Hillsborough Street - NCSU Area developments

[ChiefJoJo]

The city council voted to postpone a decision on funding Hillsborough St probably until the fall when the project design is 75% complete (usually right-of-way stage when cost estimates are much more accurate). The project cost is estimated at $6.3M and there is $2.6M in the budget.

[ChiefJoJo]

Here's a good read from BTB on the funding (or lack thereof) on Hillsborough St. So out of the $60M in that bond, Hillsborough St was the only ITB project and partially funded at that. I voted for that bond issue with the intention that H-St would be built as a result.

Once again, ITB'ers get screwed and continue to subsidize the sprawl in suburban Raleigh, while an area that truly needs help is neglected.

[RaleighRob]

^ No surprise there. ITB has been neglected as long as I've lived here. My car's suspension from the potholes alone are testament to that.

[Jones_]

Its been neglected since the end of World War II.....emptying out downtown except as a place for 9-5 government and as a place for poor mostly minority citizens to live has been the story until about 10 years ago or so....getting off topic sorry...

[RaleighRob]

A new piece I just found...Two Guys being sold: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/takingstock/...p;tb=1&pb=1

They say it'll stay open and be the same. We shall see. Frankly, in a way, I was kinda hoping for a few positive changes, since we know more upscale restaurants (like Fraziers and Porters) do a lot to improve this strip. But at least it ain't closing!

[ncwebguy]

It says "Everything will stay the same". I hope that doesn't apply to the plates, dishwasher, etc.! They have been there forever! I also hope it doesn't apply to their grease traps. Ugh.

With Brothers gone, it is the only college student budget-friendly place that doesn't sell sandwiches or pizza on Hillsborough. Why would they change that?

[tjoad]

With Brothers gone, it is the only college student budget-friendly place that doesn't sell sandwiches or pizza on Hillsborough. Why would they change that?

I would have to add El Rodeo.

[DPK]

With Brothers gone, it is the only college student budget-friendly place that doesn't sell sandwiches or pizza on Hillsborough. Why would they change that?

When's the last time you've been on Hillsborough?

Mitches has a wide variety of restaurant quality food at low prices. As tjoad said, there's also El Rodeo. Global Coffee has snack foods, and danishes, etc. There is the Golden Dragon and two other asian style restaurants. Brueggers Bagels has more than just bagels; they have salads, sandwiches, and soups. Dunkin donuts has donuts, ice cream, and breakfast foods. Further down there is East Village or Farmhouse which have bar/restaurant food. There's a few others too that aren't sandwich/pizza related, but I'm sleepy.

[DanRNC]

Looks like the North Carolina Equipment (Yellow Bulldozer) building may get rehabbed or the site may be redeveloped. I think these kind of moves may breathe some life back into H-Street.

Story

Edited June 7, 2007 by DanRNC

[RaleighRob]

^ Cool. I certainly hope he does something good with it. That part of H-Street has lots of potential, but needs work!

Keeping my fingers crossed....

[Jones_]

The bulldozer is great....if it has to move it should be given to the Raleigh City Museum or used by the school of design in creating a monument of some sort to Hillsborough Street

[ChiefJoJo]

Looks like the North Carolina Equipment (Yellow Bulldozer) building may get rehabbed or the site may be redeveloped. I think these kind of moves may breathe some life back into H-Street.

Story

This guy sounds like he's the right guy to develop that spot. BTW, here's some info of that area, Stanhope Village, from earlier in the thread:

Area Plan:

I was going through this thread looking for info on Stanhope area, and saw this post. It's ironic that is almost exactly the same plan that Mitch Silver recommended... including the future streetcar. It's almost like Cirello called him and said, "use this."

I lived in Raleigh and worked with the Hillsborough Street group that was created because of this guy's work. The consultants ended up recommending something like 11 "roundabouts" but the majority of residents at the charette really wanted Cirello's plan for just two "traffic circles", and his realignment of Pullen and Oberlin Roads adopted. He also suggested reintroducing streetcar service between Meredith College (?) and the State Capitol.

Here is another link to Cirello's ideas in the N&O

[orulz]

I do hope that they keep the NC Power Equipment building rather than demolishing it. That building looks great, and seems to be quite well-maintained and solid. Adds character to the area. But of course, by all means, redevelop the rest of the lot! The little one-story buildings owned by Valentine are cool and might clean up well, but they look like they haven't been kept up quite so well, and I wouldn't be too upset if they were torn down for some larger, multi-story project.

As for Stanhope Village, the city's plan is well thought out, and Valentine's project would have been a spectacular piece of that puzzle. But this project has been hanging in limbo for 5 years, supposedly waiting for the improvements to Hillsborough Street to happen. Who knows whether Valentine still even wants to build his project. Visual blight from utility lines is a HUGE problem on Hillsborough west of Dan Allen, suburban style fast food joints and small strip centers dot the landscape, the pavement and sidewalks are crumbling, the right-of-way is narrow, and the unusual three-lane configuration is a frequent source of traffic backups. It just needs a lot of work.

[orulz]

Noticed that the May 1 2007 version of the NCSU Physical Master Plan shows a new university building on the lot next to Darryl's, and a new parking deck on the North Hall parking lot. Wonder what sort of building they have planned there.

Note that this map is very much a long-term, pie-in-the-sky deal, as it shows the full build-out of Centennial's engineering campus, the Biomedical Campus near the vet school, complete reconstruction of fraternity court, and even the centennial campus monorail, so I guess it should be taken with a grain of salt.

[RaleighRob]

So saw this in today's N&O: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/682933.html

Basically, the businesses of Hillsborough St closed the road down for a few hours Saturday to try to bring out students to introduce them to the businesses and such. Called it "Taste of Hillsborough Street". Not a bad idea but...

attendance apparently was abysmal. NCSU students, famous for their apathy (and I can say that since I'm a recent alumnus ) --didn't hardly show up. Many had valid complaints of course, that it's run down and needs revitalization. No argument at all from me...especially to the complaints about the panhandlers.

But here's my thing....I live three blocks from H street, yet I didn't even know this was happening. The article is the first time I heard about it.

Now, granted, the main point was to introduce students to the street---but if *I* was a business owner there, I'd realize that: (1) You ain't gonna survive if you base all your hopes on a young transient population across the street who have meal plans & on-campus dining, and no vested interest in the well-being of the street. and (2) If you got a whole bunch of neighborhoods elsewhere in the area full of families and young professionals with jobs and homes and DO have a vested interest in the well-being of the area, then maybe you oughta try to get them in on any promotional things you're doing to try to survive. It's not rocket science.

Oh well...just had to say it.

[DPK]

Not a bad idea but...

attendance apparently was abysmal.

I was there and the attendance was indeed bad. It was a good effort though, I'll give them that, to try and get people out on the street. I talked to a representative from the Hillsborough Street Partnership and he told me this is the first year they attempted this. They are looking for people to get more involved to help with things in the future.

The problem that I think plagued this event was poor advertisement. I don't think enough students knew what was going on and enough people in the surrounding area. I felt like it was put together "last-minute" with not enough businesses really giving a crap to even participate. Sure there were some tents out there, but when I walked by I really didn't see many of the businesses on the street actively trying to get people's interests. Everything was sort of shoved down toward the stage side of the closed part of the street.

If you're going to go after college students, you need to show them stuff that is going to hold their attention.

To sum up, good effort but could have been executed better.

[ncwebguy]

How they made enough of an effort to *close Hillsborough Street* but *didn't* make an effort to advertise to students *or* residents is another example of why the Hillsborough Street Partners will never get their act together.

Time and again they operate as if being across the street from State is enough, and then wonder why they struggle to stay in business. It looks like Technician, the student newspaper, didn't cover it. They did cover a different back to school event on Friday night on campus.

When McDonalds and Starbucks can't last there, there are deep rooted problems. I hope they are not discouraged by the low turnout, but learn from their mistakes for the next time they try a similar event.

[JeffC]

"top down" revitalization efforts like the HSP are almost never successful, are they? We inevitably end up with white elephants like the dearly departed Fayetteville Street Mall. My observation is that most "revitalization" efforts that are successful start at the grass roots level with a few businesses taking advantage of cheap rent in a rundown section of town, and then, voila, Glenwood South. Problem with Hillsborough Street is that you have two constituencies on opposite sides of the street....Students who want (1) cheap booze and (2) plentiful booze and (3) did I say cheap booze? On the other hand, the people in University Park want nice restaurants with outdoor seating, no panhandlers, and other service related amenities. And they oppose the East Village sort of development for the precise reason that it attracts the students. Thus the impasse and frequent disconnects like this event...

[Jones_]

"top down" revitalization efforts like the HSP are almost never successful, are they? We inevitably end up with white elephants like the dearly departed Fayetteville Street Mall. My observation is that most "revitalization" efforts that are successful start at the grass roots level with a few businesses taking advantage of cheap rent in a rundown section of town, and then, voila, Glenwood South. Problem with Hillsborough Street is that you have two constituencies on opposite sides of the street....Students who want (1) cheap booze and (2) plentiful booze and (3) did I say cheap booze? On the other hand, the people in University Park want nice restaurants with outdoor seating, no panhandlers, and other service related amenities. And they oppose the East Village sort of development for the precise reason that it attracts the students. Thus the impasse and frequent disconnects like this event...

I am a big proponet of of grass roots anything. The power struggle and resulting stalemate and identity crisis for Hillsborough St does not seem to ever gets its day in the press. Answering this question of how is H-St supposed to function is a pretty important question. No matter the ultimate identy and function of the strip, the City and University have both blatantly and negligently allowed the physical streetscape to turn to crap. I for one think the simple step of replanting, adding benches (that can't be slept on), brick crosswalks and boom traffic signals would have cleaned up the image enough to remove the despoiling first impression out of town parents and prospective students get when visiting.

[foodpainter]

No matter the ultimate identy and function of the strip, the City and University have both blatantly and negligently allowed the physical streetscape to turn to crap. I for one think the simple step of replanting, adding benches (that can't be slept on), brick crosswalks and boom traffic signals would have cleaned up the image enough to remove the despoiling first impression out of town parents and prospective students get when visiting.

Blech, don't blame the university. They should focus on academics/research to attract students, not city streetscapes.

[Jones_]

Blech, don't blame the university. They should focus on academics/research to attract students, not city streetscapes.

Well...I believe I saw prospective students being revolted at the condition of Hillsborough St somewhere mentioned. Ever been to UNCG? Spring Garden St looks freakin' great. I believe lots of students decide to go there based on the perception given by that street when the rest of the city otherwise could be a turn off (I was born there btw haters). NC State Police also have jurisdiction on Hillsborough so something, somehow, someway is encouraging University involvement in its surroundings by either Statute or Administrative Code. So its not like I just made this thought up all on my own....

Edited August 28, 2007 by Jones133

[foodpainter]

No, fair enough, I have thought the same thing myself. Maybe I just felt the need to defend my Wolfpack!

[Jones_]

No, fair enough, I have thought the same thing myself. Maybe I just felt the need to defend my Wolfpack!

Big wolfpacker here too so no worries

[RaleighRob]

Well, to be fair NCSU's side of the street looks decent for the most part, just nothing special about it. Sprucing up the bus stops, getting nicer light poles and some better trash receptacles would help for sure...but I don't know what else they could do on their side. Maybe perhaps reopening the Library's traditional "main" entrance on Hillsborough would be nice. (As opposed to now which sorta screams "Not for you...go away!")

I think they certainly could do more to encourage students to patronize the businesses on the strip...did they ever incorporate a system to tie in with their meal plan?

As to JeffC's point about student wants (booze & pizza) versus local residents' wants (nice food, coffee, etc), I don't think it's that black & white. There are students who enjoy a nice casual cafe/restaurant (there are students even at Porters & Fraziers occasionally, believe it or not)--- and there are certainly local residents who frequent the bars (just visit Players Retreat, Sadlacks or Mitch's...it's not all college kids by no means). I think you can have a strip with something for everyone and make it survive. But leave it neglected....or put all your eggs in one basket...and that won't work.

[JeffC]

Well, to be fair NCSU's side of the street looks decent for the most part, just nothing special about it. Sprucing up the bus stops, getting nicer light poles and some better trash receptacles would help for sure...but I don't know what else they could do on their side. Maybe perhaps reopening the Library's traditional "main" entrance on Hillsborough would be nice. (As opposed to now which sorta screams "Not for you...go away!")

I think they certainly could do more to encourage students to patronize the businesses on the strip...did they ever incorporate a system to tie in with their meal plan?

It should be noted that at some point in the 1990s the university did rework the "service road" parallel to Hillsborough so that the Wolfline buses could use it instead of blocking Hillsborough Street. Also, they constructed the current gateway plaza to the right of the library. When I was in school there, it was an ugly parking lot overlooking the BrickYard.

As for your question about the restaurants tying into the meal plan, they have some sort of deal like that going on now, because I've seen the signs/window stickers in certain restaurants. Don't know any of the details.