by Leo Suarez

Summer 2013 Restaurant Roundup

Crank Arm Brewing on Davie Street

It could be just me but the summer seems like a great time to open a restaurant in downtown Raleigh. Need to work all the kinks to get ready for the cooler temperatures. It could just be the timing though.

Anyway, with us deep into the summer season, here is the latest bit of restaurant news.

  • We’re still waiting on something from Cafe de los Muertos, a coffee shop planned for a space along Hargett Street in The Hue building. Progress is happening though.
  • Joule Coffee, opening in the former space occupied by the Wilmoore Cafe on Wilmington Street, hasn’t opened yet but articles keep coming out saying that should happen soon.
  • Garland has been serving food from their take-out window along Martin Street. Sandwiched between King’s and Neptunes Parlour, Garland is still working on their indoor space but have set up tables and chairs on the sidewalk.
  • The lobby of the Sheraton Hotel on Fayetteville Street has been under heavy renovation the last few months. In it, Jimmy V’s Osteria & Bar will be opening soon.
  • Cognito Bar and Grill has opened where the former Joel Lane’s Public House was in Glenwood South.
  • Pop Up Ice Cream Parlour has opened a second location. The original location on Wilmington Street will still be open for the summer while the second one, at 616 North Person Street, is opening.
  • Stanbury, a restaurant being set up where Market’s original location was on Blount Street, looks almost finished and ready to open any day now.
  • Ashley Christensen is working on a new restaurant called Death and Taxes for the bottom floor of the recently renovated Raleigh Industrial Bank building.
  • The Ohio based pizza chain, Donato’s, has brought a location to Seaboard Station.
  • Crank Arm Brewing will be opening up their taproom in the next few weeks.
  • The food space in the Marbles Kids Museum is now Pogo creating a kid-friendly (and adult) menu ran by a company that buys food from nearby family-owned farms and ranches.
  • There are signs for a restaurant called Oak City Meatball Shoppe in the retail spaces along Davie Street in the Red Hat Building.

    • And finally, I don’t know anything about it but the last retail space in the PNC Plaza has some paper covering up the windows. There aren’t any signs but instead symbols of food. Take it with a grain of salt as to what could, or won’t, be coming in that space.

by Leo Suarez

Nüvonivo Adds Children’s Clothing, More Retail to Downtown Raleigh

More positive retail news for downtown Raleigh. Nüvonivo will be opening within weeks in their new space on East Hargett Street. The online children’s clothing store is bringing its first retail space to the area and I was introduced, through email, to Ray Malouf, a member of the Nüvonivo team. He told me:

I joined the business in 2009 working with my father Abdallah, who has owned ECA since the 1980s, and in April of 2012, out of a small condo in Downtown, we launched our first retail concept online calling it nüvonivo (new-voh-nee-voh). Translated from French, the words nouveaux niveaux means New Levels, and that is what we want to bring to our customers everyday, new levels of quality, design, and customer service.

The family behind the business are downtown supporters and Ray mentioned to me that they feel they are helping with the downtown revitalization. Raleigh’s malls and shopping centers were considered but “we kept coming back to Downtown Raleigh.”

The location of the store isn’t an accident as the Marbles Kids Museum is less than a block away. Good luck to Ray and the team behind the new store. It sounds like a lot of work is going into cleaning up that space.

by Leo Suarez

My Downtown Living Article in the Triangle Downtowner

Condos along Dawson Street

Last week, the latest edition of the Triangle Downtowner came out and my article about downtown living is there for your reading pleasure. In it, I talk about how residential living is really in its infancy in downtown Raleigh and how what we have today came from almost nothing.

In its entire history, downtown Raleigh never had the building stock to support the tens of thousands of urban residents needed for a critical mass. Oakwood, Boylan Heights and other surrounding neighborhoods of single-family homes were where the majority of close residents lived.

“Twenty years ago, Raleigh didn’t have any residential real estate in the city center” says Ann-Cabell Baum Andersen, owner-broker at The Glenwood Agency. “We’re just beginning the process of building out core but you can already feel the electricity on the streets.”

*Downtown Living, Vol. 9 Issue 6 Triangle Downtowner

Grab a paper copy of the latest Triangle Downtowner at a kiosk around downtown Raleigh or read it on Issuu, here.

by Leo Suarez

Parklets Could be Popping Up In Downtown Raleigh

Divisadero Parklet - SF Pavement to Parks

Divisadero Parklet – SF Pavement to Parks by jeremyashaw, on Flickr

Raleigh’s Urban Design Center is hosting a meetup next week to discuss parklets. These ‘sidewalk extensions’ or ‘pop-up mini-parks’ are a new trend in urban areas that attempt to bring more public space to pedestrians. Wikipedia states:

A parklet is a small space serving as an extension of the sidewalk to provide amenities and green space for people using the street. It is typically the size of several parking spaces. Parklets typically extend out from the sidewalk at the level of the sidewalk to the width of the adjacent parking space, though some have been built at the level of the street with access from the sidewalk.

Parklets are intended for people. Parklets offer a place to stop, to sit, and to rest while taking in the activities of the street. In instances where a parklet is not intended to accommodate people, it may provide greenery, art, or some other visual amenity. A parklet may accommodate bicycle parking within it, or bicycle parking may be associated with it.

*Parklet on Wikipedia

If you look at the photos in this post, you’ll see some examples of parklets in other cities.

According to the flyer for the event, attached at the bottom, the folks at the UDC will be presenting their preliminary research and want to get your feedback about parklets in Raleigh.

A big positive to having parklets is that it adds more space for pedestrians to sit and linger. Already an area with very low parkspace per citizen, downtown Raleigh doesn’t have room to add more parks in the traditional way so parklets, in combination with other more urban tactics, could be the solution.

There’s also an economic activity advantage because the shops and restaurants in downtown thrive with an active sidewalk life.

One negative is that public street space, more specifically on-street parking spaces, have to be given up for these parklets. While that might make public officials wary of parklets, citing concerns about loss of revenue, I question the reality of it. Does a few less on-street spaces really result in a loss of revenue?

In my opinion, I would think that it doesn’t matter since downtown currently has a gross oversupply of parking spaces in the decks. Hopefully the UDC has some thoughts on this and how other cities have addressed this fear.

Four Barrel Coffee Parklet

Four Barrel Coffee Parklet by mark.hogan, on Flickr

Spring Street Parklets by waltarrrrr, on Flickr

Parklet/Pop-Up-Cafe Conversation Session

Date/Time: Thurs., July 25 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
220 Fayetteville Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
919-996-4637

by Leo Suarez

Downtown Perceptions Analyzed at Upcoming Listening Sessions

Blount Street

The Raleigh Urban Design Center (UDC) and the Downtown Raleigh Alliance are hosting a few listening sessions this week and next. The topic will be on your perception of downtown Raleigh.

I emailed a bit with the UDC’s Rachel Freyer to find out more.

What can one expect at these listening sessions?
The listening sessions will be held at community centers all around the city. We will provide light refreshments and then have a lively and interactive session to talk about Downtown Raleigh. The sessions should last about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. We will be focusing on 3 main questions: What do you like about downtown? What could be improved? What is your favorite thing to do in your neighborhood?

What is the UDC doing with the feedback?
This feedback will be part of a report on Downtown Raleigh Perception, and serve as a supplement to the Downtown Perception Survey that went out earlier this summer. This is a great chance to dig deeper and find out what people all over the city think about downtown. This information will be really helpful as a new Downtown Master Plan process begins in spring.

What kind of format are these sessions? (break out groups or come as you go style, etc.)
These sessions will start with a large group discussion and then people will have small group discussion at their tables. The sessions will end with a group recap about what people think.

How can people submit ideas that can’t make it?
People can always email one of us with their thoughts if they can’t make it. Rachel.Freyer@raleighnc.gov or Trisha.Hasch@raleighnc.gov

Listening Session about Downtown Perception

Date/Time: Thurs., July 18 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Urban Design Center
220 Fayetteville Street, Suite 200
Raleigh, NC 27601

In addition to the session above occurring in downtown, there are three more around the city taking place after typical working hours on different days. See the flyer below.
Listening Sessions about Downtown Perception

by Leo Suarez

Merrimon-Wynne House To Be Renovated For Events Space

The Merrimon-Wynne House, one of the historic mansions along Blount Street, has been bought and is being renovated for use as event space. With their website claiming that they are already taking bookings in 2014, this looks like a very positive sign for the 4,800 square foot home.

The website shows new floorplans for the house with large, open rooms on the first floor and bridal suites and dressing rooms on the second. It doesn’t appear that a large amount of landscaping will be done to the property around it with the renderings suggesting wide open green spaces compared to lush gardens or trees.

I was fortunate enough to tour the house on one of the Oakwood Candlelight tours a few years ago. The house really is a gem on Blount Street and I hope we see other renovations for the large houses nearby.

The renovations, from what I know, will have to consist of lots of utility work as the house was moved in 2008 from its original site on North Wilmington street to its current site on Blount Street. Sitting lonely on a new foundation, the house had no plumbing, electric, and other modern amenities connected while I toured the house.

For a great writeup on the history of the Merrimon-Wynne House, including photos of the inside, jump over to this post on Goodnight, Raleigh.

*Raleigh’s Merrimon-Wynne House: A Win-Wynne Situation