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East 54


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  • 4 weeks later...

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No pictures (hard to driving by at 45mph), but... I was over in Chapel Hill tonight and noticed they are grading the site. Glad to see this one moving along. It's got a great location not far from campus on TTA and CHT lines, near Meadowmont, and on the (not too distant?) future LRT or BRT transit line.

EDIT: forgot I DID snap one at 45mph. :D

2449781520098570895S600x600Q85.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

Phase 1 building pads will be ready by mid march for foundation work to begin and steel and concrete erection will be underway by May/June. Phase 1 is sold out and Phase 2 buildings under design and will hit the market in June. First three buildings will deliver in June 09 and the hotel will be a W aloft and will open with Phase 1.

This Development aims to be LEED-ND gold and all buildings are targeting LEED-NC Silver. That would mean 6 LEED -NC Silver buildings located withing a LEED-ND Gold project. This project when all is said and done will be one of the greenest privately funded developments constructed in the world to date. They have obviously not done a very good job of advertising this.

Construction cam now up on website

www.east54.com

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Perhaps they haven't done a good job promoting the fact that this will be a LEED development. When I was living in Chapel Hill last year, I noticed that there was a lot of "buzz" around town about this project (more so than, say Greenbridge) though nothing about its LEED certification. But that would explain why the first phase is sold out already.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 4 months later...

East 54 is one of only a two projects in NC that has received the new LEED-ND certification, which weaves together principles of green building, smart growth and new urbanism. It's a much more holistic approach than LEED, which completely ignores context altogether. East 54 gets points for being fairly close to town and along the future rapid transit corridor betwen Durham and Chapel Hill.

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It will be a long time before I understand how plopping down a mid-rise mixed purpose development on the side of a divided highway on the edge of town is considered "smart growth". It is a long, loooong walk to the university and biking anywhere near that highway is extremely dangerous. My bet is that 25 years down the road this small development remains an isolated, discrete entity.

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(Free) buses headed for campus are scheduled to run by there about every 6 minutes at peak hours, and every 15 or 20 off peak, so that probably counts for something, but I agree, it will take quite a bit of work for this development to really feel integrated with the rest of town, or with anything for that matter. I guess some sort of redevelopment at Glen Lennox is likely, and Glenwood Square shopping center (Former HT, now Fresh Market) might be redeveloped in the distant future, but that's really just about it. Down the street, Meadowmont's town center is off there doing its own thing, not integrated with anything. Friday Center and the Meadowmont office buildings are the very definition of suburban sprawl, and are not likely to be redeveloped any time soon. Even if Glen Lennox and Glenwood Square are redevloped, this will still seem a bit like an isolated enclave.

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(Free) buses headed for campus are scheduled to run by there about every 6 minutes at peak hours, and every 15 or 20 off peak, so that probably counts for something, but I agree, it will take quite a bit of work for this development to really feel integrated with the rest of town, or with anything for that matter. I guess some sort of redevelopment at Glen Lennox is likely, and Glenwood Square shopping center (Former HT, now Fresh Market) might be redeveloped in the distant future, but that's really just about it. Down the street, Meadowmont's town center is off there doing its own thing, not integrated with anything. Friday Center and the Meadowmont office buildings are the very definition of suburban sprawl, and are not likely to be redeveloped any time soon. Even if Glen Lennox and Glenwood Square are redevloped, this will still seem a bit like an isolated enclave.

Too bad pedestrian improvements like a walkway over Fordham didn't make it into the discussion.

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Too bad pedestrian improvements like a walkway over Fordham didn't make it into the discussion.

Agreed, the interchange of 54 and 15-501 make it terrible to cross on foot or on a bike. All in all it's an outmoded design. It's on DCHC's long term plans for reconstruction. Looks like they want to build it sometime between 2017-2025, but who knows how much those dates mean.

Hopefully whatever redesign they do will abandon the cramped cloverleaf design and incorporate some real pedestrian accomodations, like tunnels under Fordham or something. Living at Glen Lennox a couple years back, I thought that a tunnel under Fordham from the end of Prestwick (near Glenwood Elementary) would be nice. Link it up to a greenway trail that goes up the hill parallel to Raleigh Rd, through the old golf course (UNC's Outdoor Education Center.)

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It's not in a perfect location, but how many places could you build a fairly sizable (ie, not one block) mixed-use development in Chapel Hill--or more importantly, get it approved? (Maybe a North Hills-style redux of University Mall one day.) Again, it's an infill project near a future (2020?) rapid transit corridor, has frequent and free bus service now, which is part of the whole context argument. When you put it all together, is it in a perfect location? No, but the NC 54 area already has Meadowmont (which is sort of new urbanist, but not great IMO) and with East 54, has a chance to accomodate some urban growth over the next decade. Like I said with the Glen Lennox proposal across the street, if you can't build density in a corridor with very frequent free bus service ~2 miles from town near a future LRT line, then where can you build it?

The good ole general assembly of NC was nice enough (thanks to a nudge from the development lobby) to limit local govt's ability to assess direct impact fees for off-site improvements, so given that Fordham is probably a 1/4 mile from East 54, they probably were not able to force that issue by code. The town can assess impact fees and bank them to construct something later, though.

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assembling new urban "pods" along transit corridors is an interesting concept. Not totally unlike US one heading south out of DC. Its all strip shopping centers and typical subdivisions there actually but there are nice sidewalks on both sides and frequent bus service, so from what I saw there it made bad initial buildout somewhat better. Chapel Hill, with some mixed use sites, has better potential still to soften what was once clearly an unsustainable plan as the intersection was designed back in the day.

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  • 10 months later...

This thread hasn't been updated in a long time. Three buildings of this complex are complete (or nearly so) and two more (retail/residential and the Aloft Hotel) are coming along.

Wow, what a change for that corner. Actually, all of the retail spaces do have entrances and windows facing NC 54, with awnings going up over them, but it remains to be seen if they will actually be used as entrances, or if they are simply for show, and will be locked and treated as emergency exits. The buildings seems to be set back perhaps 20' or so, and on a slightly different grade, so I'm not really getting my hopes up - this will probably be, primarily, an inwardly-focused development.

BTW it looks like they're stealing some retail tenants from Glenwood Square, including the Rite Aid and the dry cleaners.

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If you haven't, check out the fly-thru video. I think it's going to be a more dense and compact version of Meadowmont. Eventually, as they did with that new urbanist project, , Chapel Hill residents will realize the world did not end when density was introduced, and begin to appreciate it.

I don't really mind if East 54 does face inward. Would you really want to sit outside sipping on a latte or eating a meal facing 54 traffic? I wouldn't. It's the same situation with North Hills & Six Forks Rd. Those roadways simply do not provide a good environment for urbanism to flourish in my view, so the two developments are more insular as a response, and I have no problem with it.

It does bring up a good point about how we design our streets. If we all acknowledge that infill is coming in a big way, and we would like to provide the best environment for urbanism to flourish, shouldn't we design our streets in a balanced way... more for people than for cars? This means slower speeds, narrower width, bike lanes, highly connected, etc.

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I was thinking about this.

NC54 has a speed limit of 35 there. There's a pretty wide gap between the development and the curb. Plus, the outdoor dining at Bin 54 right across the street faces 54, although it is behind a single-lane access road. NC54 is a 6-lane road, but there's outdoor dining in other places (say, Cookout on Western Blvd) facing 6 lane roads and it works there.

The worst thing I can think of as far as outdoor dining facing NC54 would be all the tire noise due to the rough pavement. If they would just resurface 54 from Country Club to 15/501 it would be much better.

Nonetheless, I'm not even arguing that outdoor dining should necessarily be facing the road. I'm just saying that I hope the stores keep the street-facing entrances unlocked, so that folks walking or getting on/off the bus don't have to take the extra 200 yard detour.

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Its tough. Development in the last few decades is set back or turned away from major road precisely because people don't really like cars and roads all that much....at least not enough to be kissing distance from them when eating or walking into a store. If presented correctly, proper urban developments including road design, can be presented using the same leverage.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The retail facing Hwy 54 is intended to have operable entrances on both sides. The endcap space at the entrance where you see the two blue awnings is likely to be an italian concept with a great bar, that will have outdoor seating on the 54 side as well as the corner facing in. The goal is to create some good energy at the front door of the delveopment. The huge block of space along the rest of this portion of the building will be Kerr Drug (not Rite Aid), who is moving from University Mall and should be open within the next 3 weeks. The office lobby is next and is a plac where people can cut through from the sidewalk bike/path into the heart of the development. Charles Schwab will be to the right of this lobby and will have accees from the interior plaza and the lobby, but not the 54. The next run of spaces will be a mix of womens boutiques, a nail salon, dry cleaners, etc..who are all encouraged but not required to have operable entrances along 54.

They will all have signage and window dressing at a minimum. It is difficult for retailers of smaller spaces to have double loaded entry with no "back of house", especially when it is a tough sell that any significant use will really occur at the 54 entrances. The large endcap space by the Aloft Hotel is setting up to be a seafood restaurant and raw bar. It will have a huge outdoor dining area on the plaza side and the intention is to get some on the 54 side but the grade makes it difficult there. Many of these retailers should be open in the next 60 days.

The retail interest and activity is currently the strongest component of the project and should be fully leased out very soon. 69 of the 76 condos in phase 1 are under contract and closings began earlier this month. 90% of these homes should be closed within the next 45 days.

The building with retail along Prestwick will have a Saffron Indian Restaurant with a huge outdoor seating area under the bridge connector you see driving by. This should be visible from 54 and promote activity as well and will be opening in November.

The Aloft is slated to open in April, and the final retail/condo building underway now will be complete in June.

There is one final 4 story residential pad on the opposite front entry corner that will complete the project. A timeline for it is not finalized at this time.

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