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Oberlin Court Phase II


jlblaes

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^ I think many if not most of the retail required parking spaces are still behind the building. The setback was required by the City, which was responding to neighborhood conerns. Not in an urban setting? Maybe, maybe not, depends on who you ask. Either way, getting to the form you want should be the goal, not cowtoeing to whatever exists somewhere already. The fact that there is not much pedestrian traffic now is more of an indication of how retail is lacking there currently...yeah sure, Americans and their cars...people will probably still drive mostly no matter what goes in, but if you want to encourage pedestrian traffic then you have design for them first, not second. But I do agree....its not bad and did turn out better than I expected

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Agreed with Jones133 - I would have preferred it if all the retail parking had gone below or behind the shops. It did turn out quite a bit better than I had anticipated, though I would have preferred a 4-6 story building with Coker's site plan better.

Even if there's not a lot of pedestrian traffic around there right now, there's a lot of office space along Oberlin in that area that's getting old enough to be obsolete... if some more redevelopments along the lines of Oberlin Village come up then we might have the makings of a district.

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To me this has been one of the pleasant surprises in recent development. I would love to see more of this type of development elsewhere (a couple of more stories would be nice though).

I also see a lot of potential redevelopment along Oberlin Rd, especially near Cameron Village. One building in particular that stands out is the sprawling, low-rise office building with surface parking next to the Greek-styled bank (First Citizens?) near the Harris Teeter. Seeing how Cameron Village lacks the dense residential and office component, ideally the areas around it would make up for that.

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The Oberlin corridor from Wade to Cameron Village and eventually the Hillsborough Street roundabout *could* be a compact, somewhat urban core. But it won't be if new developments follow the example set here by Oberlin Court II, which in turn is a modern twist to the aboration that is the Cameron Village post office/parking lot.

There will be a fair amout of foot traffic from Oberlin Court I, and there could be more if a pedestrian connection was made to the Cameron Village condos/townhouses a block west of Oberlin. And as other people have said, there are several other parcels on Oberlin ripe for multi-family or mix-use redevlopment.

I think there was some (unfounded) neighborhood fear that Cameron Village would end up like Hillsborough Street near NC State or the South Hills mall area in Cary if any other new retail was added nearby. Or there might be too much traffic on "their" Oberlin, since the few other north-south connections from Hillsborough to Wade are through established neighborhoods. They want the connectivity of a loose-knit grid, but don't want any additional traffic.

It is odd that only Rita's Water ice has been announced so far. It is interesting that Rita's (new to the area, sign of northern transplants) is in Oberlin Court, Baskin Robbins (old school, kid friendly, corporate) is in Cameron Village and Locopops (local, edgy as far as popsicle stands go) is on Hillsborough Street.

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My initial disappointment in the project was solely due to the setback/store front parking. Echoing Jones' comment, these are buildings that will hopefully be around for a generation or more, so it would be more appropriate for us to take the attitude of 'let's get it right the first time' instead of 'well, there's not much over there now, so let's just make it auto-friendly, since no one will ever walk to the stores'. I see things how they should or could be, not how they are, and I think that should be our city's modus operandi.

IMO the scale is fine for that site (Coker was clearly too big), but we just really need a massive influx of urban form in this city--lord knows we have enough strip malls! As more urban projects are built outside the city center, we can begin to enjoy the benefits of downtown elsewhere and rebuild the city block by block... pedestrian emphasis/scale, convenient transit access, street grid, mixing of uses, more efficient use of land, etc. We've got to change the way we look at density and urban form around here (outside of downtown!), because the way I look at it, every time we let a project slide, that's another opportunity missed to help create the type of built environment we want. I am cautiously optimistic that the comp plan will assist in this process.

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I have had the opportunity to visit many big cities across the country and world, and I have noticed that there are buildings such as this project that exist in these cities as well (outside the central business district or downtown). Not every building has to be right on the sidewalk, and just because this is built this way, doesn't mean that every future development will be a carbon copy of this. Even if 10 of these projects were built in a row, I don't think pedestrians would have a difficult time walking from one to the other (well I guess they'd have to because of the subsequent traffic on Oberlin but thats a different story).

This isn't 4 acres of surface parking between the shops and the sidewalk, only about 60 feet. The way the project has turned out, the pedestrian experience is greatly emphasized, making it almost seem like street parking (Post Office in Five Points).

Developments cannot succeed planning for conditions 50 years down the road. Raleighites drive now, so give them easy access parking now. Maybe in 20 years when neighboring lots are developed, everyone rides the bus, so maybe they'll build a covered bus stop instead.

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I suspect that this small parking lot will only fulfill some of the demand for retail parking in this development. Some retail customers will be have to park in the deck anyway. Yet, this development subscribes to the mantra of "Show Them The Parking." By having a parking lot in front, even if it's full most of the time, the development will be perceived as more "convenient" than if it only has parking behind and on the street. In actuality, having a small parking lot in front has a pretty minimal impact on the actual convenience of the shopping center, but it's the perception that matters.

It's this perception that we NEED to erase if we're to get (as ChiefJoJo mentions) the kind of development that we want to see. I'm not advocating eliminating parking in these developments. I'm advocating eliminating parking between the building and the street. Put the parking behind, below, above... anywhere but out in front so that we don't keep perpetuating this mindset. You can easily design a development that pushes the building up to the sidewalk and puts the parking in back, but makes absolutely no sacrifices from a convenience standpoint for drivers. The developers of Oberlin Court just chose not to do this, because the perception that "parking in front = convenient" is so strong and so ingrained in the American mind. Everybody's familiar with strip malls, and thinks of them as convenient, and with parking out in front this looks somewhat like a strip mall, so therefore it must be convenient. Fewer people are familiar with the paradigm of development that requires you to park in back, so it's more of an unknown, which therefore makes it percieved as inconvenient.

If we don't make a stand on this, then we'll never erase the perception that parking in front is required for a development to be convenient.

There are a couple similar developments on Erwin Road and West Main Street in Durham that do the same thing with a small amount of parking out in front that doesn't fill a

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You know that anything you try to do along Oberlin Rd from Wade to Cameron Village will be met with stiff criticism that you are destroying the "character" of the long-standing neighborhood. In reality, this road should have been a 4-lane Western Blvd/Glenwood connector from the start.

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I lived here before moving to Charlotte several months ago. I became good frineds with some of the Crosland people and like to ask about the trials and tribulations of development.

Unrealted, and I am not sure this is relevant to this thread. But Crosland's project in Cary at the Shops at Arboretum looks really pretty cool. They showed me some pictures and I was impressed.

Curious to hear how far along it is now.

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You know that anything you try to do along Oberlin Rd from Wade to Cameron Village will be met with stiff criticism that you are destroying the "character" of the long-standing neighborhood. In reality, this road should have been a 4-lane Western Blvd/Glenwood connector from the start.
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Oberlin has been the common thread in many a Raleigh controversy over the years. Just from my memory/knowledge... the Ferndell Connector would have cut right thru Russ stephenson's home off Oberlin near the Players Retreat and tied in with Pullen Rd to form a long roadway all the way to Western Blvd and possibly beyond. That was nixed, and now the Pullen roundabouts will impose a more context-sensitive design connecting the neighborhood with NCSU. I could never forget the infamous "No Hotel" signs along Oberlin and all through Country Club Hills (early 90s?) that sought to block a hotel from going in across from Oberlin/Glenwood next to the golf course--I think those crappy apartments/offices are still over there. Then, of course, there was the legendary "Coker Towers," which Oberlin Court replaces. Coker would have built somewhere near 1.2M sf of space on the Oberlin court site... a rediculous proposition considering the roads nearby. Coker did very well with 510 Glenwood, helping steer the revitalization/creation of Glenwood South, but "Towers" was a poorly conceived project by nearly every measure.

The 4-laning and conversion of Oberlin to a thoroughfare will NEVER happen in a million years considering the folks who live just up the road from Wade. Even south of Wade is a sensitive historically significant area, home to the original namesake of the road, the Village of Oberlin. Many of the decendents of the original settlement of freed slaves still live there. It's too bad the Latta House burned down last year. So, yes, the era of widening city streets in inner ring neighborhoods like Oberlin is probably over... and for good reason. It just doesn't make sense.

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Drove by last night and they have started to turn the outdoor street lamp and exterior lighting on when it's dark. The structure looks pretty damn good. Chalk this up as a good project that will hopefully spur more development nearby in my book.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Oberlin would never have gone to four lanes from Glenwood to Wade. Several houses have large front yards that could have accomdated the *space* for four lanes, the property owners would never have allowed higher traffic volumes on "their" road. As a result, there is no good Glenwood to West Raleigh connector other than the beltline and Blue Ridge/Duraleigh. There are roads like Ridge to Wade to Faircloth/Gorman and Glenwood itself crosses Hillsborough in/near downtown, but there is no good "collector" street. The Hillsborough Street roundabout will help some, but it won't be the fix-all the neighborhood thinks it is.

The parking lot buffers in Cameron Village and adjoining office builidings appear to be build for the "inevitable" four/five lanes of Oberlin, but that never came. Now with the "pinching" created by Oberlin Court II, its parking, and the church across the street, there won't be more than a lane in each direction plus turn lane.

With all the neighborhood oppostion to this project, combined with the time it will take the market to absorb the apartments and retail space (and Interact's acquisition of the old YWCA space), there won't be any development nearby for years. There was a poster for Rita's Water Ice up, but little other signs of life than the afore mentioned cleaners sign.

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As a result, there is no good Glenwood to West Raleigh connector other than the beltline and Blue Ridge/Duraleigh. There are roads like Ridge to Wade to Faircloth/Gorman and Glenwood itself crosses Hillsborough in/near downtown, but there is no good "collector" street.
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Yeah, Dixie itself used to be four lanes from Wade to Lake Boone. When I didn't have a car and no desire to study, I used to bike from State to Crabtree via Dixie/Lake Boone/Ridge Road/Glen Eden/Blue Ridge/Homewood Banks. The neighborhood shopping center with Crowley's might have been wishful thinking to make Dixie into a connector, and Lake Boone as a connector from Blue Ridge/Rex to Glenwood near Oberlin. But like the neighborhood straddling Oberlin north of Wade, those roads became residents-only.

Glen Eden makes it from Glenwood to Edwards Mill as a parallel to Lake Boone, but the google map isn't much in the way of north/south connectivity other than Ridge, Dixie, Oberlin, and Glenwood/St. Marys/Lassiter Mill in the northwest quadrant of inside the beltline.

There is no retail *corridor* other than Hillsborough Street and that was left to rot. Cameron Village, Ridgewood, Glenwood Village and Five Points were the only places to buy just about anything without venturing outside the beltline.

While the two big just outside the beltline shopping centers -- Crabtree and North Hills -- kept up with the times (good and bad) over the decades, Oberlin in particular just feels like it gets a new coat of paint and some furniture moved around once in a while. Coker's vision for Oberlin Court would have spurred development nearby, and that is why the neighborhood fought it tooth and nail. The resulting plan is a shell of that plan, which suits the neighbors just fine. The mid-rise office proposal could lead to that changing, but I see it meeting death by NIMBY, as Chief JoJo's earlier post alluded to. They are ok with rennovations of existsing structures but don't dare bulid anything new, since that'll bring *shock/gasp* development and density. They fought hard for a suburban way of life close to the city center, and the resulting devlopment pattern led to the Raleigh we have today, for better and worse.

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While the two big just outside the beltline shopping centers -- Crabtree and North Hills -- kept up with the times (good and bad) over the decades, Oberlin in particular just feels like it gets a new coat of paint and some furniture moved around once in a while. Coker's vision for Oberlin Court would have spurred development nearby, and that is why the neighborhood fought it tooth and nail. The resulting plan is a shell of that plan, which suits the neighbors just fine. The mid-rise office proposal could lead to that changing, but I see it meeting death by NIMBY, as Chief JoJo's earlier post alluded to. They are ok with rennovations of existsing structures but don't dare bulid anything new, since that'll bring *shock/gasp* development and density. They fought hard for a suburban way of life close to the city center, and the resulting devlopment pattern led to the Raleigh we have today, for better and worse.
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  • 2 weeks later...
I live in a house over at Five Points and commute down Fairview, Oberlin, and Hillsborough every day to get to State for classes/work. Every day when I get stuck behind some old person (IT ALWAYS HAPPENS, EVERY DAY, I DON'T KNOW HOW) who thinks it's perfectly fine to go 25 all the way down Oberlin with traffic backed up behind them when the posted speed is like 35-40.

These people sooner/later are going to have to realize that urban is going to push its way in and "living the slow/easy life" won't work in parts of the inner beltline.

Sorry, I had to let that out. I have to deal with it every day.

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Well aside from the verbal attack on me there, that still doesn't excuse the fact that certain people drive 25mph on a 35mph road. I was just venting my frustrations that day for whatever reason and before you assume that just because I drive a car I am anti-urban, I don't just travel to school. I often have to run errands and work which puts me outside the limitations a bike would give me. I also recently had surgery due to a series of collapsed lung incidents so how about we just don't go there, k?

Let's just move on. :)

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