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Raleigh's Fayetteville Street


ericurbanite

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Finally one of the worst ideas ever is now being reversed. Many years ago the "main street for raleigh" was closed off and turned into a mall and businesses and traffic went away. But today finally the construction begins to open the street back up and I for one can't wait. I am hoping to see a 24 hour activity street here, with great places to eat with outdoor dining, some nightlife like glenwood south has seen, condos, condos, and yea condos have to have people living there. Its going to be interesting to see if this can create development around the core of downtown.

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Pedestrian Malls are a lousy idea, I can only think of a few that have worked out--and often those have at least some kind of traffic corridor along with them, even if it's just for buses.

Fayetteville St Mall was literally a street that was closed to all traffic except for pedestrians. It's nothing but a quiet urban plaza now... aside from the office buildings, there are no real destinations except for a Chick-Fil-A and the courthouse :lol:

Raleigh really needs a "strip" and I hope this does it for the city. Any word on the engineering obstacles for the southern section? An underground parking deck was constructed beneath Fayetteville St after it became a mall, so they were concerned it would not support the weight of cars and such.

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Why didn't it work?  It has done wonders in Denver and Las Vegas.

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Quite simply, because Raleigh is neither Denver nor Vegas.

Firstly, Raleigh is a smaller town, and it was even smaller back in '77 when they first built the pedestrian mall. The district was already in a severe state of decline when the pedestrian mall was built. That was right about the time that RTP was taking off, to leave downtown Raleigh in the dust. Auto traffic should never have been removed from Fayetteville Street.

However, bringing the cars back won't be the silver bullet that many people are hoping for. The new Fayetteville Street will, by design, not carry any through traffic - so people will only drive down it with the specific purpose of doing something there. Unfortunately, there just aren't enough destinations on Fayetteville to make it a draw. At least not yet.

I hope that the city stays focused on making Fayetteville Street work for long enough to actually realize its potential. Yeah, the convention center and hotel will be nice, but that's no silver bullet either. I have a feeling that Fayetteville Street will be a tough nut to crack - It will probably take at least 10 years of listening to business owners and continued investment by the city to really make the area take off. To be honest, I'm concerned that the city might try to tackle too many projects at once, and if one doesn't catch on as quickly as the others they won't have the resources or manpower to see it through.

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yea i think your right orulz, they really need to extend the street further atleast to the bti center. And once the cars get to fayetteville where are they going to park?? yea there is parallel but hell how many spaces is that. So the city really needs to give incentives to business to develop there because if its just chick fil a then the city payed millions of dollars for people to "eat mor chikin".

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the city has offered two incentives for businesses to come back to fay street. theres a low interest loan for street level businesses and a grant to fix up the outside of buildings. there are a lot of empty retail spaces now and the hope is that this is a new and even better version of glenwood south...

personally its going to look a lot like tryon street in charlotte in my opinion

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Given some time it may end up looking like Tryon, I think that would be great. One of the things I worry about with Fayetteville St is that it isn't a thru-street. I haven't looked at the plans in a while, but won't it be terminated at both ends? Or will the north and south ends be open to cross streets ("T" intersections)?

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well its going to feel more grand than tryon in the fact that it has two wonderful, classical buildings at its terminus on each end. it certainly wont have as many tall buildings as tryon, but it will be a destination in raleigh and the triangle and it has the most tall buildings concentrated anywhere in this part of the state. it will be an interesting transformation, i cant wait.

i remember the 1st time i actually walked on the mall, visiting from charlotte. i was drunk and asking a buddy of mine where the hell we were as we cut across to the pour house or the warehouse, cant remember. i couldnt figure out what it was.

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Given some time it may end up looking like Tryon, I think that would be great. One of the things I worry about with Fayetteville St is that it isn't a thru-street. I haven't looked at the plans in a while, but won't it be terminated at both ends? Or will the north and south ends be open to cross streets ("T" intersections)?

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Yes, Fayetteville will have "T" intersections at both ends. Although I'm not exactly sure what the scope of the first phase is, the eventual plan is to open it up from Morgan all the way south to either Lenoir or South, depending on what happens with the city-owned parcels in that neck of the woods. It would get a lot more traffic as a through street, but at least traffic going east-west through downtown will cross Fayetteville and be able to see what's going on.

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it will first open from morgan to just in front of the current civic center. it will terminate there until the under ground deck is completed. it will then connect to lenoir. hargett and martin will go two way, so i think it will get a lot of cut through traffic.

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it will first open from morgan to just in front of the current civic center. it will  terminate there until the under ground deck is completed. it will then connect to lenoir. hargett and martin will go two way, so i think it will get a lot of cut through traffic.

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The connection to Lenoir is a sure thing; there's also a good chance that it will be extended all the way to South. Read some info here.

I think the conversion of Martin/Hargett to two way traffic is set in stone; the Lane/Jones and Lenoir/South pairs will also be considered if Martin/Hargett go well. That will leave Morgan/Edenton as the only east-west one way pair in Raleigh. They're just not as important now that the Western Blvd/MLK Blvd connection is there. As far as I know, all the north-south pairs will remain.

Anyway, if Lenoir/South are left as-is, I hope that Fayetteville is extended all the way to South. Otherwise you'd only be able to go west from the south end of Fayetteville St., which would leave many motorists scratching their heads.

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It's going to be real nice for sure, but until we get people living in the urban core it won't be a popular destination.  I hope the rumor of a mid-high rise condo over 15 stories is true, as that will help a lot, along with the Progress condos, and the Hudson.

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Does anyone have any info on the Progress condos? I saw on the sign they're supposed to be named "Palladium Plaza" or something thereabouts, but that's really the only info I've seen.

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This goes without saying, but I do hope some higher-profile vertical space trickles into Fayetteville St. For one, it will greatly help the aesthetics of the skyline. Also, more space (higher density) means more people... it will be Raleigh's "main" street so it should only receive the best.

I know this has been discussed in another thread, but it would be nice to see the Reynolds project somewhere in here instead of on Hillsborough. But whatever... if the Reynolds projects comes through, I hope it isn't a fluke. Some more 30-ish story buildings would be nice. Raleigh doesn't have to be super tall, but an aesthetically pleasing skyline would be nice if any high-rise projects are going to be built. Minor concern, I know.

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So I was just down there for lunch at Coopers, and all the fencing is up and it looks like construction (or de-construction, whatever the case may be) is up and running. There was a little confusion around the Hudson, since they had the sidewalk blocked off to begin with for their construction.

I did hear some men complaining about turning it back into a street. His words were "This is the city of OAKS, but they're tearing all of them down!" While this is the case, these are clearly not the only trees in Raleigh, you'd think the city council had slapped his mama or something the way he was talking about them, haha. I don't think he realized that trees would be planted along the finished street.

Overall, I think it will take completing the project and seeing how great it will be before some of the naysayers quiet down. I for one am very excited!

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Yep, I work in 1 Hannover and have a good view of what's going on down below on Fayetteville Street Mall. Also it appears, at least from the 14 floor of my building that the same fencing is going to surround most of the New Convention Center site also. And a date sometime in August has been set to implode the current convention center.

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^ You guys were out enjoying the weather on the mall today just like me, huh? B) It seems like most of the fencing is up now, or will be soon. I know that a lot of people think it's a waste, but I think that it will continue to be a major pedestrian area, with 20' wide sidewalks/public use areas/planters, and will help add a bit to the parking in the DT core. I hope this will really help spur more residential development, which is really what we need along Fayetteville St to revitalize the area. Once that comes, the retail/nightlife/services will come to support the population.

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call it a hunch (because that's all it is), but I do think that Fayetteville St. will be one of those "if you build it, they will come" type projects.

The importance of this project's success to downtown is considerable. As it stands now, the black hole that is F.S.M. at night effectively partitions the Moore Square area from some of the promising restaurants/bars popping up off McDowell, and along Morgan (flying saucer, poole's diner, etc.). With the Dawson nearing completion, the much-discussed Reynolds project on Dawson and Hillsborough, the Palladium condos, and the rumored high-rise condo project, just think, folks: we might actually have a city on our hands with bona fide, connected areas of activity! :silly:

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The importance of this project's success to downtown is considerable. As it stands now, the black hole that is F.S.M. at night effectively partitions the Moore Square area from some of the promising restaurants/bars popping up off McDowell, and along Morgan (flying saucer, poole's diner, etc.).

That is KEY, and something a lot of people (especially casual observers) don't seem to understand. While DTR has come a long way in the last few years, its still very disconnected, and what city leaders hope to do is connect everything. I'm very excited about this, and can't wait to see how it turns out!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I took these about 3 months ago, but just got around to resizing them and uploading them. For those of you that don't know, Fayetteville Street Mall is Raleigh's "main" street, but was converted to a pedestrian mall in the 70's. The city has recently broken ground in reopening the mall vehicles.

non FSM pictures, just shot on the same day from the State govt complex

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Taken from Peace Street of the Parmount

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FSM

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courthouse.jpg

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statue.jpg

capitol.jpg

Actually on Salisbury Street

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