Nash Square Revitalization

[RALNATIVE]

I, for one, am looking forward to a revitalized Nash Square. For some time it has been ignored while Moore Square has received most of the city's attention.

 

Now, plans call for a potential sale of the city hall bldg. and more than 1 million sq feet of development around the park.

 

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/midtown-raleigh-news/article19033323.html

[Jones_]

I wondered if a City hall down on City Plaza would make sense. Or maybe even incorporated into the street expansion southwest of Memorial that the plan also discusses. I'd love to see two elements….one classically designed structure primarily for council chambers and other high public visibility stuff…perhaps even a rotunda with a museum like feel to it. Then a fairly large, modern glass office building housing a parking deck and all the other City offices possibly across a second city plaza-esque thing mine the car access across it. A big welcome sign facing south to South Saunders would be cherry (or acton) on top. Maybe even hang or other wise display the acorn in this plaza, and perhaps get high enough in the air to be visible from the South Sunders approach. Crap, go ahead and bring in the Opie and MLK statues where they'll get some better visibility…maybe Sir Walter too. If the other elements of the plan are incorporated (Salisbury realignment, better incorporating MLK Blvd, and possibly a stadium (a lot needs to happen beyond the City's control for that), and it'd work. (sorry this veers off the Nash Square topic, but the article linked is more about the downtown plan as a whole)

[ctl]

If the city chooses to vacate the Upchurch facility, every potential site will be on the table politically -- especially if the city has to go to the voters for a bond referendum. By that I mean SE Raleigh, North Hills, etc. As we saw in the Critical Public Safety facility and the interim RPD HQ, there is no longer an assumption that everything goes downtown.