Raleigh's Fayetteville Street

[urbanvb]

Norfolk is kind of in the same place as DT Raleigh but perhaps a bit more ahead. They have many residential units going up and being occupied and just as Raleigh as well as many restaurants (esp on Granby Street) yet really no retail save for the mall. While the mall is great and has prompted all this DT growth retail is just not even getting a foothold. I wonder if a theatre DT Raleigh would add enough foot traffic. Perhaps one might go in with a few other retailers and spark some excitement. Somehow it seems the mix has to be right but perhaps like some of you I can't quite figure it out.

[Captain Awesome]

What downtown needs are more places to go grab a quick bite to eat or an ice cream during the day, or maybe a small convenient store, so that downtown workers can actually walk somewhere closeby on their breaks to get a snack or a magazine or some Tylenol. Being a downtown resident myself, I won't even get started on what downtown needs during evening hours. We have made alot of progress, no doubt, but the bottomline is, if we are to continue to grow beyond where we are now, we've got to start adding the essential infrastructure. We will never be a trully urban city without the basics in place.

Convenience Stores open during the day: Hamlin Drugs, CVS, Convenience Mart in the BBT Bldg, City Mart on Wil. across from Gandolphos and Glenwood Mart(Groceries?) next door to Dive Bar on Glenwood/Hillsborough. The Glenwood C-Store is open til 2 on weekends (I'm not sure of their daytime hours). City Mart is open til 8 on weekdays and til 10-11 during downtown events. The others close 5-6 and CVS is notorious for being close on saturday and sunday. Especially during F-St. events

Ice Cream: Crema, of course. and the Ice Cream shop in City Market.

Quick Bite: Seriously? During the day?

Late night options still need to grow. A diner in downtown with IHOP hours would be great for post bar.

[cophead567]

Late night options still need to grow. A diner in downtown with IHOP hours would be great for post bar.

definitely agree with that one, have you seen the line at the IHOP on hillsborough on late nights? I also think a by-the-slice pizza place is needed. I think it would get a good lunch crowd, a solid dinner, and if its good, late night bar hoppers would mob the place if it was close by.

F street will continue to grow and we'll see more of the shops we've discussed come around. It all comes down to downtown traffic (car and foot). more places are open mon-fri during the day because the office crowd creates traffic. once people move downtown, they will create traffic outside these times and more stores will stay open. it's just a matter of time.

[Jones_]

I would like to see a developer do a similar project in downtown to what I saw in London, UK. They had what look like a series of ordinary buildings that fit into the downtown, but when you walked into one of them, you discovered that these weren't all separate buildings afterall, but rather one large building that is a mall. If I hadn't gone in there, I would have never known it was a mall.

Streets at Southpoint on steroids........did any of the store openings face the street or was it all focused internally?

[ChiefJoJo]

I'm glad there's a lot of positive interest in this. FWIW, we have no idea if any of the morons on WRAL live or pay taxes in Raleigh, and frankly with a lot of issues, you just have to drown out the naysayers with a showing of strong community support who live/work downtown and support the vision for the area.

I'm actually a fan of the pavillions, because (1) they will be built and financed privately, and (2) will add a retail element that isn't present at BofA nor BB&T and should help enliven the space in the evening hours. In general, the motto "retail follows rooftops" applies to the street. Within 2-3 blocks, we have the Hudson, Palladium Plaza, Park Devereaux, future RBC condos, Hue, Site 1, Edison, and eventually city sites 2&3, so by 2009/2010, I think there will be a critical mass of units built such that retail will begin to blossom.

Again, in regards to the plaza itself, we need to moblize an effort to show our support for this plaza by the Sept 5th council meeting where they will vote to execute the final contract on the plaza construction.

[plus2]

I also think a by-the-slice pizza place is needed. I think it would get a good lunch crowd, a solid dinner, and if its good, late night bar hoppers would mob the place if it was close by.

Agreed on pizza by the slice. I've had multiple people ask me why there isn't one of those downtown already. That might be a good tenant for one of those pavilions.

[Jones_]

Agreed on pizza by the slice. I've had multiple people ask me why there isn't one of those downtown already. That might be a good tenant for one of those pavilions.

Vics in City Market has great cheap slices...though I think you guys mean an over the counter type of place like NY Pizza?

[JeffC]

There have been some terrific over the counter Italian places in downtown over the years, but alas, none have survived. specifically, anyone else remember the italian place on the Wilmington street level of One Hannover operated by Mike and Maria? Flourished for a while, but I think they simply got tired of it and sold the business to some yutz who ran it into the ground.

[cophead567]

Vics in City Market has great cheap slices...though I think you guys mean an over the counter type of place like NY Pizza?

yeah just like it. has anyone been to adams morgan in DC? i forget the name of the street where all the nightlife is but there are a couple pizza places there that just slide out slices, HUGE slices for like 3 or 4 bucks. simply amazing.

the restaurants downtown are great. the ones coming soon get me excited but where are the cheap eats and places that i can grab something small or that allows me to eat/drink and walk??? i believe they will come soon and these pavilions show promise.

[Jones_]

yeah just like it. has anyone been to adams morgan in DC? i forget the name of the street where all the nightlife is but there are a couple pizza places there that just slide out slices, HUGE slices for like 3 or 4 bucks. simply amazing.

the restaurants downtown are great. the ones coming soon get me excited but where are the cheap eats and places that i can grab something small or that allows me to eat/drink and walk??? i believe they will come soon and these pavilions show promise.

I think the main strip is 18th street. I always stop at a hole in the wall that sells these mediterranean vegitable pockets for like 3 bucks. Its accross the street from Tryst the mega cool coffee shop that I hear was the inspiration for Third Place. Also Crooked beat Records formerly of the space under the Rockford, is a thriving place owned by the same guy, up on 18th street. How can Adams Morgan support a bigger Third Place, Raleighs Crooked Beat and continually support over the counter quick food when in Raleigh Third Place had to start out away from downtown, Crooked Beat left and Pizza by the slice does not seem to be a viable business model.......easy....Adams Morgan grew up organically as a neighborhood first that later morphed into a destination and mega nightspot. It is low rise yet very very dense. Fayetteville has been coaxed back from death with highdollar corporate players that jack up land prices, create buildings with cold restrictive commercial places, and trivialize the importance of humans in the equation with huge loading bays, street corners permantly shrouded in shadows and developers that continue to be uninterested in providing diverse housing stock. Raleigh is turning into something much better than it was. And maybe Fayetteville no longer has the bones to be a neighborhood but rather be more like a livable office park. Hargett/Wilmington may be our best Adams Morgan shot. Also North Person/Blount and maybe one day South/South Sanders....I am not bashing at all....just trying to sort out the differences a little....

[ncwebguy]

Dang those WRAL posters! Especially the one with this screen name Of course when presented with the facts that the project will pay for itself (and then some) they got quiet in a hurry, or moved on to making their silly comments elsewhere.

It has been a while since I was up there (1995), but Adams-Morgan was already pretty happening then, at least from a bar and restaurant perspective. Just as DC has Adams-Morgan, Dupont Circle, Georgetown, etc. Raleigh will eventually have different districts for different crowds. But (hopefully) City Square will attract *everyone* for the bigger events (RWO, Christmas parade, etc.) yet offer somethign for convention crowds, condo dwellers, the after work crowds, and people who want to hang out somewhere other than the mall the other 363 days of the years.

The existance of current districts -- Five Points, Hillsborough Street, Glenwood South -- shouldn't prevent the creation of new ones -- Hargett/Wilmington/City Market, North Blount, etc. The sad thing is, outside of North Hills and maybe TTC, similar districts *aren't* developing anywhere else in the 50th most populus city in the country. Downtonw can pick up the slack due to its density and "human scale", as long as new buildings like PE II, Paladium, RBC Plaza, Edison, etc. continue to provide street level activity on the existing grid.

[DanRNC]

^I have to say that trying to appeal to everyone ends up being a disasterous mish mash of cr-p. I just got back from Denver and was impressed on how much the LoDo area in Denver has grown from the last time I was there about 3-4 years ago. On a Monday night the area was jumping especially with the 25-45 yo crowd. I say market F-Street to this demographic and write off the senior citizens/college crowd/etc. as they will never buy into this-plus they have very limited purchasing power (ask Chapel Hill merchants).

[Gard]

Streets at Southpoint on steroids........did any of the store openings face the street or was it all focused internally?

All the store openings were internal. There were a couple street display windows on the outside for the shops inside, which is originally what caught my eye and lured me into the building. Other than that, it looked like all the other buildings around it that looked to have been there for a couple hundred years. I think its a fine example of how a developer can adapt things you generally find in the burbs for use in an urban environment without deystroying the fabric of the area around it.

[waltergropius]

You can see the full sized watercolor renderings of city plaza with proposed pavilions on at this link:

Retail Pavilions Approved for City Plaza

By the way the interface here is awesome for the image blow-ups.

[Jones_]

This part of town is definitely our 'big city' center and these pavilions lend an outdoorsey carnivalesque feel that is appropriate for tourists and big city enthusiests. I like their placement and overall potential adn the way they compliment our little Potsdamer Platz

[dmccall]

Hey, ncwebguy, good comments on the WRAL site. Very refreshing to see someone with facts. Some of those comments were dim, dim, dim. Some of y'all probably got a kick out of them blasting Philip Isley, of all people, for his positive comments on the plaza. That was funny.

[RALNATIVE]

I like their placement and overall potential adn the way they compliment our little Potsdamer Platz

I'm glad to see that someone else likes Pots Platz other than myself. It's one of the most interesting areas of Berlin and is considered sort of the "hub" of the city.

[ncwebguy]

I didn't want to imply that City Square should be an "everything for everyone every day" kind of place. It will be for "everyone" on big event days like the Christmas parade, Raleigh/Eddie Money Wide Open, etc. but will be for conventioneers, people who appreciate and/or live in downtown, and the almost out-just out of college types the other 360 days. With maybe some folks wandering over from Raleigh Memorial Auditorium to see what the fuss is all about.

In other F Street news, the Mint at One Exchage has a lot of the bigger kitchen equipment in, a spiral staircase front and center, and some rough drywall in spaces. When Fins was in that shape, it was a few months from opening, so this might open by the end of the year. Also, the York Simpson Underwood sales office looks nice with a big "one unit left" sign for RBC Plaza. The last remaining/unclaimed unit is on the top floor. The former Halmark looked unchanged, and the Christian Science Monitor reading room now has Saturday hours (11-3), another sign of weekend activity for the street.

[rjgeary]

City Plaza a little Potsdamer Plotz? :) That must be in some foreign country, huh?

I'm writing a little update on the Plaza for the Indy on Monday or Tuesday a.m. Would love to get opinions, pro & (if there are any) con from y'all on how it's coming out.

Unfortunately, I know only the Chief and Dana personally (as far as I know) ... so I can't ring you up unless you'd like to shoot me an email with an opinion and a phone number to [email protected]. (Hope it's all right to fish this way here, Chief.)

Thanks, Bob

[dmccall]

Unfortunately, I know only the Chief and Dana personally (as far as I know) ...

ha ha. Many others feel that knowing me is "unfortunate", too.

[Jones_]

Just wanted to share this 1950's picture of Fayetteville St....looks to be taken about from where the old Civic Center was looking north (Sir Walter is on the left).....wow, a Gulf station on Fayetteville St....definitely a different age....

[JeffC]

Just wanted to share this 1950's picture of Fayetteville St....looks to be taken about from where the old Civic Center was looking north (Sir Walter is on the left).....wow, a Gulf station on Fayetteville St....definitely a different age....

so I'm guessing the Gulf Station was at the corner of Cabarrus and Fayetteville, where One Hannover Square currently stands?

[Jones_]

so I'm guessing the Gulf Station was at the corner of Cabarrus and Fayetteville, where One Hannover Square currently stands?

That cross street should be Cabarrus since the Sir Walter is at Davie so yeah thats what I would think too.

[ncwebguy]

I'm guessing that is the old First Citizens building on the east side of F Street, a block in front of 133?

It is interesting that another bank (RBC) is taking its place now. The Wake County building across Davie from the Sir Walter is also visible. What was on the land between it and the Century Post Office, the current location of the Wake County courthouse, That section is not visible in the picture and I think the courthouse was built after the snapshot captured by this postcard.

Also, here is Mr. Geary's Independent article on City Plaza.

I think we are lucky to get what we are getting, since technially it isn't the city's space to decide what goes there:

Thus, anything the city wants to do there today must be approved by The Simpson Organization (TSO), which owns the Bank of America building and the entire plaza up to the front door of the BB&T building.

I don't think the kiosks should be movable, because it would be a lot harder to attract tenants who plan to stay a while. They look a little bigger than what I would envison, but I don't know enough to decide what minimum needs to be reached to make the spaces usable. When a big concert or celebration takes place, F Street will be *closed* and that space, plus the rest of the plaza, will provide ample space. They are only taking a little more space than the *unuseable space* the old PLANTERS currently occupy. Heck, one of them might rent/lend/provide checkers, chess boards, and folding chairs!

As for the kissing, I already kissed my wife down there during Raleigh Wide Open 2006.

[Jones_]

I'm guessing that is the old First Citizens building on the east side of F Street, a block in front of 133?

It is interesting that another bank (RBC) is taking its place now. The Wake County building across Davie from the Sir Walter is also visible. What was on the land between it and the Century Post Office, the current location of the Wake County courthouse, That section is not visible in the picture and I think the courthouse was built after the snapshot captured by this postcard.

The building more visible is the 1911 Citizens National Bank....a little to the right you can see the back of the 1912 Commercial National Bank which is where the RBC building is going...the 1911 building site currently has the black 4 story First Citizens building

Citizens Bank

View of both as Yaraborough burns

I don't have a single pic of Commercial Bank but it was demolished in 1989 I think. The space on the left between the Durham Life Building (current wake county office building accross from 333) and teh Century Post office has always been the site of the Wake County Court House (since 1792 anyway). I have a picture of the 1883 courthouse but a new one was built in 1912. That architect also built the old city auditorium where 333 currently sits and the still standing Justice Building adjacent to Fayetteville Street Tavern (c. 1913), though I forget the architects name. Memorial Auditorium was built after City Auditorium burned but I'd have to look that date up too (1960's I think)

Here is the pic of the 1883 courthouse beside Century PO