Glen-Tree vs. Expected RBC Tower

[Jones_]

From Hillsborough a 15 would be fine because its infront of everything. Same goes for Quorum. But I meant putting a 15 in the middle of downtown especially in the First Citizens location, I feel like it might would become lost among the other buildings in the area. Maybe it wouldn't. I would just think to even out not only the distance between the Wachovia tower and Two Hanover tower along Fayetteville St. but also to even out the height, building a tower of at least the same size or taller in the First Citizens location would be ideal.

oh ok. I agree, it would be lost skyline wise. I just had a thought I'd like to share....the intersection of Davie and Wilmington is completely in shadow most of day now and is very windy on calm days because the cluster of tallish buildings there funnel the higher up winds down to the ground...for those reasons I am going to say a smaller building on the First Citizens lot will be fine...also partly because there is little available daytime parking left nearby and the lot is too small for a deck......So.....I say the next 30+ building (after Reynolds and maybe RBC hopefully) should go on the Progress 3 lot (north of Progress 2). Let it front Martin Street right beside the Bail Bonds place, incorporate a parking deck, leave the Historic Wilmington St buildings standing with some rehabilitation for cool night spots and then you will have some East/West depth towards city market and you'd be spreading your height out some so you don't have these enshrouded dark windy portions of the city.

[DigitalSky]

They mentioned Glentree on the news here today in Greensboro

[ChiefJoJo]

It fronts Boylan, not Glenwood, but it's just down the hill from Paramount, and only a block west of Glenwood, so yeah, you're probably right - not exactly "affordable." But apartments are not necessarily about affordability; building equity by buying is good but there are strings attached - so sometimes it just makes more sense to rent.

They are supposed to start around $150k for the condos (there will be some I think), and the rent should at least be reasonable. I think they are looking at 200 units, so the costs can be spread out.

On RBC, I hope they go tall and build on the old FCB lot at Martin St. If they go small--around 15 stories--I hope they got to the old Litchen site on Davie.

[urbanesq]

As previous posts have pointed out, remember that the Reynolds are developers and RBC is a tenant. Unless the Reynolds offer RBC the most attractive bid, the two won't be joining forces; and certainly the Reynolds aren't going to put a building anywhere other than the land they already own/optioned.

Remember also that except in rare cases-- and usually in much larger cities than this-- decisions about the height of buildings are made for economic rather than aesthetic or ego-based reasons. So I don't think that either the Reynolds or Highwoods or whomever the developer of the RBC building turns out to be, will be compelled to risk bankruptcy by building in spec space just to claim "mine is bigger than theirs." If the market is there for the space (office, residential or retail) then the building will be tall enough to accommodate it. If there's enough of a market, we'll see a really tall building. As for Reynolds, it seems more likely that their market share just got siphoned over to Crabtree, so their building will probably be much shorter than originally planned (just my speculation-- completely unsubstantiated).

The overall problem with getting the tall buildings downtown that we'd all like to see is, of course, that the office market has been really soft in Raleigh for many years. It's coming back slowly, but rents are still comparatively low, and I don't think that any developer is going to risk putting up much excess capacity right now just to have a landmark building. I don't know much about the hotel business, but I do know that it's a tough industry, and that the market in Raleigh for luxury hotel rooms is very narrow, and unlike in the movies, if you build it, sometimes they don't come. Same for luxury condos. In talking with the developers of several of the downtown condo projects, most fear that market is quickly reaching saturation. While I think there is a broader market for urban-type housing product than most real estate analysts will acknowledge, we can't just pretend that this is Atlanta or DC. We have "bad" traffic, but not so bad that you can't get across town pretty easily, and low mortgage rates and tons of detached product-with-yard within a few minutes drive of most employment centers. Those are not market fundamentals that would suggest a bunch of high-rise condos going up in downtown (or anywhere in) Raleigh any time soon.

Now, maybe I'm wrong (it's been known to happen, and is usually well-documented) and the region has truly entered the next tier of economic activity, but I think it's more likely that Raleigh's new tallest will remain at Crabtree for another 10 or 20 years, the RBC and Reynolds projects will be shorter as a result, and we'll have to be content with smaller towers downtown than the folks on these boards would like to see.

End of diatribe.

So, now that I've gotten that out there, have a great weekend, guys.

[dmccall]

As previous posts have pointed out, ...End of diatribe. So, now that I've gotten that out there, have a great weekend, guys.

Is that all you have to say?

[waynehead]

I share your skepticism, urbanesq, if not your eloquence. Well put. I want Raleigh, Durham, and all of our region to thrive and prosper, but I have serious doubts about the Glen Tree project and I don't think that just because we all want to see economic development in the cities' core it is actually going to happen. But here's hoping.