Hillsborough Street - NCSU Area developments

[Jones_]

Cross posted to Glenwood South...

[Jones_]

Link...? Are these the ones sort of at the Glenwood/Hillsborough intersection?

[bj-26]

I think the TBJ had an article about the two buildings going at 301 Hillsborough, one residential the other office, but you have to be a subscriber to read it.

[Jones_]

The 7 story apartment building going in beside the bowling alley has been stalled on the second floor for a good two months now....anybody have any insight as to why?

[orulz]

On 12/30/2015 at 1:59 PM, Jones_ said:

The 7 story apartment building going in beside the bowling alley has been stalled on the second floor for a good two months now....anybody have any insight as to why?

From user punk1 on The Wolf Web:

Litigation over scheduling between developer and builder, costing both shitloads of money. Neither side wants to blink first, so they both lose.

Speculating beyond that, I would guess that the builder wouldn't be able to get it done within the schedule that the developer wanted (be it August 2016 or maybe January 2017) so the developer sued to recover lost revenue from being unable to rent for the beginning of the school year. The builder probably is contending that it's due to matters beyond their control and they are not liable. Or something.

[Jones_]

Watching it start up, they looked to have a some problems getting the foundation in. The hole was very wet, and the soil not very stable. I wonder who the architect/engineer was and if they were able to do sufficient subsurface evaluation prior to setting a schedule. Some contractors love to hack apart specs that miss things, and then make a bunch of money off of change orders and/or claims right at the end of the project. Alternately, the developer might have brought up the whole schedule thing later on, or just straight up got his fiscal needs and construction completion timetable in his contract all out of whack. I deal with this stuff all day every day and would love to know what went wrong or see the paperwork on it...

[Green_man]

There's a 4-story concrete block tower built at 2304 Hillsborough for the new apartment building.  Elevator shaft or stairs?

And planning commission recommended approval (unanimously!!) for tearing down the North Carolina Equipment Company (built in 1936) with the tractor sign on the roof for more student apartments on the way.  (3101 Hillsborough)  Supposedly the tractor sign will be incorporated into the new development.  But loss of this building hurts big time.  Building is in great shape, was fairly recently renovated, and provided some visual diversity to the streetscape.

 

 

[Jones_]

16 minutes ago, Green_man said:

There's a 4-story concrete block tower built at 2304 Hillsborough for the new apartment building.  Elevator shaft or stairs?

And planning commission recommended approval (unanimously!!) for tearing down the North Carolina Equipment Company (built in 1936) with the tractor sign on the roof for more student apartments on the way.  (3101 Hillsborough)  Supposedly the tractor sign will be incorporated into the new development.  But loss of this building hurts big time.  Building is in great shape, was fairly recently renovated, and provided some visual diversity to the streetscape.

 

 

Most likely stairs. Elevator core would likely be poured concrete but could also be steel frame. 

Man, losing the NC Equipment Company is a huge blow. Its one of our coolest warehouse style buildings in a city that lacks cool warehouse buildings. It's also probably a historic anomaly in that a business was expanding its space smack in the middle of the Great Depression. I believe the planning commission to be utterly useless already, and this just further cements that opinion. I have this feeling the City was pushing this somehow so that the ROW needed for the next Hillsborough St redo would be available...the timing sure is perfect and all...

[orulz]

Baptist Student Union building bought by developer of 105 Friendly.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article62183422.html

Yes. YES. YES!!!!! This has always been my #1 target for redevelopment on Hillsborough. Not because I have anything against baptists, which I don't, but because it's probably the ugliest/worst building in the entire city.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, let me remind you:

[Jones_]

The 105 Building is actually pretty decent too. Hoping they make this a good looking corner here as well. Do you know when the bsc was built? It seems to be the apex of a whole generation of lost architecture, in that, no actual architecture was performed in like the 70's and 80's. 

[orulz]

Yeah here's hoping for a nice four story New City Design building or something similar to 105 Friendly.

[Justin6882]

HAHAHA I just saw this on TBJ and rushed here to post it. I knew Orulz would be THRILLED that this thing will be coming down. Happy days indeed!

[orulz]

The article mentions they have other lots in the 2000 (Pullen Road) to 3000 (Dixie Trail) blocks under contract as well which is good to know. Hopefully they're focusing on the utter crap, of which there is plenty, rather than the serviceable retail buildings in the 2300-2500 blocks. The fact that they picked the Baptist Student Union first gives me cause for hope. That one is a worse offender than the parking lots and used car lots.

[orulz]

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article67508697.html

FMW / Jim Zanoni now owns all the property along the north side of Hillsborough between Montgomery and Furches. This was the site of a previously proposed but abandoned 5 story development. We have known for a while that FMW is involved here but I guess this makes it official. FMW plans to sit on the property for a year before doing anything. Yeah, not really newsworthy, but hey.

[orulz]

Baptist student center has already had it's decorative concrete blocks facing Hillsborough removed making that side of the building transparent. Makes a big difference. I wonder if they could close off the parking area underneath?

[ctl]

Baptist Student Center was built in 1964. http://d.lib.ncsu.edu/ocr/technician-v49n33-1964-12-04/technician-v49n33-1964-12-04.pdf . Designed by F. Carter Williams, http://www.ncmodernist.org/williams.htm . According to Wake County records, the Baptist State Convention had purchased the property in 1953. That type of facade was fairly common back then. 

Edited April 13, 2016 by ctl

[ctl]

Followup... more on concrete screen block http://www.moderndesign.org/2011/01/mid-century-decorative-concrete-screen.html 

[orulz]

Ok if preservationists start talking about how this monstrosity needs to be preserved, they will lose ABSOLUTELY all credibility with me. This was one of the ugliest buildings with the worst site plans I have ever seen in my entire life.

I don't care if this is highly representative of the architecture of the era, significant, by a renowned architect, whatever.

This building SUCKS. It is a commercial dingbat, poorly conceived, poorly sited, and actively hostile towards perhaps the main pedestrian corridor in the entire city. It happens to have a few Mid-Century Modern flourishes but again, I don't care. Now they are fixing some of its aesthetic problems, making it a bit nicer, which is fine for now, but really nothing can fix it long-term except a wrecking ball.

There are lots of examples of mid-century architecture in Raleigh that should be (or should have been) preserved.

My opinion is, MOST emphatically: THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

[ctl]

Don't sugar-coat it, Orulz, tell us how you really feel!

I'm not proposing a campaign to preserve this building, and I'm not aware that anyone has, and I don't expect that anyone will. So rest easy.

[Jones_]

23 hours ago, orulz said:

Ok if preservationists start talking about how this monstrosity needs to be preserved, they will lose ABSOLUTELY all credibility with me. This was one of the ugliest buildings with the worst site plans I have ever seen in my entire life.

I don't care if this is highly representative of the architecture of the era, significant, by a renowned architect, whatever.

This building SUCKS. It is a commercial dingbat, poorly conceived, poorly sited, and actively hostile towards perhaps the main pedestrian corridor in the entire city. It happens to have a few Mid-Century Modern flourishes but again, I don't care. Now they are fixing some of its aesthetic problems, making it a bit nicer, which is fine for now, but really nothing can fix it long-term except a wrecking ball.

There are lots of examples of mid-century architecture in Raleigh that should be (or should have been) preserved.

My opinion is, MOST emphatically: THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

I mostly have to like the urban aspects of a modernist building before I get attached to the building itself as well. Garland Jones had the good street presence for instance. One thing I never lose sight of, is that modernist buildings almost always can be built with today's materials, using today's techniques for the same relative cost. So I don't care about losing a modernist building itself very often, but if it was well situated and a good addition to a neighborhood or commercial corridor, then I like any building, modernist or whatever, to stay. I care little for the one out on Glenwood for instance (I forget the architect...Milton Small maybe?)...suburban in orientation, and far removed from the rest of town when it was built. And concrete screening blocks are still being mass produced today...and patina on those just means they're more likely to fall down, there isn't any character gained from old ones. Mostly they represent white flight style living to me...screen out the unsightly inner city neighborhoods from your new modern office! Good riddance to their use and to the Baptist Student Union. 

[ctl]

10% of modernist buildings are stellar (Dorton Arena, the now-gone Catalano House), 10% are rubbish (the NCSU Baptist Center?), and 80% are average. I think almost everyone agrees that stellar examples should be preserved where feasible and that rubbish examples deserve to die. Where the arguments generally erupt is the 80% such as the recently demo'd 3515 Glenwood.

I don't know that I buy into the comment from Jones_ about white flight; one of the classic examples of concrete screen block is the Leiahua apartment building in Honolulu, and there are other examples in cities where racism was not a factor. But yes, blocking out the streets (whether for privacy or for avoidance of perceived unpleasantness or danger outside) was important to some people, and it became even more prominent in the Brutalist style which got a convenient push from the 1970s energy crisis. 

[Jones_]

Whelp the time periods involved with modernist architecture's emergence, and the peak of white flight are indisputably largely overlapping. Obviously there is no causation but the time periods involved then require that modernist buildings almost always either a) contributed to "urban renewal" by removing older structures or b) landed in the farthest reaches of city accessible by highway or at a minimum needing a vehicle, and rarely c) were part of the smart growth of an urban core. Take, Cameron Village...it *looks* like it was a smart outgrowth of downtown, but it contributed heavily to the flight of downtown, and kicked off the displacement of the freedman Oberlin community....notwithstanding that most of the modernist aspects of it have long since been overwritten with facade updates and demos. So having said all of that, when I see those little block screens, I tend to also associate those with the grand whole, where modernism and white flight are inextricably linked. 

[Green_man]

3101 Hillsborough St (NC Equipment Company bldg):  Well the rezoning for the site was denied by the City Council.  However, the developer is moving forward with plans that meet the current zoning.  "The Standard", 3 story, 217 unit student apartment building with 440 space parking garage.    And looks like the 2-story warehouse is still being demo'd.  Big loss.  Building is in perfect condition and a responsible developer would have incorporated the building into their plans for the site.  Attached proposed site plan and site plan with the front part of the existing warehouse overlaid.

Much of the media about this project has focused on saving the tractor sign, but in my opinion the existing building is just about as important as saving the sign.  FYI, the developer continued to say the sign would be incorporated into the project, but I couldn't find a mention of it on the site plan application.

 

[DPK]

I really don't understand why the existing building is being demo-ed.  It's perfectly fine and in great shape.  It blows my mind.

I also have little faith anything good will happen with that awesome tractor sign.  They'll probably botch it up and then claim it wasn't salvageable.

[Jones_]

Student rents and resulting REIT dump-offs must be extremely high for this to be economical. We're not talking about removing a vacant eyesore....Lulu sunk some money into this thing and also has to relocate. They paid 3.5M for the unrenovated building in 2007 and moved in in 2009 iirc. 

And since this is the Hillsborough St thread, I'll just say I am really extra mad, because FMW isn't just going to demolish the frat house by Gorman and Hillsborough, they are taking all three of those old brick houses. We will then be reduced to two original Hillsborough St single family residential structures between Gorman and Oberlin, both beside Readers Corner.....Hillsborough St was a good street just the way it was...

Anything ever happens to Cup a Joe, and I am gone. Leaving. Out of this place.