Charlotte/Raleigh Highrise Building Booms

[Blue_Devil]

On 8/15/2022 at 6:53 PM, urbanlover568 said:

Landlord's need to lower rent in the Cities. Cities are in a affordability crisis now with incomes not keeping up. I don't know how that would be resolved. Hat's off to the person who solves it!  

Build more

[Mid South NC]

[KJHburg]

https://www.theassemblync.com/place/raleigh-charlotte-a-tale-of-two-skylines/

comparing Charlotte and Raleigh's skylines. 

I love our skyline here but this is not quite fair an article to Raleigh.  Their major employer downtown is the state government which will not build a signature office tower and most would be called Class B at best.  Raleigh does not have the large office using employers like Charlotte.  The total Charlotte vs Raleigh Durham office market is almost equal but the Triangle is much more suburban in nature.  Biotech and pharma don't need or want high rise office towers.    I do believe Raleigh put some false height restrictions where there should not be any.  But look at other state capitals and tell where they build signature state owned buildings today.  Not in Atlanta, not in Nashvillle, not in Austin any capital city.    The fact is a financial center Charlotte has large office users that require lots of spaces and like signature buildings.  

[kayman]

Most of urban planning and designer colleagues in our group chat shared the article on Friday.  We all agreed with the article that the article was spot on. 

[15895]

On 10/3/2022 at 8:35 AM, KJHburg said:

https://www.theassemblync.com/place/raleigh-charlotte-a-tale-of-two-skylines/

comparing Charlotte and Raleigh's skylines. 

I love our skyline here but this is not quite fair an article to Raleigh.  Their major employer downtown is the state government which will not build a signature office tower and most would be called Class B at best.  Raleigh does not have the large office using employers like Charlotte.  The total Charlotte vs Raleigh Durham office market is almost equal but the Triangle is much more suburban in nature.  Biotech and pharma don't need or want high rise office towers.    I do believe Raleigh put some false height restrictions where there should not be any.  But look at other state capitals and tell where they build signature state owned buildings today.  Not in Atlanta, not in Nashvillle, not in Austin any capital city.    The fact is a financial center Charlotte has large office users that require lots of spaces and like signature buildings.  

Yeah, it's the equivalent of asking why Charlotte doesn't have nearly the same caliber of education in addition to the Triangle being a significant amount more of a share of population that hold a higher education degree (usually in the top 5)   and why Charlotte doesn't work on having better universities, etc & coming to the conclusion that Charlotte just wasn't as interested in nor invested in education as much as Raleigh. IMO. It just so happened Charlotte became a banking hub that traditionally utilized large office towers and Raleigh being the state capital traditionally got that government support for those universities. I don't think there's anything Raleigh could have done to build as many large office towers as Charlotte's uptown did other than to become a banking hub too and abandon the whole top tier global tech hub thing. It's more of a note "this is why Charlotte has more taller office buildings than Raleigh" rather than what Raleigh could or couldn't have done to have pretty office buildings lining a street. 

Charlotte has a very pretty skyline of tall buildings. Photogenic. But the uptown area outside of Tryon St., Brooklyn (on one side at least), a few blocks of Church & Trade and around Romare Park (and additionally History 4th ward) range from terrible to awful for the most part. It would be great if so much of uptown wasn't so bad. You wont really see such desolation in downtown Raleigh like you do in such a significant portion of Uptown. Also, smaller buildings do make the skyline look even more impressive than signature towers (Which is why I Love the view from SouthEnd more than I like the East/West views even though technically the skyline looks prettier from those angles, there is just something more impressive to me viewing southend and uptown together)

 

Charlotte may have more events (primarily due to sporting events) but there seems like a lot more to do in Raleigh's downtown to me. A lot more places to eat, and it's very 3 dimensional whereas uptown is mostly Tryon Street and Romare Park for the most part. And walking down Tryon, there's just not much to do there or places I'd want to casually eat whereas downtown Raleigh has tons of places I'd want to eat. More retail, more shopping (Yes, even chains like Urban Outfitters but mostly small business) and it's not just on one street. Multiple streets are just nice, have businesses, things to do.  Downtown Raleigh is just full, exponentially fuller, than uptown Charlotte with so many nooks and crannies of great urbanity.

I could see Raleigh's skyline boom like Austin or Nashville - it has the ingredients. It doesn't mean it will. But I could see a huge skyscraper boom of residential towers similar to those two cities (whereas Charlotte was driven primarily by Office Towers, Nashville and Austin skew towards residential). Raleigh has so many assets, while it may never have a prettier skyline, I could see it becoming people's favourite NC downtown as it gets a critical mass of people and feels more bustly with people. It'll also be very cool if Commuter rail connects Durham and Raleigh and they both grow bigger in population. That'd be dope for a bustling DT Raleigh connected via rail to a more bustling DT Durham, 

Likewise, there's strengths Charlotte's uptown has that Raleigh's doesn't. It's like comparing Dallas to Austin. Dallas is the 500 lb gorilla but Austin has great assets at the ground level whereas Dallas has a lot of mega blocks and empty parking lots like Uptown too. IMO. Both have characteristics that are great, so I don't want this misconstrued as me dumping on Charlotte (just playing devil's advocate for Raleigh in the Charlotte section). It's just opinions I've noted while listening to Raleigh-based posters usually mentioning to the effect that Charlotte poster's emphasize taller office/bank towers when talking about DT Raleigh when that's just not it's gig.

Edited October 4, 2022 by AirNostrumMAD

[KJHburg]

I just really think Charlotte's skyline should be compared to the Nashville's, Austin's, San Antonio's of the nation.   Similar size metros.  We exceed Nashville and San Antonio in my opinion but maybe not Austin's anymore.  Even you calculate Raleigh Durham as one metro it is still made up of multiple cities where Charlotte is the dominant city in this metro by far.    As for downtown on the ground level uptown Charlotte is better than downtown Dallas even with their freeway cap and I have walked all over downtown Dallas.    I just felt it somewhat of an unfair comparison with downtown Raleigh.  

[Matthew.Brendan]

Austin is not even close anymore. Whereas Charlotte cannot break 600' on its recent builds (well BOAT did manage to (632'), and hopefully Riverside will as well. Duke annoyingly came up a little short) Austin has 7 projects under construction (+2 more approved) that are all well over 600'+ in height (plus 2 existing) for a total of 11. Charlotte has 4 total. lol.

In Austin that includes a 875' office/residential (66 floors) that beats our tallest by a couple feet, plus a super-tall 1022' (87 floors) hotel/office/residential.

I'm gonna go ahead and wager it will be a long time still before anything beats BOACC let alone cracks 1000' in Charlotte.

If you think Charlotte is on fire with its recent buildings (and it is, truly) Austin is just bonkers.

 

[KJHburg]

3 hours ago, Matthew.Brendan said:

Austin is not even close anymore. Whereas Charlotte cannot break 600' on its recent builds (well BOAT did manage to (632'), and hopefully Riverside will as well. Duke annoyingly came up a little short) Austin has 7 projects under construction (+2 more approved) that are all well over 600'+ in height (plus 2 existing) for a total of 11. Charlotte has 4 total. lol.

In Austin that includes a 875' office/residential (66 floors) that beats our tallest by a couple feet, plus a super-tall 1022' (87 floors) hotel/office/residential.

I'm gonna go ahead and wager it will be a long time still before anything beats BOACC let alone cracks 1000' in Charlotte.

If you think Charlotte is on fire with its recent buildings (and it is, truly) Austin is just bonkers.

 

I will document it next year on a trip to Austin.  I do agree while most of their towers are mixed use in nature they do have some big office towers going up too.  Like this one just broken ground the Republic Tower https://austin.urbanize.city/post/austin-republic-tower-groundbreaking  it is 710 feet tall and it was designed by Duda Paine of Durham! 

 

Edited October 4, 2022 by KJHburg

[JRCLT]

Austin is not even close anymore. Whereas Charlotte cannot break 600' on its recent builds (well BOAT did manage to (632'), and hopefully Riverside will as well. Duke annoyingly came up a little short) Austin has 7 projects under construction (+2 more approved) that are all well over 600'+ in height (plus 2 existing) for a total of 11. Charlotte has 4 total. lol.
In Austin that includes a 875' office/residential (66 floors) that beats our tallest by a couple feet, plus a super-tall 1022' (87 floors) hotel/office/residential.
I'm gonna go ahead and wager it will be a long time still before anything beats BOACC let alone cracks 1000' in Charlotte.
If you think Charlotte is on fire with its recent buildings (and it is, truly) Austin is just bonkers.
 

Indeed. Austin projects: https://aquilacommercial.com/learning-center/downtown-austin-towers/

[Hushpuppy321]

On 10/4/2022 at 1:42 PM, AirNostrumMAD said:

Yeah, it's the equivalent of asking why Charlotte doesn't have nearly the same caliber of education in addition to the Triangle being a significant amount more of a share of population that hold a higher education degree (usually in the top 5)   and why Charlotte doesn't work on having better universities, etc & coming to the conclusion that Charlotte just wasn't as interested in nor invested in education as much as Raleigh. IMO. It just so happened Charlotte became a banking hub that traditionally utilized large office towers and Raleigh being the state capital traditionally got that government support for those universities. I don't think there's anything Raleigh could have done to build as many large office towers as Charlotte's uptown did other than to become a banking hub too and abandon the whole top tier global tech hub thing. It's more of a note "this is why Charlotte has more taller office buildings than Raleigh" rather than what Raleigh could or couldn't have done to have pretty office buildings lining a street. 

Charlotte has a very pretty skyline of tall buildings. Photogenic. But the uptown area outside of Tryon St., Brooklyn (on one side at least), a few blocks of Church & Trade and around Romare Park (and additionally History 4th ward) range from terrible to awful for the most part. It would be great if so much of uptown wasn't so bad. You wont really see such desolation in downtown Raleigh like you do in such a significant portion of Uptown. Also, smaller buildings do make the skyline look even more impressive than signature towers (Which is why I Love the view from SouthEnd more than I like the East/West views even though technically the skyline looks prettier from those angles, there is just something more impressive to me viewing southend and uptown together)

 

Charlotte may have more events (primarily due to sporting events) but there seems like a lot more to do in Raleigh's downtown to me. A lot more places to eat, and it's very 3 dimensional whereas uptown is mostly Tryon Street and Romare Park for the most part. And walking down Tryon, there's just not much to do there or places I'd want to casually eat whereas downtown Raleigh has tons of places I'd want to eat. More retail, more shopping (Yes, even chains like Urban Outfitters but mostly small business) and it's not just on one street. Multiple streets are just nice, have businesses, things to do.  Downtown Raleigh is just full, exponentially fuller, than uptown Charlotte with so many nooks and crannies of great urbanity.

I could see Raleigh's skyline boom like Austin or Nashville - it has the ingredients. It doesn't mean it will. But I could see a huge skyscraper boom of residential towers similar to those two cities (whereas Charlotte was driven primarily by Office Towers, Nashville and Austin skew towards residential). Raleigh has so many assets, while it may never have a prettier skyline, I could see it becoming people's favourite NC downtown as it gets a critical mass of people and feels more bustly with people. It'll also be very cool if Commuter rail connects Durham and Raleigh and they both grow bigger in population. That'd be dope for a bustling DT Raleigh connected via rail to a more bustling DT Durham, 

Likewise, there's strengths Charlotte's uptown has that Raleigh's doesn't. It's like comparing Dallas to Austin. Dallas is the 500 lb gorilla but Austin has great assets at the ground level whereas Dallas has a lot of mega blocks and empty parking lots like Uptown too. IMO. Both have characteristics that are great, so I don't want this misconstrued as me dumping on Charlotte (just playing devil's advocate for Raleigh in the Charlotte section). It's just opinions I've noted while listening to Raleigh-based posters usually mentioning to the effect that Charlotte poster's emphasize taller office/bank towers when talking about DT Raleigh when that's just not it's gig.

Very good assessment of both cities downtowns.  I think what has Charlotte behind Raleigh in street activity is Price.  The older buildings in Raleigh probably have more affordable rents allowing small businesses and retail to manage.  Uptown Charlotte rents are too high and the lack of much older affordable inventory doesn’t help but actually aggravates the problem.

On 9/1/2022 at 2:07 PM, Mid South NC said:

Looks quite impressive - for the year 2125 in Downtown Raleigh!

[KJHburg]

Raleigh be like this this new 30 story apartment is so tall you can see 4th Ward in uptown Charlotte from it.  But this is a nice design and not sure the views reach that far LOL>

""A new mixed-use development is set to rise 30 stories and include 373 multifamily units and 10,000 square feet of retail space. Connecticut-based developer VeLa Development Partners is leading the project, according to new site plans filed just this week with the city.""

 

 

[15895]

3 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Raleigh be like this this new 30 story apartment is so tall you can see 4th Ward in uptown Charlotte from it.  But this is a nice design and not sure the views reach that far LOL>

""A new mixed-use development is set to rise 30 stories and include 373 multifamily units and 10,000 square feet of retail space. Connecticut-based developer VeLa Development Partners is leading the project, according to new site plans filed just this week with the city.""

 

 

As hilarious as that is, that is actually a very good looking tower! 

[KJHburg]

10 hours ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

As hilarious as that is, that is actually a very good looking tower! 

this development group is involved in a Charlotte project as well so maybe we will get a design like that.  I really like that design. 

[jthomas]

14 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Parking podiums like this are like the mom jeans of architecture:

Why would you choose to draw attention to an unflattering area instead of hiding it? But then again, mom jeans are inexplicably in style right now, just like these accentuated parking podiums. Coincidence???

But in all seriousness, that Raleigh project is really nice, and a good use of an irregular and relatively small site.

[carolina1792]

On 10/13/2022 at 7:08 PM, KJHburg said:

Raleigh be like this this new 30 story apartment is so tall you can see 4th Ward in uptown Charlotte from it.  But this is a nice design and not sure the views reach that far LOL>

""A new mixed-use development is set to rise 30 stories and include 373 multifamily units and 10,000 square feet of retail space. Connecticut-based developer VeLa Development Partners is leading the project, according to new site plans filed just this week with the city.""

 

 

Hopefully this, BRT, and the Shaw University redevelopment plans spur high density development in this area. Downtown Raleigh tower development is skewed heavily towards the west side. Historic Oakwood in the north will likely be untouched but everything south of New Bern Avenue will be redevelopment in the future.

[JRCLT]

Raleigh be like this this new 30 story apartment is so tall you can see 4th Ward in uptown Charlotte from it.  But this is a nice design and not sure the views reach that far LOL>
""A new mixed-use development is set to rise 30 stories and include 373 multifamily units and 10,000 square feet of retail space. Connecticut-based developer VeLa Development Partners is leading the project, according to new site plans filed just this week with the city.""
 
 
http://content.invisioncic.com/x329420/monthly_2022_10/vela-longview-studio-1.thumb.jpg.12f59a298f727679d7d3e257c9936ca2.jpg
http://content.invisioncic.com/x329420/monthly_2022_10/raleigh-exterior-2-vela-longview-jpg.thumb.jpg.e39228ab422f52d2a98f9b288efc82e5.jpg
http://content.invisioncic.com/x329420/monthly_2022_10/raleigh-exterior-1-vela-longview_750xx4000-2250-0-207.jpg.f80a408bbae8e2bc30954707553360ae.jpg

Isn’t this the exact view museum south tower would have facing west? Lol

It’s the same developer no?

[rancenc]

From this month's edition of Business NC magazine on completed projects throughout the state including projects in Raleigh and Charlotte.

https://businessnc.com/building-nc-our-annual-look-at-the-best-new-and-rehabbed-structures-across-north-carolina/

[Mid South NC]

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/fastest-growing-us-cities-kenan-institute.html

[carolinaboy]

34 minutes ago, Mid South NC said:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/fastest-growing-us-cities-kenan-institute.html

I'm moving Charlotte up two spots. Raleigh and Durham should be considered as two different cities because they are, in fact, two different cities. Which cities are lumped in with SF? Oakland and San Jose? This should either be "cities" or "metro areas/regions" not a combination of both. Did they include Fort Worth with Dallas?

Edited November 10, 2022 by carolinaboy

[CLT2014]

16 minutes ago, carolinaboy said:

I'm moving Charlotte up two spots. Raleigh and Durham should be considered as two different cities because they are, in fact, two different cities. Which cities are lumped in with SF? Oakland and San Jose? This should either be "cities" or "metro areas/regions" not a combination of both. Did they include Fort Worth with Dallas?

Here is the actual report (not the CNBC summary): American Growth Project – Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise (unc.edu)

They did "expanded metropolitan areas" which means in some regions they did the CSA (Like SF Bay Area includes Oakland and San Jose ; Raleigh + Durham ; Dallas is indeed the metroplex including Fort Worth, et..)

 

[15895]

Looks like we need to look towards San Francisco and Seattle and learn...

Huge development booms, the high-rise developments U/C in Seattle probably eclipses the entire Charlotte Skyline, faster growing, crazy GDP growth, tons of rail transit underway.... 

[CLT2014]

1 hour ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

Looks like we need to look towards San Francisco and Seattle and learn...

Huge development booms, the high-rise developments U/C in Seattle probably eclipses the entire Charlotte Skyline, faster growing, crazy GDP growth, tons of rail transit underway.... 

Be the HQ of Amazon and Microsoft. Unlock the key to success. Boeing Commercial Airplanes... also a HUGE GDP win for Seattle. A 777 rolling off the assembly line is worth $320 million a plane. 

The amount of high rise development also makes sense in Seattle given land constraints there. With 4.1 million people in their metro area and land constraints like the Puget Sound to the west, Lake Washington, and mountains / state forest to the East, it forces development into a tighter space than a flat metro like Charlotte that can just sprawl and sprawl. Real estate near downtown Seattle is just so much more valuable given the scarcity of land that you have to go vertical... while we still have relatively low density land use just steps from our core. 

Edited November 10, 2022 by CLT2014

[JRCLT]

Be the HQ of Amazon and Microsoft. Unlock the key to success. Boeing Commercial Airplanes... also a HUGE GDP win for Seattle. A 777 rolling off the assembly line is worth $320 million a plane. 
The amount of high rise development also makes sense in Seattle given land constraints there. With 4.1 million people in their metro area and land constraints like the Puget Sound to the west, Lake Washington, and mountains / state forest to the East, it forces development into a tighter space than a flat metro like Charlotte that can just sprawl and sprawl. Real estate near downtown Seattle is just so much more valuable given the scarcity of land that you have to go vertical... while we still have relatively low density land use just steps from our core. 

We (charlotte) missed the memo of just because there’s a lot of land doesn’t mean consume it all in one go. Anything for cheaper everything right?

[KJHburg]

Raleigh Rising today.  

Our Capital City is booming.

1.2. Raleigh Iron Works by Jamestown Properties of Ponce City Market fame.    https://raleighironworks.com/

3.4.5.6.   400 H Mixed use tower   20 stories 400 Hillsborough St.  https://400hraleigh.com/

7.  Kane's North Hills new office tower  https://kanerealtycorp.com/project/nhx-creative-office/

8. new Cardinal at North Hills retirement tower  18 stories in North Hills

9.10. The Exchange and the North Hills skyline  1000 Social office tower   https://theexchangeraleigh.com/

11.12.  One North Hills Tower https://kanerealtycorp.com/project/one-north-hills-tower/   love this design along I-440.  

and this is what I had time to drive by today....  

 

[KJHburg]

Charlotte can only hope for project as good as Fenton in Cary.  Hopefully Ballantyne Bowl will be this nice.   This is the nicest newest retail project in the Carolinas and yes it is in Cary.  Developed by Hines of Houston and Columbia Dev. Company of SC.     Hopefully River District in Charlotte will have something like this.    The attention to details are amazing.  It reminds me greatly of Avalon in Alpharetta GA. 

https://fentonnc.com/