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Lafayette Village


Tayfromcarolina

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In my opinion, developments like this are the worst of both worlds. They put lots of businesses facing inwards on interior pedestrian corridors where they get basically no exposure, but in the end it's all just a bunch of retail set back behind a parking lot which doesn't make it any more inviting than your average strip mall.

And unlike Southpoint or North Hills, this one doesn't look like it's large enough to have critical mass. None of the spaces are big enough for anchors like the movie theater, REI, JC Penney's, etc. I'm trying to think of other places like this - smallish shopping centers with interior corridors - the only one I can come up with is Pleasant Valley Promenade, which has that little interior corridor near Bed Bath & Beyond, and coincidentally that corridor is also the place where businesses go to die. I know I've been to a few more in North Raleigh that seem equally deserted, but I can't remember exactly where.

Mark my words. Those interior corridors, attractive as they may be, will wind up completely deserted.

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Peachtree Village is just like this, and they've had trouble keeping tenants in the internal corridors.

Hats off to them for trying to do something different than a moat of stores around a parking pond. I don't see this moat of parking being "massive" in any way, though. As for being European, I suppose the architectural style is what they are referring to, unless the meant the ever-increasing popularity of the car and suburbs in Europe. :rolleyes:

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What is nearby will decide its fate too. Sure north Falls of Neuse ahs some of the most expensive new neighborhoods around, but this corner is not much known for retail. Maybe for that reason it will succeed but a lack of anchors does not bode well for a strip dominated by small office buildings that have no connectivity. The western edge of the property I think starts the Falls Lake watershed but I am not sure, so LV is not likely to ever become the center of a dense area. If it had a future of being incorporated into a larger Cameron Village or North Hills type area it might stand a chance. What is needed retail wise that is not already at Falls Village, Northridge or on Durant?

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What is nearby will decide its fate too. Sure north Falls of Neuse ahs some of the most expensive new neighborhoods around, but this corner is not much known for retail. Maybe for that reason it will succeed but a lack of anchors does not bode well for a strip dominated by small office buildings that have no connectivity. The western edge of the property I think starts the Falls Lake watershed but I am not sure, so LV is not likely to ever become the center of a dense area. If it had a future of being incorporated into a larger Cameron Village or North Hills type area it might stand a chance. What is needed retail wise that is not already at Falls Village, Northridge or on Durant?

Falls Lake watershed starts at Durant Road and points north.

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I give the developers kudos for trying to make it visually pleasing. But, I tend to agree that it will not be a very busy shopping center, and certainly will not become the center of a dense live, work, play kind of environment. Also, I do not understand why the developers thought there was a need for surface parking surrounding the entire friggin complex when the center is being built on top of an underground deck. I do not know how many spaces said underground deck will have. But, without some sort of anchor tenant I just don't understand why there is a need for all the parking surrounding the complex. I guess maybe they want to provide a place for all the people who just got their cars washed at Auto Bell next door to show off their shiny vehicles.

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Repeating myself, but I think the developer envisions this as being a sort of "Mini North Hills" or "Mini Southpoint" but the location is not as good, it's not big enough for strong anchors, and it's also not dense enough (too few small stores; no mixed use) to have critical mass. Stores on the interior will have no visibility to the outside world - they'll be invisible even from the parkling lot. Stores on the exterior will do as well as any others in a strip mall, but is that enough to keep this development afloat? No matter how pretty the interior corridors are, I predict that this development will not do well.

BTW - Good example with Waverly Place. That, Peachtree Market, MacGregor Village, and Pleasant Valley Promenade all have at least sections that follow a similar formula. I guess the concept must have seemed like a brilliant idea in the late 80s and early 90s since so many of them were built, but they all feel very dated now, and are having varying degrees of difficulty retaining tenants. This is a 20-year old failed concept, and it will fail again.

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Falls Lake watershed starts at Durant Road and points north.

Lafayette_Village_streams.pdf

Without an exact survey of the property the best I can say is the watershed (Honeycutt Creek)begins adjacent or nearly adjacent to Lafayette Village as these maps show...one from Wake County via NC One Map and the other from the 2008 Basinwide Plan. This restricts development in the area as I said earlier.

(the .pdf file should say Marsh Creek, not March)

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Also, I do not understand why the developers thought there was a need for surface parking surrounding the entire friggin complex when the center is being built on top of an underground deck. I do not know how many spaces said underground deck will have. But, without some sort of anchor tenant I just don't understand why there is a need for all the parking surrounding the complex.

I counted roughly 115 spots in the underground portion of the deck. One problem I have with this development is the deck itself. The deck is only under the small footprint of the above retail space. It does not extend further out. They would be better off extending the underground deck further out and thus virtually eliminate all above ground parking. This would allow more room for retail expansion above ground to create a better village experience.

As of right now I only view this project as roughly 3 corridors with shops here/there on each side. There also happens to be three giant trees at one entrance. This project really isn't that impressive and is poorly, really poorly executed.

Quick image to show what I mean about wasted opportunity on hiding all that parking:

htv7a0.jpg

This would free up more land above ground to perhaps add a European themed water feature, increased retail, or perhaps "villa" styled housing for a live/play at least environment. Also from a safety perspective it appears that the only means of egress to that deck is on the north-east. Doesn't that violate some kind of code?

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I counted roughly 115 spots in the underground portion of the deck. One problem I have with this development is the deck itself. The deck is only under the small footprint of the above retail space. It does not extend further out. They would be better off extending the underground deck further out and thus virtually eliminate all above ground parking. This would allow more room for retail expansion above ground to create a better village experience.

As of right now I only view this project as roughly 3 corridors with shops here/there on each side. There also happens to be three giant trees at one entrance. This project really isn't that impressive and is poorly, really poorly executed.

Quick image to show what I mean about wasted opportunity on hiding all that parking:

htv7a0.jpg

This would free up more land above ground to perhaps add a European themed water feature, increased retail, or perhaps "villa" styled housing for a live/play at least environment. Also from a safety perspective it appears that the only means of egress to that deck is on the north-east. Doesn't that violate some kind of code?

I think it is some kind of immutable law of nature that, once you pass Millbrook heading north, all architectural and smart design brain activity must cease. What is this area going to be like when all this crappily built, cookie cutter stuff is twenty or thirty years old? (think Capital Blvd south of New Hope Church Road).

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^

I place equal blame on city council for letting stuff pass through to begin with. Not to get off topic, but Capital (540 area) is the worst for throwing stuff up. On that note, just North of 540 and all the way to the Toyota dealership just South of Durant has been completely bulldozed of trees, an area about the size of the TTC lot at least. It looks like a wasteland in there now and makes me wonder what the heck they could be putting there that requires so much space....

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I counted roughly 115 spots in the underground portion of the deck. One problem I have with this development is the deck itself. The deck is only under the small footprint of the above retail space. It does not extend further out. They would be better off extending the underground deck further out and thus virtually eliminate all above ground parking. This would allow more room for retail expansion above ground to create a better village experience.

As of right now I only view this project as roughly 3 corridors with shops here/there on each side. There also happens to be three giant trees at one entrance. This project really isn't that impressive and is poorly, really poorly executed.

This would free up more land above ground to perhaps add a European themed water feature, increased retail, or perhaps "villa" styled housing for a live/play at least environment. Also from a safety perspective it appears that the only means of egress to that deck is on the north-east. Doesn't that violate some kind of code?

I would almost guarantee that the developer limited U/G parking due to cost. Surface parking is cheap, cheap, cheap. The more structured parking they add, the more you have to go vertical to recoup the additional outlay, assuming the market will bear the scope of development at that site.

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This could have been good if they went for a slimmed down North Ridge -- keep either the bookstore, a mini/art house theater, or a grocer, and surround it with smaller stores and eateries. But the area is already well served, with most of the "new" buzz occuring on the other side of 540, near Durant. Heck even Celebration at Six Forks has gone down-market lately, replacing a higher end Italian restaurant (Cinelli's, then something else in the last year or so) with a bar/live music venue. Which might work, since there is nothing like that out there.

But it does take the "cool buzz" that I doub Lafayette Village was going to go for in the first place. European theming might get people out of their established routines, but I doubt it. Potential customers will have to drive to get here, so why shouldn't they keep on going to Triangle Town Center, Six Forks/Strickland, Creedmoor, or Brier Creek, established with their respective critical masses and close to the 540 corridor

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  • 6 months later...
  • 5 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

^

Those pictures make it look really cool...until you drive by there and realize that instead of aligning it along Falls of the Neuse and move the parking to the back, they inexplicably set it back from both roads and surrounded it by a moat of parking lots, just like every other strip shopping center in Raleigh.

The idea that if the parking lots aren't in front and clearly visible to passersby will somehow kill your business, IMO, is really a lowest common denominator approach. Most people are sophisticated enough to realize that when a building sits right on a road with parking behind it, that you can drive behind the building and park...aren't they???

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This is actually a very interesting development. The streets in the new community adjacent to Lafayette Village all have French names. Maybe we can start calling this section of town "Little France"...

How about "Little Farce?"

Villages have residents, and places that get the moniker "Little [insert Country Name Here]" in real cities get the name from the number of residents of that country of origin/ethnic background who agglomerate in one neighborhood.

This project is an upmarket strip mall, nothing more.

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How about "Little Farce?"

Villages have residents, and places that get the moniker "Little [insert Country Name Here]" in real cities get the name from the number of residents of that country of origin/ethnic background who agglomerate in one neighborhood.

This project is an upmarket strip mall, nothing more.

This is like deja vu. You obviously have issues with the word "village" used in the title of any development.

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  • 4 months later...

These photos were taken yesterday and I must say that Lafayette Village is looking good. There's already one tenant occupying one unit. What I like most about this development is that it doesn't look like everything else around here. It definitely brings some uniqueness to the North Raleigh retail scene.

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I drove by the project just the other day, and while I applaud this type of development in theory, its execution is the antithesis of its premise. The gist of the project was to create a semi-urban shopping center designed after many European cities. Unfortunately, it looks cheap and its placement is, well, ironic. It is an urban shopping center in a suburban location, as suburban as can be. If this development were created in tandem with North Hills, Crabtree or located downtown, it might have made sense.

But, I do hope that this project is successful, and it creates the possibility for other projects aiming for semi-urban design.

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I drove by the project just the other day, and while I applaud this type of development in theory, its execution is the antithesis of its premise. The gist of the project was to create a semi-urban shopping center designed after many European cities. Unfortunately, it looks cheap and its placement is, well, ironic. It is an urban shopping center in a suburban location, as suburban as can be. If this development were created in tandem with North Hills, Crabtree or located downtown, it might have made sense.

But, I do hope that this project is successful, and it creates the possibility for other projects aiming for semi-urban design.

I do agree with you to a certain extent. I would have preferred to see the selection of more natural material used in the construction and better landscaping, but in this time of recession, companies are doing all that they can do to deliver developments that don't break the bank. Unfortunately, we're going to continue to see more developments using the cheapest materials that they can find. Having said that, I do think that overall the development looks nice.

I just hope that the roster of tenants will promote the desired European style and deliver the experience that this development proclaims.

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I drove by it yesterday actually myself after having been almost a year since having driven up Falls. This might have made a nice remake of a parking lot downtown say adjacent to city market or something.

Cheap materials are of course economic reality which is an objective reason to reuse old buildings whenever possible....sorry about plugging preservation in a thread on something else....but structural brick and timber buildings built new today are not feasible so we get pine or aluminum frame with particle board and cheap siding or stucco. If Lafayette Vilalge doesn't get good tenants the owner will have a hard time maintaining a structure that needs a lot of maintenance to look nice. In time poor appearances lead to the outward creep of the suburban ghetto which I predict will be at I-540 in about 20 years just as it hit 440 around 2000. Anyway, too much of an aside I suppose....

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