301 Hillsborough

[Green_man]

Site Review plans submitted to the City by the Lundy Group.

• 20 stories
• 245' height (about same as Red Hat Tower)
• 220,000 sf office space
• 242 residence units (175 1-bedroom, 67 2-bedroom)
• 40,382 sf retail space spread out among 8 spaces
• 176 hotel units
• 991 parking spaces
• Total building square footage: 1,121,576 
• Flying Saucer building remains.  Unknown fate for 1900 historic brick house at 327 Hillsborough - hopefully saved and moved!

Site plan screenshot attached:  red=retail spaces, blue=residential lobby, purple=hotel and "ballroom" elevator, green=office lobby.

[DwnTwnRaleighGuy]

Thanks Green_Man

This really sounds and looks good for downtown Raleigh. But I will always wonder what they might have built here had the city not put on that general height cap? Could have been shorter or taller? Either way, I am happy to see something with this height and combination going up.  Great for Raleigh and especially downtown! Yeah! :-)

[Isaac]

Is this two buildings? 

Edited November 23, 2016 by Isaac

[DPK]

2 hours ago, Isaac said:

Is this two buildings? 

I think it's one building, but the site plan available makes it look like two.  There's a inner connector that runs between Hillsborough and Morgan that will lead to a parking deck, I believe.

[DwnTwnRaleighGuy]

I am so excited, I can hardly wait to see a rendering. :-)

[Green_man]

Regarding the height:  the ground is at one of the taller elevations in downtown at about 350 feet.  The proposed building is about the same height as the Dillon, but the ground is 35 feet higher in elevation.  

I'm kinda glad the developer chose 20 floor height rather than opting to rezone for higher.  Lundy has some other major projects in downtown, so hopefully they will be able to get multiple sites under construction rather than putting everything into this one site.  And maybe by not overbuilding here, then the 414 Hillsborough site and/or Legends site will also get 20 and 12 story buildings, respectively.

[RALNATIVE]

6 hours ago, Green_man said:

Regarding the height:  the ground is at one of the taller elevations in downtown at about 350 feet.  The proposed building is about the same height as the Dillon, but the ground is 35 feet higher in elevation.  

I'm kinda glad the developer chose 20 floor height rather than opting to rezone for higher.  Lundy has some other major projects in downtown, so hopefully they will be able to get multiple sites under construction rather than putting everything into this one site.  And maybe by not overbuilding here, then the 414 Hillsborough site and/or Legends site will also get 20 and 12 story buildings, respectively.

I have not heard about the Legends site. Is that site planned for redevelopment?

[Green_man]

Legends and surrounding blocks are being marketed... http://www.trademarknc.com/properties/tara/Morgan Harrington Hargett Streets Flyer.pdf

Contingent on finding Legends a new comparable or better space still in the warehouse district.

[RALNATIVE]

14 hours ago, Green_man said:

Legends and surrounding blocks are being marketed... http://www.trademarknc.com/properties/tara/Morgan Harrington Hargett Streets Flyer.pdf

Contingent on finding Legends a new comparable or better space still in the warehouse district.

Now that you mention it I have seen a number of for lease and for sale signs in the warehouse district. Personally i'm glad to see all of the interest this area is getting. Property owners such as myself will hopefully do well as the area continues to get built out.

[Green_man]

Could be something, could be nothing (probably nothing)... but TBJ has a slideshow of the new rooftop hotel bar at the AC Hotel for North Hills... but two of the renderings make it look like the rooftop is at the 301 Hillsborough site in downtown instead on in North Hills.  (you can see the Campbell law building)

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2017/01/05/in-photos-the-rooftop-lounge-and-bar-coming-to-the.html

 

[DPK]

1 hour ago, Green_man said:

Could be something, could be nothing (probably nothing)... but TBJ has a slideshow of the new rooftop hotel bar at the AC Hotel for North Hills... but two of the renderings make it look like the rooftop is at the 301 Hillsborough site in downtown instead on in North Hills.  (you can see the Campbell law building)

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2017/01/05/in-photos-the-rooftop-lounge-and-bar-coming-to-the.html

Probably nothing.  I'd be willing to bet some designer just wanted a pretty background for those rendering and used what they had really quick.

[Green_man]

BIG NEWS... RENDERING ALERT!!!

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2017/01/06/lundy-hyde-street-holdings-raleigh-tower.html

 

[DPK]

58 minutes ago, Green_man said:

BIG NEWS... RENDERING ALERT!!!

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2017/01/06/lundy-hyde-street-holdings-raleigh-tower.html

 

Holy snaps that looks awesome and it looks like Flying Saucer lives to see another day.

Edited January 6, 2017 by DPK

[orulz]

My first thought is: Wow. Massive. Which can be good in a way, but in this case it is not very graceful. And look at the size of that parking podium. Almost 1000 spaces.

I don't really think that a wall-to-wall block of 20 stories like this is what the city was hoping for when they decided to make most of downtown DX-20 and DX-12, but that's what you get when you over-regulate heights. This would look much better if you shrunk the floor plates and made it 35 stories instead. But again, wow.

[RALNATIVE]

5 hours ago, Green_man said:

BIG NEWS... RENDERING ALERT!!!

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2017/01/06/lundy-hyde-street-holdings-raleigh-tower.html

 

 

I can deal with this design. At least balconies would not be facing my unit at the Dawson.

[Spatula]

It looks like ass. You guys are kidding yourselves.

If the two buildings attempted to form their own architectural ideas, and if the 'saddle' in between tried to look more like an independent 3rd building, it could be acceptable. As it is currently it would be a borg cube sitting in downtown. It's a disorganized mess. Reminds me of some of the later designs of the Reynolds Tower that would've sat on the block, which people also said looked ugly, except this is even uglier since it takes up the whole block. The Reynolds Tower at least would've had decent vertical proportions.

Bear in mind the western building will be more visible for people entering downtown from Glenwood and Hillsborough, and it's the architecturally weaker of the two.

[Spatula]

It's easy to tear something down, it's harder to make a positive claim. But I've attached this crudely drawn MS Paint showing what I think the main problem is, and a simple way to fix it that would cost NOTHING to the developer. The saddle should try to look like a 3rd building, with a constrasting architectural style compared to the other two. This alleviates the image of the whole block as a monolith and makes it look like a city block with 3 different buildings on it.

I'd change some other things too, if I had god powers though. The upper 1-2 floors should have a different color theme from the rest of the building, to give it golden ratio appeal. We see this in Progress 1 and the Skyhouse, where the upper floors have a distinctive architectural flourish compared to the rest, and it goes a long way towards giving the buildings character.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Spatula

[Merthecat]

Part of the parking lot where this will be developed appears to have been taped off . . .

[Jones_]

I just realized that the rendering is from the south side of the project. It probably doesn't matter all that much, but why not show us the apparent 'front door', the north side or NE corner? 

[BullDurhamer]

wtf is this?  and i remember when raleigh didn't want a light sculpture because it would interfere with a view.  this thing interferes with my freaking soul.  

[orulz]

Yes. This is ugly. I genuinely worry that this is such an ugly monolith that it will create a severe backlash and that ultimately Raleigh will develop more slowly for it.

The fact that it is 2 20 story buildings highlights the absurdity of restricting most of downtown to 12 or 20 stories. Would look so much better as one 28 story and one 12 story tower.

[bj-26]

It would be nice to see different angles of this rendering. It appears they had to build around the Saucer building, thus making the closer tower shaped differently than the other. I'm sure the money paid for the block they were trying to get their moneys worth! I'm afraid the height limits will bring more of the same down the road.

[Spatula]

We need a coordinated effort to get candidates on the city council who aren't such NIMBYs. Seems like it's a bigger problem with MacFarlane's council than it was for Meeker's.

[Jones_]

3 hours ago, Spatula said:

We need a coordinated effort to get candidates on the city council who aren't such NIMBYs. Seems like it's a bigger problem with MacFarlane's council than it was for Meeker's.

They certainly come off as trying very hard to be unoffensive. To anyone. Unoffensive to neighborhoods. To developers. To conservatives. I know they've done a fine job on things like Dix and Union Station. But they aren't pushing hard on Wake County for a solid rail plan for instance. Buses didn't rock the boat too much. They punted on bike share up front (I understand its in the bond plan now). We have some painted bike lanes all over now, but I doubt we'll ever curb separated bike lanes anywhere. Ever. HB2? Silence. I've submitted emails on numerous topics to various council members and never received a response. I know its a pain getting mountains of email with that public email address and all, but Thomas Crowder wrote me back more than once. On a left/right pendulum scale, with 5 pure neutral, 0 pure conservative and 10 pure liberal, Raleigh comes in at about a 6. I also realize the State has damaged the NC brand enough that Raleigh doesn't want to seem unfriendly to developers, but damn, stand for something. 

[RiverwoodCLT]

Raleigh should know that restricting most of downtown to 12 or 20 stories is costing them a lot of tax money.

If you want a big 20 stories covering a block, look like you got it. 

  I given up on Raleigh on it's downtown. Raleigh is no longer a small city,  and the city leader must get over something over 20 stories is bad.  PNC Plaza at 538 would be the 6 tallest in Charlotte just after the Vue Apartments at 576.  Would Raleigh ok a 51 story apartment building? The next office building to start  in CLT will be 588 feet tall and that will push PNC down to 7 place as the tallest building in NC.

 

I would like to see 40+ stories in downtown in my life time.

Edited January 18, 2017 by RiverwoodCLT