilience in the face of challenges can be extrapolated from our commercial architecture. One fundamental example of this is Fayetteville Street’s beloved Briggs Hardware Building. Thomas Briggs inspired our young epicenter during the Reconstruction Era by opening up the city’s first skyscraper for his shop in 1874. The subtle Art Deco style that The Raleigh Building features remind us of our ability to overcome the Great Depression. Soon, SkyHouse will be erected on the corner of Martin and Blount Streets as a symbol of Raleigh’s Second Renaissance!
During my free time, I jot down thoughts about my concerned citizenship on my blog. Usually, my curiosity leads me to wanting to know more about what came before us. What I’ve learned from researching downtown’s history is that we have endured a lot! Since becoming the capital of the “Rip Van Winkle State”, Raleigh has survived population growth spurts, wars, economic downfalls, and civil rights movements. For a small, often overshadowed, Southern city, I’m intrigued with how these milestones affect the wax and wane of Raleigh’s development.
Please join me in discussing examples of our resilience and transformation during Jane’s Walk. Our outgoing Chief Planning & Development Officer, Mitchell Silver, will also be leading a walk starting in Nash Square at 1:30pm. On Sunday, May 4th at 2pm, I invite you to follow urban instigator, Matt Tomasulo, as he explores the opportunities of Dix Park. Jane’s Walk is coming to our city at the perfect time and is sure to be full of inspiration.
The L is under construction and will bring residential units to the corner of McDowell and Davie Streets. It’s kind of fun to watch it fill and be done after so many years.
Six years ago, we watched the parking deck rise and heard about a stalled The L office building.
But seven years ago, the land was being cleared for this parking deck and The L while the convention center was under construction.
Over the weekend, and even on Easter Sunday, crews assembled the tower crane at the Charter Square construction site. The southern tower will be built first while the second is still in the planning stages.
Click the image to enjoy to a multi-stitch, high resolution view of the Charter Square construction site and the southern end of Fayetteville Street.
For those that are not aware, city planning is working with a consultant group to create the next downtown Raleigh plan. This plan will consist of a vision for downtown Raleigh and what it could look like in 10 years. Key to it are achievable goals based around a heavy amount of public input.
Recently, the public kick-off event took place at the Convention Center and a good crowd of about 150 residents and business owners met to throw around ideas for the new plan. Downtown as a whole was looked at and from my experience a few themes were clear:
The achievable goals piece seems to be borrowed from the last downtown plan, The Livable Streets plan from approximately 2002. That plan had 5 clear objectives and a path on how to execute them. Goals like building a new convention center and remaking Fayetteville Street were laid out clearly. Planners wanted to avoid lofty goals, which could sound like “create more meeting space in downtown Raleigh” or “revitalize a core street to be downtown’s Main Street.” The clearer goals in that plan were felt to be part of the success we’re seeing now and is hoped to be repeated in the new plan.
This new plan is being lead by a consultant group, Sasaki Associates Inc. from Boston, and with the help of a local advisory committee, consisting of residents from a variety of backgrounds, as well as public input they will release the plan later this year. Make sure to jump to the city’s website to see more details on the consultants and the local advisory committee.
Coming back to the kick-off meeting, participants were taken through a few group exercises to try and get their ideas for downtown Raleigh. We rewrote the downtown mission statement. We drew all over a map, highlighting areas needing attention, open space, or improved connectivity. Our group also listed our top three ideas for downtown, adding them to a list with the other groups’ and later voting on the best ones.
Our group wanted more connectivity across Capital Boulevard.
These ideas and maps will be taken by the consultants for input into the final plan. No need to worry if you have not submitted any ideas yet. Here is how you can participate online now and look out for the next meeting.
Mindmixer
The city has set up a website using Mindmixer to allow you and I to submit ideas, vote on others, and add comments around a few central downtown themes. The site is up right now and there is a fair amount of activity on it. Jump over to it and start submitting.
Planning for Raleigh via Mindmixer.
District Sessions
The next in-person meetings for the downtown plan will be on May 21 and 22. The visioning sessions will consist of similar breakout exercises to the event in early April but focus only on the district being discussed. Here’s the schedule for each session:
Capital District
Date/Time: Wed., May 21 from 8:30 am to 10 am
AIA NC Building, 14 E. Peace St.
Moore Square District
Date/Time: Wed., May 21 from 3 pm to 5 pm
Cobblestone Hall, City Market, 215 Wolfe St.
Glenwood South
Date/Time: Wed., May 21 from 7 pm to 9 pm
Hampton Inn Hotel, 600 Glenwood Ave.
Fayetteville Street District
Date/Time: Thurs., May 22 from 2 pm to 4 pm
The Stockroom, 230 Fayetteville St., second floor
Warehouse District
Date/Time: Thurs., May 22 from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm
HQ Raleigh, 310 S. Harrington St.
Person Street/Seaboard
Date/Time: Thurs., May 22 from 7 pm to 9 pm
AIA NC Building, 14 E. Peace St.
As always, the city’s main site for this whole project has it all and is constantly updated as new information is available. This is the first place to look for information.
Downtown Experience Plan via City of Raleigh.
Construction at the corner of Tucker and Glenwood Avenue. The top floor will be a Carolina Ale House.
Beer, bakeries, and bread might be the theme for 2014. Downtown Raleigh continues to see more openings than closings and while some places close, the spaces aren’t empty for long.
For a complete list of eats, drinks, and coffees in and around downtown, make sure to bookmark the DT Eats page. Try something new!