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Charlotte/Raleigh Highrise Building Booms


JacksonH

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Seeing all the news about proposed towers in Charlotte, it is really impressive.  It seems that the construction never stops.  But I was looking at Wikipedia and this surprised me:  There are fourteen towers currently proposed (not yet under construction) in Charlotte.  That seems like a big number, except.  . .  there are twenty-five proposed for Raleigh!  Twenty-five!  (Greensboro only has one proposed, by the  way.)  It makes me wonder, though, if Raleigh is one day going to catch up to Charlotte and rival its skyline, and its metro population.  Thoughts?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_North_Carolina

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Charlotte has possibly up to 60 towers in the pipeline, with over 20 of them in South End at the very least. Raleigh won't quite ever catch up to Charlotte. it seems though that many cities in the South have skylines expanding out of their center cities and into their surrounding neighborhoods. I have seen pictures of Nashville's skyline now and it seems very expansive, just not very tall. Haven't seen any pictures of Raleigh's expanding skyline recently.

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41 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Raleigh is indeed getting cranked up with more high rises but no where near the number as in Charlotte.  First off many of their big office users prefer suburban campuses like tech and biopharma.  Plus the state government is cheap and always looking for the cheapest option.  Our big  corporate office users prefer taller buildings.   However they are getting a few high rise apartment towers and their high rise offices are more modest but their skyline is filling in.   Raleigh and Wake County is growing faster than Charlotte though but it is much more spread out but there are many great projects around the entire Triangle urban ones like American Tobacco Campus expansion,  Smoky Hollow downtown Raleigh.   Great suburban mixed used centers like North Hills which continues to expand (see attached photos) Midtown Exchange, Fenton in Cary and several more.  

all photos of North Hills on I-440 and Six Forks Rd, Raleigh's midtown.  If you have not been to North Hills you need to check it out.  The tallest building is the 35 story Walter apartment tower nearing completion. 

I think it might have been you who gave me an agenda when I was in Raleigh last year and North Hills was on it, but I ran out of time and didn't make it there.  Several of those proposed highrises in Raleigh are in North Hills, but it looks like most of the rest are downtown .  As for buildings currently under construction (and they're only listing buildings that are 200 feet or more) there are two in Charlotte but four in Raleigh.  So while Raleigh has a long way to go to catch up with Charlotte, it does appear it's growing at a faster pace at the moment.  And relative to its size, it seems like a dizzying pace.

1 hour ago, norm21499 said:

Charlotte has possibly up to 60 towers in the pipeline, with over 20 of them in South End at the very least. Raleigh won't quite ever catch up to Charlotte. it seems though that many cities in the South have skylines expanding out of their center cities and into their surrounding neighborhoods. I have seen pictures of Nashville's skyline now and it seems very expansive, just not very tall. Haven't seen any pictures of Raleigh's expanding skyline recently.

Sixty?  Are you sure?  I know Wikipedia makes mistakes but I would be surprised if their number is that far off.  Or maybe it's a difference in definition as Wikipedia is only listing buildings 200 feet or more.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Lets not boom too much that this happens:

""San Francisco's leaning Millennium Tower tilted another quarter of an inch in December when crews installed the second of a series of test piles, according to NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit. Those test piles are part of a proposed fix intended to keep the building from sinking and tilting more. It's the second time the tower has suddenly tilted while crews were testing various ways to get it to stop. The first time was in November when the building tilted a quarter of an inch during the four days a test pile was installed.""

Yikes! 

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8 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Lets not boom too much that this happens:

""San Francisco's leaning Millennium Tower tilted another quarter of an inch in December when crews installed the second of a series of test piles, according to NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit. Those test piles are part of a proposed fix intended to keep the building from sinking and tilting more. It's the second time the tower has suddenly tilted while crews were testing various ways to get it to stop. The first time was in November when the building tilted a quarter of an inch during the four days a test pile was installed.""

Yikes! 

I remember learning about this building many years ago.  The good thing is the flaw was discovered early on, so they have been able to monitor this building over the years and hopefully avert a disaster like the tragic one that happened several months ago in Florida.  (California building codes are very strict; hard to imagine there were no violations.)  The bad thing is nobody realized this issue until after the building was complete and a bunch of investors/home owners had sunk enormous amounts of money into purchasing their units, only to see the value of their investments plummet.  Buyer beware!  I can't see those folks ever being able to resell their units.  (Who would want to live there now?)  I know there have been a bunch of lawsuits that I would think could have put the builder out of business.  It seems this building needs to be brought down at this point -- how can it be safe, and how can nearby buildings be safe with it there? -- but is that even possible with something so tall?

Okay, this is way off topic.  I can't imagine something like this ever happening in North Carolina with the Carolina clay soil and bedrock.  The soil in California coastal areas does not hold together like that so it does not make for a steady foundation (the reason mud slides happen).  So I say build densely N.C., and build tall.  And back to the races, Charlotte and Raleigh.  Charlotte remains in the lead but I hear some fans out there cheering on Raleigh and think she's going to narrow the lead.

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Raleigh seems to face more strong Suburban head winds than does Charlotte concerning Residential and Commercial Development which is probably why so many proposed projects are shorter in height than in Charlotte.  Mecklenburg truly is running out of space to Sprawl whereas Wake has plenty to spare.

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7 hours ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

Raleigh seems to face more strong Suburban head winds than does Charlotte concerning Residential and Commercial Development which is probably why so many proposed projects are shorter in height than in Charlotte.  Mecklenburg truly is running out of space to Sprawl whereas Wake has plenty to spare.

20% of Wake County is permanently low density to protect the two major water supplies but East Wake County will have decades of high intensity development. 

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53 minutes ago, carolina1792 said:

20% of Wake County is permanently low density to protect the two major water supplies but East Wake County will have decades of high intensity development. 

This is your occasional reminder that Raleigh, Durham, Hillsborough, and a few other municipalities all draw their water from a small watershed pictured here:

https://www.unrba.org/about-unrb

Raleigh is near the headwaters of its watershed and water supply is limited, more so than in other Piedmont cities. Compare to Charlotte and the Catawba  River and its many tributaries which cover land and rain shadow much larger than Raleigh. Significant sections of Wake County are prime annexation targets but remain outside the city of Raleigh because , among other things, water and sewer connections would strain the capacity of the city. So these areas remain on well or community aquifer supplies. Our geographic inheritance has been generous water supply, even though in most of the past it was miles from the small city of Charlotte.  The twentieth century brought growth and access to the Catawba. See here:

https://charlottenc.gov/Water/AboutUs/Pages/History.aspx

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56 minutes ago, tarhoosier said:

This is your occasional reminder that Raleigh, Durham, Hillsborough, and a few other municipalities all draw their water from a small watershed pictured here:

https://www.unrba.org/about-unrb

Raleigh is near the headwaters of its watershed and water supply is limited, more so than in other Piedmont cities. Compare to Charlotte and the Catawba  River and its many tributaries which cover land and rain shadow much larger than Raleigh. Significant sections of Wake County are prime annexation targets but remain outside the city of Raleigh because , among other things, water and sewer connections would strain the capacity of the city. So these areas remain on well or community aquifer supplies. Our geographic inheritance has been generous water supply, even though in most of the past it was miles from the small city of Charlotte.  The twentieth century brought growth and access to the Catawba. See here:

https://charlottenc.gov/Water/AboutUs/Pages/History.aspx

There's other watersheds for the Raleigh/Cary area.

https://www.wakegov.com/departments-government/planning-development-inspections/planning/watersheds-and-watershed-policy

 

Swift Creek Watershed is basically why Raleigh doesn't have a real 'south' side of town. "Session Law 1998-192, adopted by the North Carolina General Assembly on October 22, 1998, prohibits Wake County (and other parties to the Plan) from adopting any development ordinance or granting any development permit that would be inconsistent with the standards and provisions of the Swift Creek Land Management Plan."

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Little River and Swift Creek are part of the Neuse Basin as seen in my link above. These are sub-watersheds, if you will. Point being, the supply for the Raleigh/Wake users is more limited than that of western Piedmont and Charlotte. Your point about development limits due to water and sewerage is to the point.

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On 12/13/2021 at 11:27 AM, Hushpuppy321 said:

Raleigh seems to face more strong Suburban head winds than does Charlotte concerning Residential and Commercial Development which is probably why so many proposed projects are shorter in height than in Charlotte.  Mecklenburg truly is running out of space to Sprawl whereas Wake has plenty to spare.

Part of this is the very nature of their employers:  tech and biopharma.  Apple is building a suburban campus in RTP just like the ones they have in Cupertino and Austin.  Biopharma needs sprawling building for production of vacinnes and other pharma products.  Even our state government which goes to the lowest bidder builds in the suburbs too.  Raleigh and Wake County have always had more townhomes options than Charlotte and this continues to this day.  Maybe not as many high rises but even now that is changing.  They have a 35 story apartment tower at North Hills along I-440.  does anyone know the difference in population density of Raleigh and Charlotte?  I bet it is not much different.     Answered my own question:  Raleigh is indeed more DENSELY populated than Charlotte.   Census:  2826 per sq mile vs 2457 for Charlotte.     Told you they have a lot of townhomes and have since the 1970s when very few were built here. 

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3 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Part of this is the very nature of their employers:  tech and biopharma.  Apple is building a suburban campus in RTP just like the ones they have in Cupertino and Austin.  Biopharma needs sprawling building for production of vacinnes and other pharma products.  Even our state government which goes to the lowest bidder builds in the suburbs too.  Raleigh and Wake County have always had more townhomes options than Charlotte and this continues to this day.  Maybe not as many high rises but even now that is changing.  They have a 35 story apartment tower at North Hills along I-440.  does anyone know the difference in population density of Raleigh and Charlotte?  I bet it is not much different.     Answered my own question:  Raleigh is indeed more DENSELY populated than Charlotte.   Census:  2826 per sq mile vs 2457 for Charlotte.     Told you they have a lot of townhomes and have since the 1970s when very few were built here. 

 

That's not really apples to oranges to compare the densities.

 

The city limits of Wake are much more cherry-picked than those of Mecklenburg. Both figures below show the city limits of all cities/towns in the respective counties. Mecklenburg towns/cities. Wake city limits looks like they've been through a shredder. 

 

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In addition, Charlotte has more industrial areas, the airport, etc. in it's city limits. So. It's not really a clear measure when the city limits are drawn in very different ways (Like if Charlotte was in Wake, I assume it would have holes and islands, etc.

 

City limits can be strange. Here is Austin:

 

spacer.png

 

 

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If that is indeed the city of Raleigh limits,  it includes vast low density lands in west Raleigh where various state agencies have storage facilities (by the NC Museum of Art)  and so forth plus looks like it includes WB Umstead State Park which is thousands of acres of forest.  I am telling you Raleigh has very dense townhomes development and has had many more over the decades than Charlotte has and yes Charlotte has taller buildings most of which are office towers.  

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15 hours ago, tozmervo said:

It's easy to forget how low density and even rural you can still be in Charlotte. Huge lot subdivisions in South Charlotte are one thing, but drive out The Plaza, Albemarle, West Blvd, or 16 and you'll drive for miles through barely developed land that's in the city limits.

University district will probably pump out taller and taller developments soon yeah? 

Another two 20-story residential towers just south of Downtown Raleigh announced today--not proposed but already in pre-construction! Completely new project from the son of Kane's development group. Already rezoned and ready to break ground middle of next year. What would Raleigh be without the Kanes, good lord. 

Edited by carolina1792
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19 hours ago, carolina1792 said:

University district will probably pump out taller and taller developments soon yeah? 

Another two 20-story residential towers just south of Downtown Raleigh announced today--not proposed but already in pre-construction! Completely new project from the son of Kane's development group. Already rezoned and ready to break ground middle of next year. What would Raleigh be without the Kanes, good lord. 

Yah, SLI Capital (Kane's son) is did a cool project in Durham. Now this. He is going to be competing with his Dad, and its good for Raleigh. 

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On 12/15/2021 at 2:05 PM, carolina1792 said:

University district will probably pump out taller and taller developments soon yeah? 

Another two 20-story residential towers just south of Downtown Raleigh announced today--not proposed but already in pre-construction! Completely new project from the son of Kane's development group. Already rezoned and ready to break ground middle of next year. What would Raleigh be without the Kanes, good lord. 

Dang - thought you meant ‘University City’…..

UC in Charlotte may stay low rise for some time.  Shouldn’t complain since highrises are beginning to spread throughout Center City (Southend, Midtown) and Ballantyne.

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