Future of Six Forks/Wake Forest Intersection

[Transplant]

Too bad this area didn't remain run down for 4 more years. By then, it would be an ideal place for urban life.

Now? A costco. In the North Hills East I've been told a Home Depot can be worked into an urban setting. If true, a costco would be much easier.... but I suspect a strip mall.

[Jones_]

I spent some time looking a street connectivity in the area.....I have always wanted to connect Whitaker Mill with Crabtree Blvd, push Noble through to Six Forks and Run Creekside through to Noble and push Industrial north under the beltline (Industrial is not on the map but is west of the RR Tracks and parallel to Atlantic and WF Road) and south accross the creek to Hodges. Then with the streets connected in a more urban style, slap an urban overlay district onto the street grid and start getting rid of parking in front of businesses, get boom street signals put up, sidewalk every street, put up nice bus shelters, look at getting more bus routes to pass through this area of town, reopen the fire station in the same building or close by in a regional municipal building of some sort, amybe with a police station and DMV included in it too...etc., etc.

[Subway Scoundrel]

Too bad this area didn't remain run down for 4 more years. By then, it would be an ideal place for urban life.

Now? A costco. In the North Hills East I've been told a Home Depot can be worked into an urban setting. If true, a costco would be much easier.... but I suspect a strip mall.

I said this about a year ago. Look at the area of the old farmers market and around Peden Steel. It would be ashamed to go "Big Box" there but something tells me it could happen. All inside the beltline. To repeat myself, I would rather see this on yonkers road or over by the Iceplex just outside the beltline on Raleigh Blvd.

[ncwebguy]

MacThrift has two Capital Blvd. locations:

- the "showroom/office" in Harrispark, the old old Harris Wholesale across from (one) old Harris Wholesale that is now Lighthouse Storeage.

- the "clearance center" in the old Raleigh Bonded (the used bookwarehouse a few years ago)

I think this is Hatem doing something to collect rent in the area before it makes sense to link downtown to the Wake Forest/Atlantic midtown corridor.

The Raleigh Blvd/440/Brentwood area is a mix of underused warehouses, cheap hotels (along Appliance), and empty land with Beltline access. Is it zoned only for warehouse/manufacturing? There are a few showrooms mixed in (Aarons Rents Furniture) so could big boxes wanting to be inside the beltline go there?

The east side of Wake Forest from 440 to Creekside *could* be a nice mixed use addition to midtown, but it does not look like it will happen. Kane was looking at the area but was either spooked or concentrated on North Hills. West of Atlantic/north of 440 is industrial east of Bush Street and single family residential west of it. West of there, it becomes office as it approaches Wake Forest and the hospital. Plenty of land ripe for redevelpoment, but is detached from downtown and North Hills (for now). I'd rather see "infill" happen here instead of continued development on Capital north of 540/south of Wakefield.

[Transplant]

I said this about a year ago. Look at the area of the old farmers market and around Peden Steel. It would be ashamed to go "Big Box" there but something tells me it could happen. All inside the beltline. To repeat myself, I would rather see this on yonkers road or over by the Iceplex just outside the beltline on Raleigh Blvd.

Yea. I know the life of strip malls is relatively short. Hopefully this will be bulldozed when the TTA gets transit in that area. Its really a perfect opportunity lost for density.

[RaleighRob]

Personally, I think Costco needs to get some credit for choosing that site. They could have easily done like most "Big-box" stores would do for building their first Raleigh store: build out in the edge of town in the midst of suburbia far from the middle of town. Probably tearing down a forest in the process, no doubt.

Instead, they chose an abandoned Pepsi plant Inside-the-beltline, pretty close to downtown, to do what is essentially an infill project. I seriously doubt BJs, Sams Club or Walmart would have done the same! Costco has taken a chance on an area that has seen several retail establishments fail (ie, Lowes, Kmart, etc) and they deserve some credit for that. (Not to mention adding much-needed retail options inside-the-beltline!)

[dmccall]

I talked to an out of town developer who claims that a few years ago he had Costco slated to go into the bottom floor of an urban cluster development at Kidd's Hill. One thing led to another and he quit on the project.

[orulz]

Bringing this thread back from the dead.

In a couple other threads I saw mention of a multi-story, mixed use building at Six Forks and Atlantic. I looked into it, and found that the developer is Boylan Companies, and the project is called "Windsor Manor". It's the centerpiece of a master planned 24-acre development at the southeast corner of the intersection.

Read the May 5th N&O article on the developer's website here.

This is the only rendering I can find:

I wonder, could this be the first step towards the urbanization of this in-town neighborhood? Or will it wind up as an urban "styled" building, set back behind a parking lot like the somewhat disappointing Oberlin Village?

[orulz]

Found another article about the building:

Longer than RBC

Evidently the city was not too excited about a single building being 700 feet long.

[JeffC]

The Alcatel/Old ITT location has some serious environmental remediation issues, which is why so many developers have taken a sniff and ran as fast as they could away from that site...

[Eastwestrob]

Found another article about the building:

Longer than RBC

Evidently the city was not too excited about a single building being 700 feet long.

Thank you for the links Orulz. I have always thought that this would be a great area for the midtown start. Now lets see if the Developer comes back with a tower...or two. But not likely with quick changes back at planning so soon. With any luck, we will see this become the linear Midtown all the way to North Hills. Phase #2 Should be a few towers @ Sixforks/Wake Forest Rd. I give the city credit for not wanting a large footprint buildings.

[Jones_]

Lots of houseing near there which is great. I wonder if the planned punching of Six Forks to Captial is being considered here. Also there is alot of wetlands there with the proximity to Crabtree so I imagine this dictated the building footprint.

[Gard]

Bringing this thread back from the dead.

In a couple other threads I saw mention of a multi-story, mixed use building at Six Forks and Atlantic. I looked into it, and found that the developer is Boylan Companies, and the project is called "Windsor Manor". It's the centerpiece of a master planned 24-acre development at the southeast corner of the intersection.

Read the May 5th N&O article on the developer's website here.

This is the only rendering I can find:

I wonder, could this be the first step towards the urbanization of this in-town neighborhood? Or will it wind up as an urban "styled" building, set back behind a parking lot like the somewhat disappointing Oberlin Village?

Edit: Removed comment, answered my own question .

[orulz]

Lots of houseing near there which is great. I wonder if the planned punching of Six Forks to Captial is being considered here. Also there is alot of wetlands there with the proximity to Crabtree so I imagine this dictated the building footprint.

That definitely needs to happen. Hodges Street, the only existing ITB connection between Capital and Wake Forest, floods to the point of impassability quite often. The Raleigh Comprehensive Plan's Arterials and Thoroughfares element calls for a new alignment, basically right on top of Crabtree Creek. But Given how environmentally disastrous & expensive that would be, why not simply connect Six Forks into Yonkers Road?

The Windsor Manor parcel doesn't include any of the Six Forks Road connector that hasn't already built. So for now, the connection remains a line on a sheet of paper.

[RaleighRob]

The plan I've seen for the East Six Forks Road-Capital Blvd connection just barely misses the main bulk of the wetlands, crosses Crabtree Creek with a perpendicular bridge crossing, then comes out just between the old farmer's market grounds (Dept Corrections property now) and that little gas station, joins Hodges (where it currently makes that sharp turn), then widens Hodges up to the Capital intersection.

[plus2]

Moving beyond Six Forks/Wake Forest to the Hodges/Capital intersection up towards the beltline is another huge opportunity for Raleigh infill. There is the old farmer's market site, and I think a Limo dealership that takes up huge amounts of land. Eventually I hope this could be densified and urbanized.

[ChiefJoJo]

I'm kind of pissed that the Costco was approved just about 18-24 months ago in a prime location at the WF and SF intersection. It's nothing against Costco per se (they are better than Wal-Mart) but that location would have been ideal for something urban/mixed use... a smaller, more integrated version of North Hills.

The fact that we didn't get that shows the value of a well-thoughout comprehensive plan and proper zoning. I know the new comp plan is on the way (~18-24 mo), but we need it and some new zoning ASAP!

[RaleighRob]

^Chief, I pretty much agree. But on the other hand, many of us are actually glad that (A) Raleigh finally got a Costco and more importantly, (B) it was done as an infill, when they could have gone the easy way and just built some sprawling place on the edge of town. And we certainly didn't need that.

There's still areas there for an urban/mixed use development if someone wants to put it, across the street. The Alcatel site and those two old shopping centers on either side of it still have the potential for such a thing. We can hope, right?

Moving beyond Six Forks/Wake Forest to the Hodges/Capital intersection up towards the beltline is another huge opportunity for Raleigh infill. There is the old farmer's market site, and I think a Limo dealership that takes up huge amounts of land. Eventually I hope this could be densified and urbanized.

Amen. That old farmer's market site especially.

May be harder for the old car dealership, limo place. I heard a wealthy business man is already planning to put a Heliport there!

[JeffC]

The plan I've seen for the East Six Forks Road-Capital Blvd connection just barely misses the main bulk of the wetlands, crosses Crabtree Creek with a perpendicular bridge crossing, then comes out just between the old farmer's market grounds (Dept Corrections property now) and that little gas station, joins Hodges (where it currently makes that sharp turn), then widens Hodges up to the Capital intersection.

I predict this never gets built...the greenway advocacy community would come out in force against this...I've spent a lot of time on the Crabtree Creek greenway between Wake Forest Road and Capital...there are tons of wetlands and small feeder streams in there...between Fed. wetlands requirements and NC's Neuse buffer rules, the environmental permitting alone would take YEARS and hundreds of thousands of dollars...This one is going to go the way of the Duraleigh Connector...

[RaleighRob]

I predict this never gets built...the greenway advocacy community would come out in force against this...I've spent a lot of time on the Crabtree Creek greenway between Wake Forest Road and Capital...there are tons of wetlands and small feeder streams in there...between Fed. wetlands requirements and NC's Neuse buffer rules, the environmental permitting alone would take YEARS and hundreds of thousands of dollars...This one is going to go the way of the Duraleigh Connector...

I know nothing of advocacy groups, but I think money will certainly be a bigger problem than permitting. Like I said, the plan I saw would avoid all the major pockets of wetlands...some tiny small clumps (a tenth of an acre here or there) might be filled, but nothing more than gets permitted on a regular basis in this state for roads or subdivisions anyway. (And could probably be mitigated for.) And the plan calls for a bridge over Crabtree, but also goes over its riparian Buffer and floodplain too. So they can do it...but that'll be an expensive bridge to say the least. (Not to mention some expensive design work to do all this!) As far as I know, this wouldn't be a DOT project either...this whole thing is being proposed by the city. They're already dishing out some major bucks to extend Falls of Neuse over the Neuse into Wakefield, I don't see why they can't spend a similar amount ITB for once. But yeah...this will be years away to say the least.

[Jones_]

The nearby Six Forks/Atlantic intersection has a pretty big precast parking deck going up just east of Atlantic (on the Six Forks stub)...probably 6 stories or so. Does anyone have any idea what this is supporting? There was a project sign up but I did not have time to turn in and check it out. There is so much being crammed in this corner...I wonder what effect it has on plans for pushing Six Forks through to Capital, if there still are such plans.

[orulz]

This could be part of the ~300 unit mid-rise apartment complex development that is/was in the works called "Windsor Manor" by the Bolyan Companies on that corner. I First read about this one quite some time ago, might have even posted about it in this thread. Supposedly it will be mixed-use and will pursue some sort of LEED certification. Here is a partial rendering:

Here is the site plan which I can't quite make sense of, and here is the website.

I haven't seen a site plan, so I don't know if they will bring it up to the sidewalk, or put it behind a parking lot. At any rate, I Didn't think they were anywhere near ready to start construction. So it could be something else, an office building perhaps.

[Jones_]

You got it Orulz. It is not exactly pulled up to the street, but is with a suburban setback. Its actually being oriented with the future Six Forks alignment, which is shown with a 90' wide easement in place already.

[orulz]

I think I figured out the site plan. The part south of Six Forks (labeled as Tract A on the site plan) is almost entirely flood plain and wetlands, and therefore pretty much undevelopable. The developer probably bought that land with no intention of developing it; instead they're doing a PDD and taking the density from the undevelopable lots and transferring it to the portion of the lot that's not in the flood plain. If this project seems a little dense for the neighborhood this is the how and the why.

Seems like the building's setback from Six Forks varies from about 20 to 80 feet. Hopefully, since they're building a parking deck, they won't put a parking lot out front, but I doubt that will be the case; this will probably end up looking about like Oberlin Court.

I also notice that the site plan talks of a 4-story building while the rendering shows five. Wonder what it will look like.

[orulz]

Well, Windsor Manor (now known as Manor Six Forks) has a web site up. All in all, it's not too bad. Pretty similar to Oberlin Court. OC was disappointing for its location, but this is definitely a step in the right direction for Atlantic Avenue.

They're trying very hard to brand this as a "green" development. Guess they're close to the "Green"way, which is a definite plus for residents, but I'm not sure if there's any substance other than that behind the branding.

The building itself is getting closer to finished - Looks decent. Kind of hard to picture how it will look in context since the Six Forks extension hasn't been built yet and won't be built for perhaps another 10-20 years. But when it does, hopefully other development in the neighborhood will follow suit, though maybe that's unlikely given the floodplain issues.