Soleil Center I & II at Crabtree

[sax184]

Maybe I am being an apologist for tall buildings (which I love) but the only hope for urbanity (re: street level experience) in Crabtree Valley, is for more density. There needs to be more residents, hotel guests, and office workers in that area, instead of just car driving mall shoppers. I agree Soleil isn't great at the street level. But if someone could connect the mall, Soleil I & II, and Kidd's Hill so that people can walk back and forth between them, whether technically at street level or not, then we will have created the type of urbanity we need at that location.

This isn't true, and we have places like Tyson's Corner in VA to show us just that. Density does not equal urbanity. The only hope for urbanity in this part of Raleigh is a massive overhaul of the street network and subsequently, building placement. None of this is happening as part of Soleil.

This building is not going to help Raleigh "arrive" in any sense of the word. You can put all the spas, concierges, and 5-star restaurants you want in this building and it is still never going to be 1/2 as trendy as Glenwood South, 1/2 as interesting as downtown Durham, or 1/10 as urban as Chapel Hill/Carrboro along Franklin and Main.

As for Atlanta, while hard and fast rules always find exceptions, the Triangle would do well to avoid copying Atlanta on just about anything related to growth, development, and transportation.

Ultimately, though, the way this building was approved is indicative of how the City Council and especially the Planning Board are basically owned by the developers in this town. If you're a citizen, and you see how fast something like this gets approved, with no time for citizens to respond, with Planning Board meetings held during the day when people can't make meetings, etc., why would you bother participating in the Comp Plan process? Mitchell Silver is brilliant, but if the people above him won't support him and his staff's work, does the Comp Plan matter in Raleigh? At all?

[plus2]

This isn't true, and we have places like Tyson's Corner in VA to show us just that. Density does not equal urbanity. The only hope for urbanity in this part of Raleigh is a massive overhaul of the street network and subsequently, building placement. None of this is happening as part of Soleil.

I agree that Tyson's Corner is not the ideal Crabtree should aspire to. But Crabtree is already non-urban. I want to see Crabtree become more urban.

Yes, density does not equal urbanity, but urbanity requires density. Crabtree is never going to be urban in the sense that there will be pleasant streetscapes and roadside shops. But we can help cut down on the number of required car trips, by giving people the ability to walk between the major anchors of the Crabtree Valley.

[pack-man]

As for Atlanta, while hard and fast rules always find exceptions, the Triangle would do well to avoid copying Atlanta on just about anything related to growth, development, and transportation.

well said

crabtree valley will be nothing more than boxes. urban development in this area is a waste of time.

it all comes back to what was mentioned before, the road network prevents it.

[ChiefJoJo]

I agree that Tyson's Corner is not the ideal Crabtree should aspire to. But Crabtree is already non-urban. I want to see Crabtree become more urban.

Yes, density does not equal urbanity, but urbanity requires density. Crabtree is never going to be urban in the sense that there will be pleasant streetscapes and roadside shops. But we can help cut down on the number of required car trips, by giving people the ability to walk between the major anchors of the Crabtree Valley.

Density built just for density's sake won't solve anything. Soleil Center probably will have a negligible impact on auto trip generated at this site--most likely a small increase in trips over the old Sheraton Hotel. Now, mixing uses in a pedestrian-friendly environment (like say, downtown or to a lesser extent, N Hills) can do some good in dispersing traffic generating peaks and getting folks out of their cars without transit, although it's not the suburban panacea that developers would have you believe. Orulz had a great post that speaks to the potential benefits of mixing uses in suburban areas. It's a good read, and I think show the limitations of density and mixing uses without viable transit.

[capitalapts]

Kinda like this one in Durham? Atlanta isn't really something to aspire to when engaged in urban planning.

We are building a highrise at the mall. Whoopie. That's what our downtown for - to consolidate high density development.

Buckhead was a solution to reign in white flight from Atlanta's city center. The Soleil Center is a solution in search of a problem.

You took the words right out of my mouth re: Atlanta.

Please understand that I appreciate what seems to be a very creative/exciting architectural effort in Soleil. It's just going to look silly beside the mall, exactly like the tower in Durham in the picture Captain Awesome posted. Just one guy's opinion I guess.

[ncsugrad204]

Dialog is Boring !!!!!!!

[vitaviatic]

...we have places like Tyson's Corner in VA to show us just that. Density does not equal urbanity. The only hope for urbanity in this part of Raleigh is a massive overhaul of the street network and subsequently, building placement. None of this is happening as part of Soleil.

This building is not going to help Raleigh "arrive" in any sense of the word. You can put all the spas, concierges, and 5-star restaurants you want in this building and it is still never going to be 1/2 as trendy as Glenwood South, 1/2 as interesting as downtown Durham, or 1/10 as urban as Chapel Hill/Carrboro along Franklin and Main...

I agree that Tyson's Corner is not the ideal Crabtree should aspire to. But Crabtree is already non-urban. I want to see Crabtree become more urban.

Yes, density does not equal urbanity, but urbanity requires density. Crabtree is never going to be urban in the sense that there will be pleasant streetscapes and roadside shops. But we can help cut down on the number of required car trips, by giving people the ability to walk between the major anchors of the Crabtree Valley.

Transitman, I agree that Crabtree is not a pinnacle of urban experience in its present form. However, I honestly don't think that all that much would need to be done to make the place special. Soleil in and of itself may or may not improve Crabtree aesthetically, but it does one major service to the area -- it maintains Crabtree as a viable commercial center (many of its mall cousins from that epoch are now meeting with the wrecking ball, while Crabtree holds its own and then some), and probably more importantly, drives the land values up to the point to where previously unviable options for "densifying" Crabtree now suddenly are, particularly in the realm of parking.

Crabtree has something very few shopping centers have -- a built-in water feature provided by Mother Nature herself. If those godawful parking decks get torn down in back of the mall, and the mall actually becomes internalized toward the creek instead of walling itself off from it, you have the makings of another Riverwalk. I am going to post a link here, but be advised that you'll need Google Earth to view it:

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/postcatcher.php...7-965413639.kmz

This is a view of El Tesoro in, of all places, Medell

[Spatula]

^ that is something I would like to see. That would be an excellent way for Crabtree to utilize its location. I hope that Soleil succeeds in providing incentive for the area to urbanize a bit. Much of that responsibility lies with the mall itself, and it doesn't seem like connectivity is high on their priority list though.

Who knows, maybe in 20 years this will be a funky little neighborhood. North Hills and TTC tried to emulate that with the new urbanist model, and honestly I haven't been impressed with them.

[capitalapts]

So if the prettified North Hills strip mall vicinity is "Midtown," what will that make Crabtree? TriBeCa?

Raleigh needs to focus on actually getting a bona fide living/breathing/24/7 (or at least 16/7!) downtown before it approves projects like this. I know that many here support it, but I think it sets a bad precedent for a city that has invested a lot of taxpayer $ in its urban core (which still needs PLENTY of help).

[sax184]

^ that is something I would like to see. That would be an excellent way for Crabtree to utilize its location. I hope that Soleil succeeds in providing incentive for the area to urbanize a bit. Much of that responsibility lies with the mall itself, and it doesn't seem like connectivity is high on their priority list though.

Who knows, maybe in 20 years this will be a funky little neighborhood. North Hills and TTC tried to emulate that with the new urbanist model, and honestly I haven't been impressed with them.

TTC is NOT new urbanism. There are only two projects in the Triangle which I think fulfill the goals of true New Urbanist projects, and they are Southern Village and Meadowmont in Chapel Hill. A lot of others are partial knockoffs of the concept at best to cynical marketing ploys at worst.

Vita- again, you're thinking 5 steps ahead, which is terrific. Nice example in GE. At the same time, I think you misunderstand my critique of the road network in the Crabtree area. Even if you did pull of what you're talking about with the parking towers and the creekwalk, the surrounding street network of roads feeding into the Glenwood/440 area are all powerfully anti-pedestrian. The distances between intersections are considerable, the roads are many, many, lanes wide, and designed for the auto. Everyone would still drive to Crabtree to enjoy the creekwalk under your plan. That can be done here- see Southpoint Mall. It's faux urbanism at its finest.

If you did the creekwalk plan, the only urbanism victory to be had would be one in which considerable housing, maybe 1000-plus units, were built onsite.

[Jones_]

drives the land values up to the point to where previously unviable options for "densifying" Crabtree now suddenly are, particularly in the realm of parking.

V, you have some of the best posts on here, but driving UP land values has never ever made something MORE viable ....unless you mean in reference to the current owner finding reason to sell, such as downtown parking lot owners finally finding it worthwhile to sell instead of make $50/month/space......all higher land values do is force upon a parcel a more limited range of possible uses...large, mega income producing projects like Soleil.....a small apartment complex with 600 a month rents is no longer possible near Soleil with pure capitalism applied.

[RALNATIVE]

unless you mean in reference to the current owner finding reason to sell, such as downtown parking lot owners finally finding it worthwhile to sell instead of make $50/month/space

Let me add a caveat to this. In this instance, another incentive that the land owner would have to sell, in addition to getting a premium on his/her land, is the incentive to not be stuck with higher property taxes as a result of the increased land value. I'm thinking that the latter is more of an incentive for a DT property owner to sell, than the premium that he/she may get from the sell itself. The cost of the parking spaces per month would not be able to increase substantially enough to offset the rising property taxes.

[Jones_]

Let me add a caveat to this. In this instance, another incentive that the land owner would have to sell, in addition to getting a premium on his/her land, is the incentive to not be stuck with higher property taxes as a result of the increased land value. I'm thinking that the latter is more of an incentive for a DT property owner to sell, than the premium that he/she may get from the sell itself. The cost of the parking spaces per month would not be able to increase substantially enough to offset the rising property taxes.

I guess "incentive" needs to be clarified as a stick or carrot.....

[dmccall]

BTW, y'all, I didn't mean my comment regarding class warfare to sound as ugly as it reads. Sorry 'bout that.

"the Triangle would do well to avoid copying Atlanta on just about anything related to growth, development, and transportation."

Does this include a 1-line rail system that attracts a mere 14K riders a day?

Jojo, I read your comments loud and clear and think you've always stated them very well on this topic.

As for no time for the public to respond to Soleil, I distinctly remember a full house at that Council meeting. It was a big enough deal for me to tape the TV broadcast and watch it in my spare time. I think naysayers had plenty of opportunity to speak out about this one. The proposal got loads of press by all forms of local media, with very little negative press. I do agree that it got amazingly quick approval while the Franklin St. thing near Peace is going through a relative obstacle course and doesn't have a whole lot of negatives.

I think we all want good, walkable density in the Crabtree area. It is an urban focal region, or whatever it's called, on the plan. Given that retail and residential space will never be viable in the flood plane, the best answer is to make everything walkable from the elevation of the old Steak& Ale. This includes ped bridges over Creedmoor/Edwards Mill road from Soleil to the Mall's upper deck and/or to Kidd's Hill plaza. The entire Glenlake area needs to be included in this plan, though, as does a potential redo of the the BB&T and Nationwide Insurance property with other highrises exists.

Even if the triangle of Soleil's property were the international model for a walkable development, it is bounded by lots of floodplain land and two major roadways that will never be navigable by peds. So, what happens at true ground level of this complex should ignore the needs of pedestrians. Rather, the design for pedestrians should focus on that 9th floor tying into other nearby pedestrian-oriented developments.

Oh yeah, TTA needs to get off of their duffs and put out a master plan that ties this chain of walkable areas into a string of pearls transit system (like the blue line that one of our cohorts - can't remember the name- posted). They are really the ones who need to keep pounding the idea of walkable pearls in a string. Developers answer to banks, period. Banks answer to demand. The TTA and local leaders can shift the demand curve if they will stay focused in their message.

So THAT is how Soleil, with a simple mod, can be a part of a very walkable regional plan.

[Gard]

As far as I'm concerned, Soleil will replace an eyesore of an old hotel, that in itself is worth it. Its a shame that its Soleil (which should be downtown) and not another building replacing the old hotel, but whats done is done and no point in loosing sleep over it.

[only]

Ultimately, though, the way this building was approved is indicative of how the City Council and especially the Planning Board are basically owned by the developers in this town.

Are you still complaining about how Soleil went from being publicly announced to having a City Council hearing in only four and a half months?

[architect77]

Kinda like this one in Durham? Atlanta isn't really something to aspire to when engaged in urban planning.

We are building a highrise at the mall. Whoopie. That's what our downtown for - to consolidate high density development.

Buckhead was a solution to reign in white flight from Atlanta's city center. The Soleil Center is a solution in search of a problem.

after living in atlanta for seven years in the 90's and 2004-2005, i will gladly disagree with every part of this post (no offense intended)

1. that tower at southsqaure(very helmut jahn-ish) does not adversely affect durham in any way other than casting a shadow in the morning and afternoon. unless you're a homeowner in an immediately adjacent nrighborhood, who cares? this is america, and some people like an office or residence near a major shopping destination. less driving, smaller 'carbon footprint'. i live in a highrise here in nyc, but i don't want to live in downtown raleigh nor durham. at least with a suburban highrise you have the downtown skyline to look at and admire. if you were in that skyline, what the hell is there to look at? the knightdale water tower? the shearon harris cooling tower?

2. buckhead's highrises are the result of proximity to shopping, nightlife and buckhead's hundred years plus as a wealthy enclave. its development has absolutely nothing to do with reigning in white flight. traffic has played the biggest role in atlanta's surge of intown living, and the buyers of these highrises are newcomers to atlanta. i'll bet less than 10% of highrise occupants came from atlanta's suburbs.

3. why is it so awful that there is a market of affluent buyers who prefer highrise living but without the grit of downtown? there are countless cities in the northeast where you can have the ultra high density lifestyle if you want it. is an integration with nature absolutely out of the question?

[Spatula]

To answer the third question: the traffic they create, and the utilities they require hurt everyone else. It's certainly better than a thousand single-family homes covering hundreds of acres, but it has the same effect on a city's urban landscape as that kind of subdivision, if all those people get off the elevator and into their cars.

I would also add that the University Tower in Durham is an office tower, something Durham doesn't get much of. The city's core was reeling in the 70s and 80s, and a lot of that can be attributed to their government being rather permissive about businesses leaving downtown for the suburbs. When it was proposed, there was a lot of argument over it, very similar to what Soleil is generating. The tower wasn't terribly successful, and the area around it wound up languishing in the 90s and 00s. It's one of the worst office markets in the metro now. Quite a testament to the amount of bullcrap that goes into the "build for the market" argument.

[sax184]

Are you still complaining about how Soleil went from being publicly announced to having a City Council hearing in only four and a half months?

Announcements are meaningless. It was the Planning Board review and approval to City Council approval in 10 days or so that was the true middle finger to good governance.

[vitaviatic]

So much stuff here. Oh, well. One at a time.

Any site plan (for the type of Crabtree redoux of the ilk of which we spoke) worth its salt would address that problem with skywalks in all directions. T-Man, I assume you were including Lead Mine/North Hills and Creedmoor in that anti-pedestrian conspiracy. What you say is quite true. Separation of autos from peds is paramount to the creation of any enjoyable neighborhood. Skybridges in several cities -- most notably the Crystal Court in Minneapolis -- proves that you can keep the traffic (if you have to) and still come by a decent venue for commerce. Milwaukee, same thing. Many of the skybridges that we have over downtown streets in Denver are revenue positive -- not mere dead spaces and money sumps as most would envision them. At Tabor Center the skybridges are populated with pushcart merchants along with greenery (fake and real... () ...). One of them houses a Colorado Athletic Club fitness center. Decent income generator, eh?

...but driving UP land values has never ever made something MORE viable ....unless you mean in reference to the current owner finding reason to sell, such as downtown parking lot owners finally finding it worthwhile to sell instead of make $50/month/space......all higher land values do is force upon a parcel a more limited range of possible uses...large, mega income producing projects like Soleil.....a small apartment complex with 600 a month rents is no longer possible near Soleil with pure capitalism applied.

I really don't mean to be snide here. But I doubt that even today you can find a $600 apartment within 3 ZIP codes of Crabtree. Land values are relative. It may in fact drive out people who may be there now, but somebody will move in. The higher property appreciation, with the higher tax base, even as we may deride it as "gentrification" is economically good for the city as a whole as it throws more money into the pot to pay for things such as sewers and water (much of it constructed for suburban tract homes at a deficit to the city -- impact fees not withstanding!).

I am actually neutral as far as Soleil goes. As far as I'm concerned, the jury is still out. I really don't believe that Soleil is the ruin-all of everything; I think that how Soleil impacts Crabtree is what they (meaning the developers of Soleil itself, Crabtree, and neighboring developments) do with it from here on out. Soleil is what it is. The old Sheraton was a massive teardown project, and to even recover the demolition costs required a project more or less the size of Soleil. If not for Soleil (regardless of the politics of the thing) you may still be looking at a derelict hotel to this day.

...another incentive that the land owner would have to sell, in addition to getting a premium on his/her land, is the incentive to not be stuck with higher property taxes as a result of the increased land value. I'm thinking that the latter is more of an incentive for a DT property owner to sell, than the premium that he/she may get from the sell itself. The cost of the parking spaces per month would not be able to increase substantially enough to offset the rising property taxes.

If the city council willed this to happen it would. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. As a few of you know, we have studies in progress tracking property taxes for proposed special transit tax districts, which I have linked to over on the TTA blog. DT Raleigh isn't ready yet, but I can tell you that "flat parking" operators are making out like bandits, getting very low assessments on properties that make easy six figure incomes as parking lots. Not begrudging the fortunate heir or owner of these properties a return on their property, the city is way too lax on assessing these sites -- in fact, if you browse around in iMaps for an hour or two, you can catch some real sweetheart deals going on. The city should be collecting more taxes on these properties than they do, discouraging the entropic conditions that hundreds of scattered small parcels wreaks on the city's downtown especially. If a lot is appraised at $75,000, is taxed at 65 cents per hundred (around $487 per year), but generates revenues of say, $117,000 per year (150 spaces x $65 = $9,750 per month x 12 months = $117,000 -- as a hypothetical), something is way out of whack. (My apologies. I will post a real case scenario later, when my IP deems to work at normal speed.) The city could (and should) offer some kind of monetary incentive for these landholders to consolidate and sell such parcels as can't be marketed solo. Interestingly, we find that the city of Raleigh itself is one of the biggest small parcel holders in downtown, thereby robbing itself of revenues from enhanced land use and property tax revenue.

To answer the third question (about high-density communities): the traffic they create, and the utilities they require hurt everyone else. It's certainly better than a thousand single-family homes covering hundreds of acres, but it has the same effect on a city's urban landscape as that kind of subdivision, if all those people get off the elevator and into their cars...

Utilities required by highrises as opposed to tract homes on a per square foot (footprint) basis are actually much less. You essentially need the same right-of-way to sink a water main or sewer pipe for a downtown highrise as for a subdivision. The actual piping and conduits required may be bigger, but in terms of land used, it is more or less the same. Which means that more people and residences feeding into the same linear foot of pipe from a highrise than a tract home means much greater efficiency of use for the highrise. Highrise dwellers are also more economical in the use of energy. Elevators, especially, are a prime example. Elevators function much like a seesaw, a counterweight pulling against the weight of the elevator and its load, requiring a relatively small motor to actuate the motion and compensate for the weight differences. Not a big charge. On the other hand, a highrise apartment inhabited by two adults is likely to have an average of one to two lights on inside the dwelling at any given time (no reason for any more than that), while the average suburban home will have four to five (the kitchen, the laundry room, the den, the back porch, etc.). Water usage is way, way, way less in a condo than a tract home, what with no cars being washed in the driveway, and no lawns being watered three to four times a day. New York City, on a per capita basis is, and has been, the most energy and resource efficient city in America (except for maybe verbiage). Runoff from highrises is strictly controlled, and as often as not, partially treated by the time it hits the sewage main. A suburban home has direct runoff from the driveway, the roof, the lawn (with untold pesticides and fertilizers running directly into the storm drain). If indeed the main issue is with appearances and urban form, highrises are reviewed (with the disputed exception of Soleil Center!) with a fine tooth comb. Everything from aesthetics to traffic impact to light pollution is ostensibly measured. If a bad one gets through, you can blame your city's planning board and city council. On the other hand, it is oh so very easy to design and build an ugly tract home. And with very little oversight. And once it's built, it doesn't come down either. If a highrise condo gets built, you can at least be guaranteed that 50% of the prospective residents liked it enough to buy into it. With an ugly tract home, there's no guarantee that anybody at all liked it!

I also recall something being mentioned that Crabtree Creek is a floodplain, and as such, could not be built upon. Well, it depends. True you could not build storefronts, or anything inhabitable right on the bank of the creek (nor would you really want to). The floodplain area would be filled with plazas, gardens, temporal attractions such as bandstands, gazebos, rides, etc., and any other thing that would not affect the sanitary condition of the facility should it flood. Several levels would have to be terraced up to a working commercial level, but probably starting no higher than the old parking lot on the other side of the creek from the mall. The terracing effect itself upwards toward the old KiddsHill Plaza would be significantly novel in and of itself, lending pretty rad panoramas of the "Creekwalk" from above. No doubt that with intelligent engineering, the creekscape itself could be designed to mitigate flooding in and around the mall.

Crabtree Creek and its floodplain are currently non-performing properties in someone's portfolio. If conceptualized to both recreate the beauty of the natural creek setting, and make the property perform economically as well, it's a win-win for everybody. Environmentalists could stonewall it, but I really don't see why they would. As a kid I remember that creek area as a pestilent, stinking swamp. The last time I saw Crabtree Creek behind the mall (about seven years ago) it was still a ditch filled with equal parts water and garbage. I don't see how any serious environmentalist could squawk at trading an open pit sewer, walled by decked parking and asphalt, for a manicured and replanted creekscape.

[only]

Announcements are meaningless. It was the Planning Board review and approval to City Council approval in 10 days or so that was the true middle finger to good governance.

To which I can only say:

Raleigh recently saw a 40+ story skyscraper, in a floodplain, that was in conflict with the comprehensive plan, go from announcement in the paper to rezoning approval by the City Council in one week. ONE WEEK.

Were you expecting to move the goalposts without anybody going and looking up your previous comments on the subject?

[sax184]

To which I can only say:

Were you expecting to move the goalposts without anybody going and looking up your previous comments on the subject?

Look- one week, 10 days, does it matter? Development of this magnitude in other municipalities usually gets a much better vetting. The site plans are on the website for at least a few weeks before the Planning Board meeting, so the public can be informed about that which they could come and comment on.

After the Planning Board approves something, they wind up confirming a site plan that is then recommended to the Council. A prudent governance structure should at least allow the public 2-4 weeks to get their hands on materials, and be able to ask informed questions at a City Council meeting, not just respond on an ad hoc basis to a boosterish proposal.

If you want to ding me over the difference between 7 and 10 days, fine, you win the point. But if you're talking about having time to have a serious community discussion about whether or not a 42-story skyscraper belongs in this location as the city re-boots the Comprehensive Plan, then the timeframe is ridiculously short.

[only]

Development of this magnitude in other municipalities usually gets a much better vetting.

Then name one.

The site plans are on the website for at least a few weeks before the Planning Board meeting, so the public can be informed about that which they could come and comment on.

After the Planning Board approves something, they wind up confirming a site plan that is then recommended to the Council. A prudent governance structure should at least allow the public 2-4 weeks to get their hands on materials, and be able to ask informed questions at a City Council meeting, not just respond on an ad hoc basis to a boosterish proposal.

This is completely specious. First, you say that the project went from public announcement to city council approval in a week's time, and that was your only real objection to the project. I provided links indicating that four and a half months had elapsed, not one week. Then, you change it up and say that the public doesn't have enough time between the planning meeting and the City Council to thoroughly vet the project, even though you yourself admit that the agendas are set weeks in advance, the documents are readily available on the internet, the paper routinely discusses which projects are in the hopper for the next meeting, and projects are frequently sent BACK to Planning when citizen objections are voiced during the Council hearing.

Did you even pay attention to the whole Franklin Street project? The CAC was sending out notices the night before about Planning meetings, and neighbors were attending in force... all this for a project that they LIKED. Woe is the developer that struts into a Planning meeting or Council hearing with a project that the neighborhood is forcefully against. The same goes for the developer that doesn't go over the project with planning staff and address their concerns in informal meetings prior to the actual submittal.

Not like any of this really matters anyway, because it doesn't fit neatly into your corrupt-government theories. Go on ignoring the fact that the Planning meeting is the week before the Council meeting because Planning is doing the Council's business, and must have reports for the Council to approve. Go on ignoring the city staff that review projects, work with the owners on conflicts, and then provide reports to the Council. And go on ignoring the developers that waste tons of time and money trying to get projects through approval, simply because none of it fits with the rubber stamp meme you keep pushing.

[vitaviatic]

A correction:

In my example I used the incorrect tax rate (off the top of my head I managed to use the Wake only rate). The effective rate for DT Raleigh would be 1.1476 per hundred value, including .643 for Wake, .435 for Raleigh, and .0786 for the Downtown Municipal District.

Our example was a "flat parking" parcel assessed at $75,000 taking $117,000 per year income from 150 spaces at $65 per month each. The new taxes at this rate would be $1,343 per year, still not near appropriate for the income that property is extracting for its owner. A prop owner with a building on that same property, worth say twice the land at $150,000, is paying fair taxes because s/he is paying taxes on both the building and the land, now paying $2,582 for an equal property. A flat parking lot with a shotgun shack or a dropbox in no way pulls its own weight as far as downtown goes. In fact, it is allowed to leach off of the rest of the properties around it that created the value for which people want to park there in the first place. So...

The value of Crabtree goes up with the arrival of Soleil and the neighboring Creek projects. The mall could probably rest on their laurels and just absorb the extra hit with their current business base. But why? The other projects are creating a critical mass of people from which the mall can enhance their own business. So, they want to extract more money (sales per square foot) from a finite property -- the obvious solution to this would be to verticalize parking, and improve whatever land is left over, thus the double decks in the back and the creekbed itself. Making the creek an integral part of the shopping experience would be a unique attraction, bolstering its position relative to Southpoint -- and certainly to TTC, North Hills, and the Cary malls. I am quite sure that in the process of cleaning up the creek and "greening" it in the process, Crabtree could also come by credits or funding from the city and/or state for improving environmental problems there. The city scratches its own back by supporting Crabtree in such an effort because an enhanced Crabtree will put back more sales tax and property tax revenue (and probably tourist dollars as well) into the city's coffers.

My argument about increased property values motivating certain types of densifying improvements hinges on this idea. True, the game at that location may become too expensive for some players, but as the value increases, bigger money will start taking a look there. No matter how high your land values go at Crabtree, downtown, or anywhere else, there is always a higher echelon of money ready to step in. If there weren't, there would never be any Rockefeller Centers because "oooh, it's too expensive!". Raleigh has to get out of that mindset. Price is elastic, and it always has been.

But the thing is that you have to excite people (and investors) with what you do to get that kind of money into play. And in the end, some stores in such a scenario may end up too upscale for some, but not all. Shopping centers are not, by and large, discriminatory. Anyone can go down to the creek, take their families, and enjoy the niceties that big money brings to town.

[sax184]

A city that properly oversees major projects? That's easy- go visit Chapel Hill, which just approved the Greenbridge project, in the sunlight of multiple public hearings, IN THE EVENING, over a couple of months. The best part of their approach? The developer makes a presentation to the Town Council, and at a subsequent meeting, after the initial presentation and questions from the Council, citizens can comment with all that information in their hands, prior to the vote.

People can complain about my lack of boosterism for this project, but the following is not in dispute. The Planning Board took a formal look and vote at Soleil/Glen-Tree on Oct 25, 2005, and the City Council approved it on Nov 1, 2005. That's 7 days.

Yes, the project was announced sooner, but I contend that the announcement is irrelevant from the community oversight perspective. Sure, it's enough time to mobilize anyone who is simply against a supertall building in the area, and doesn't want to delve into further details of community impacts.

However, I believe that a better-informed citizenry is much more likely to persuade a City Council to demand more of a developer before them. The announcement of a building is meant to be exciting. The details of the plan are where the community impacts lie. At the Planning Board meeting, the developer has all the details and knows them well, while the public is often being exposed to them for the first time. The public rarely knows immediately what the Comprehensive Plan says about the area where development is proposed, or the zoning for that location. The public may or may not have seen the Traffic Impact Analysis report. On top of this, even if stuff is available on the website, many times developers come in with late-breaking changes to materials that were put on the web. (I'm not knocking developers for this, projects are always evolving)

All this means that the true nature of the project, and the true point to understand its impacts, occurs no sooner than just after the developer has finished answering Planning Board questions about the site plan. From that point on, the public can respond without the developer saying, "you don't have the latest information."

For a concerned citizen who doesn't have their own tabbed copy of the Comp Plan and development ordinance that they regularly peruse, I think that 7 days is not enough time for even the most interested citizens who have day jobs and lives to check out the site plan, the TIA, etc, and then compare it to the Comp Plan and the ordinance and come in with detailed critiques or suggestions on how the site development could be improved.

With more time for review between what is REALLY being proposed to go to the Council, the playing field of site plan critique and site plan defense is much more level between the developer and the public. Otherwise the Council hears "well, it just doesn't belong in my neighborhood" versus "it is compatible with OI-2 and your current parking generation standards."

I don't know that I have ever used the word "corrupt" to describe development in Raleigh. I'll gladly say I'm wrong if someone finds the post where I did. I think the best description is a system that is technically, on all counts, within the letter of the law, and at the same time, very distant from the spirit of that law. Sure, anyone can come to a public meeting and comment! If you can get out of work to do so. Sure, the Planning Commission provides oversight! But it's mostly made up of developers.

My critiques of Soleil have always been twofold:

1. It is in conflict with the comp plan. Thomas Crowder, who most people on this board consider to be one of the most knowledgable Council members on planning issues, agrees with me. The approval of something like this weakens the comp plan, weakening good planning in Raleigh.

2. The process by which development gets approved is by accident or design (the latter I believe), one that limits the ability of citizens to participate in decisionmaking and maximizes the ability of those who profit from development to guide decisions. This also undercuts good planning in Raleigh.