Downtown Raleigh's Future

[Euphorius]

Sadly, the only developers that will be able to take advantage of this new 40 story approval process are developers with land on Fayetteville St. and only the 2 blocks west. 

Edited May 11, 2015 by Euphorius

[Green_man]

Article in the News&Observer today: Raleigh considers new downtown height limits, peaking at 40 floors

 

Sounds to me like they would approve something over 40 (or 500 feet) with a special hearing, but anything 40 floors/500 feet and less, they would approve in certain areas downtown without special approval.

 

For perspective, PNC is 33 floors and 530ish feet tall.

 

Seems very common sense to me.  Anything that will be as tall or taller than our 3 tallest will need to be scrutinized to be sure we don't end up with an eyesore. 

[Euphorius]

But 2 of our 3 tallest are shorter than what this would allow, and the tallest is only 38 ft taller than the max allowed in the area designated for the tallest buildings. 500 ft will be allowed on Fayetteville without going through a special approval process, meaning these 500 ft buildings will not get extra scrutiny. They just have to adhere to the city's appearance guidelines. I just read the article again. I was mistaken in saying 40 stories/500 ft would be allowed on the 2 blocks west of Fayetteville. Those 2 blocks are going to be set at 20 stories. To me, this doesn't seem like common sense at all. There is absolutely no reason to restrict 40 stories/500 ft to only Fayetteville. 

[BullDurhamer]

Seems very common sense to me.  Anything that will be as tall or taller than our 3 tallest will need to be scrutinized to be sure we don't end up with an eyesore. 

except that's exactly how you ended up with that idiotic hat on top of the rbc building.  

wasn't it supposed to look like this before city "leaders" decided it needed a more distinctive top?  lol

[Green_man]

I'm not a huge fan of the pyramid thing, but that picture looks worse to me.

[Spatula]

My main issue with the PNC building is the balconies, which look tacky. Otherwise I think it's okay; I like the exterior material and don't mind the spire. Meanwhile Wells Fargo is a nice enough building except for a very ugly roof and space-wasting, pedestrian unfriendly street front. Hannover II has a bad concrete exterior that changes color in the rain in the worst way, but it looks great at night and the overall shape of the building is my favorite. None of the three really stands out as better than the others.

 

Anyway, PNC was improved a lot over the initial renders, which had a strange medical sort of look to them.

[bj-26]

I think the spire and cone on top of the PNC building were added to make it the city's tallest. For what they spent on that building I'm sure they could have come up with something a little more impressive.

[Jones_]

I can't get past the extension all the way to Boylan. Seems like a clear give away to Jim Zanoni and Andy Sandman who both are tinkering with tall projects around this area. The City better regulate the crap out of those two as neither is interested in anything the City wants to do…Sandman and mixed use….not happening. Zanoni and the neighbors? Eff 'em. Historic building? In the way of profit. 

And, while the 500 ft area makes sense in one regard…city center…seriously…how many places on Fayetteville are candidates for a new high rise? Not a lot. Once the vacant city owned lots are built, I've only ever heard of the old Lichten site and the Sheaton lobby as serious candidates for new buildings (both 400 block). 200 block west….historic, Off limits. Alexander Square? Perhaps. 200 block east? Not feasible (thankfully) with Empire owning most of the stuff north of the old Raleigh Federal building. 300 block is all locked up. So is the 400 not already named above. 

[Green_man]

A somewhat unfortunate headline for the N&O article that is swept around planning communities. 

 

https://www.planning.org/news/daily/story/?story_id=id:eb1PDHiPdp2EwS_09piUoBT7NmnUFLe5nkyFBRcIPeXBlOcPPYqeq5YMOpcm-v89&source_type=O

 

Makes it seem like we are anti-density, anti-height when really its just a zoning formality change that is not much different from the current rules for the 30+ floor proposals.  And actually as Jones said, its actually maybe a little too developer friendly for up to 20 floor proposals.

Edited May 12, 2015 by Green_man

[RaleighHeelsfan]

Wow...that article states exactly how lame the council is in this town. Only larger heights along Fayetteville st? There is no space there left to build anything. The future of downtown gets worse sounding everyday. BUt no problem...we will get a 50 plus story tower one day in north hills or by the mall....lol

 

And they fought over the wells fargo tower it said? Yeah, the only decent looking tower in this city.

[Green_man]

Wow...that article states exactly how lame the council is in this town. Only larger heights along Fayetteville st? There is no space there left to build anything. The future of downtown gets worse sounding everyday. BUt no problem...we will get a 50 plus story tower one day in north hills or by the mall....lol

 

And they fought over the wells fargo tower it said? Yeah, the only decent looking tower in this city.

 

And there's the confusion again.  Any heights can be proposed at any site.  This rezoning only streamlines certain projects.  Nothing is prohibited by this rezoning.  Just certain projects will require a review.  It's really not that much different than the current process.  Cheer up.

[Spatula]

See, I think they worded it wrong. I would've had a 40-story minimum for the remaining lots on Fayetteville street, and then a 20-story minimum in the rest of downtown. Anything lower would need special approval.

Edited May 12, 2015 by Spatula

[Jones_]

You guys gotta keep the big picture...I mean the really really big picture in mind. One big picture view is density, which I am very much for in as many places as can accommodate it...it's self explanatory and I certainly don't need its beneifts explained to me. But would any of you seriously let Boylan Heights get demolished for a field of 80 story buildings? Jesus I hope not. Downtown needs its character as much as it needs transit, green spaces and actual residents. It is a very finite downtown....but does that mean, slam the tallest stuff in at every opportunity? No, absolutely not. It means be very very careful about balancing all of these things that make downtown, pretty, functional, efficient and "livable", and that to me is the biggest big picture. With our finite downtown, the Draft downtown plan did a decent job of trying to expand it a little with the Salisbury St realignment....there's room for a couple or three towers if that gets done, plus State government, in its current wishful stance to be fiscally more efficient, might ultimately cram into some taller buildings as the downtown plan suggests....but even with that, Raleigh will end up being a place with multiple high-rise districts. And I think thats fine so long as they are all sort of self sufficient, and connected to the other high rise districts.  Lots of places will do that in time beside Raleigh. But when shouting down the lack of tall buildings all over the place keep in mind these other, equally important attributes for a good downtown. 

Edited May 13, 2015 by Jones_

[Euphorius]

It would be absolutely tragic if Boylan Heights or Oakwood were demolished to make way for towers, but limiting the tallest structures to Fayetteville street seems like shooting yourself in the leg. A more appropriate high rise district would be from Wilmington to Harrington. That's just my personal opinion, though. 

[orulz]

This is not what it seems.

By my understanding:

Buildings on Fayetteville would have to be approved by council to go over 40 stories. Anything up to and including 40 stories would be as-of-right, with only staff approval.

Buildings elsewhere in downtown would have to be approved by council to go over 20 stories. Anything up to and including 20 stories would be as-of-right, with only staff approval.

That compares with today, where apparently anything over SIX STORIES has to go before council bar none. Big improvement, and MUCH more pro-development.

The idea is not to prevent large buildings. It is to force developers of really huge projects to come to the table so the city can get something out of the deal, like money for affordable housing, or infrastructure improvements, or for the developer to go above-and-beyond the letter of the law as far as design is concerned.

This is about what is best for the city, and huge skyscrapers are not all that is needed to achieve that. If all we had to do to make Raleigh a great city was build skyscrapers, then we would have a million-dollar public subsidy for each floor built above 40. I'm sure some scraper fanbois would approve of such a policy. But skyscrapers alone do not constitute a city, and the truth is that enormous developments of all kinds, be them skyscrapers or massive planned development subdivisions, do impose some externalities on the city.

Anyway, I could be wrong, but to me this seems like a lot of breathless hype, over (basically) nothing.

[Jones_]

It would be absolutely tragic if Boylan Heights or Oakwood were demolished to make way for towers, but limiting the tallest structures to Fayetteville street seems like shooting yourself in the leg. A more appropriate high rise district would be from Wilmington to Harrington. That's just my personal opinion, though. 

I think thats a pretty good swath too. There are a handful of buildings I'd like to mark as untouchable, like Dodd-Hinsdale (Second Empire), Godwin (Democratic HQ), Melrose Mill (Babylon), and things like the cotton warehouses that the LGBT and Circa 1888 are in and Steve Schuster's building that Design Box is in the ground floor of. But parking lots, and anything post WWII is high rise city in that area in my mind. 

But Orulz's synopsis seems right….the City is really just laying out the 'when you have to talk to us' rules. 

[Spatula]

I would include lots with historic structures that could be moved easily, like the Pope House. But yeah, these aren't height limits and if anything they should spurn a bit more height than what we've been seeing.

[Euphorius]

This is not what it seems.

By my understanding:

Buildings on Fayetteville would have to be approved by council to go over 40 stories. Anything up to and including 40 stories would be as-of-right, with only staff approval.

Buildings elsewhere in downtown would have to be approved by council to go over 20 stories. Anything up to and including 20 stories would be as-of-right, with only staff approval.

I understood it to say the 20 story areas are only 2 blocks west of Fayetteville and along the downtown stretch of Hillsborough. And what happened to their idea of stepping down height on the lots in front of Duke Energy Center? If that is still in play, that wipes out 2 of the possible sites for a 40 story tower. 

 

Call me crazy, but I don't think developers are going to be willing to subject their projects to the additional scrutiny that will come with the special approval process. They will just limit the height of their projects to fit in with these restrictions. Wasted time is wasted money. Something tells me that the special approval process will be viewed as a waste of time by most developers. They would have to be dead set on building in downtown and dead set on exceeding the height restrictions to subject their proposals to the additional scrutiny and delays associated with a special approval process. 

 

At any rate, I don't think it's something to worry about. There has never been a building over 43 stories proposed in Raleigh, and that 43 story building wasn't even proposed for downtown. I don't see that changing anytime soon. 

Edited May 13, 2015 by Euphorius

[Green_man]

Ok, there is no more scrutiny than there currently is.  Nothing is going to happen to Boylan Heights and the numerous historic buildings downtown.  As Orulz said, this is barely a change in the development process that people are misconstruing based on the wording of a headline and a map with hypothetical building heights.

[Bruce]

I work in the Bank of America building on Fayetteville. They just started construction today for a face lift to the exterior and lobby. They're expanding out the ground floor where the columns currently are and adding some small details, like the vertical glass, to the exterior. 

 

Edit: I think they're actually just removing the columns and not expanding it out

 

 

Edited May 13, 2015 by Bruce

[Jones_]

The vertical glass is very similar to the Charter Square vertical element frame. It looks like Highwoods is embracing the plaza....are they a newish owner of the building? Because the owners at the time the Plaza was being planned, opposed the easements for the concessions and it seems like that was a different, more obstinate owner. 

[Euphorius]

Ok, there is no more scrutiny than there currently is.  Nothing is going to happen to Boylan Heights and the numerous historic buildings downtown.  As Orulz said, this is barely a change in the development process that people are misconstruing based on the wording of a headline and a map with hypothetical building heights.

I'm not misconstruing anything. I read the article. I'm not one of these basic people that read headlines then feel the need to comment on them. I think you are the one misconstruing what I'm saying. It seems like you are using the old zoning to justify the new zoning. I'm talking about the new zoning. Under the new zoning, developers can either build to the limits or face additional scrutiny. Yes, the additional scrutiny under the new code is the same approval process we see today. Yes, it will give developers more leeway on 4 downtown streets. But that's it. If a developer wants to build a tower outside of these narrow high rise districts or wants to exceed the height restrictions in the narrow high rise districts they will have to go through additional scrutiny, the same process they have to go through for anything over 6 stories under old zoning, which can drag on for months and months, and will be subjected to the NIMBYism we often see around here.

It's about future potential. Most developers are in it for the money. They are not going to waste time going through a months long process when they could just build to code and get automatic approval. The cost of land in downtown is not so expensive that they will need to exceed these height restrictions. Until land values become so expensive that it requires them to go higher than allowed we will see very few if any buildings above these limits. But, like I said in my last post, that is probably not going to be an issue, because no developers are proposing anything taller than around 20 stories right now, and there has never been much interest in surpassing 40 stories around here.

[Bruce]

The vertical glass is very similar to the Charter Square vertical element frame. It looks like Highwoods is embracing the plaza....are they a newish owner of the building? Because the owners at the time the Plaza was being planned, opposed the easements for the concessions and it seems like that was a different, more obstinate owner. 

 

I think they bought it last Fall.

[Green_man]

Can we just have Hobgood Architects design everything in Raleigh?!?  Various design concepts of a proposal for a boutique hotel at 100 S Harrington St in the warehouse district are shown on their website. 

 

http://www.kennethhobgood.com/the-ark-royal/prvyq5k855g20s0jnsu8ijjtunwcud

[Justin6882]

Are the things they're designing actually feasible? or do they just do this as a "what if" scenario? The condos/apartments they designed for the space next to Fox Liquor on Martin Street are awesome too.  Much better than the J Davis crap we've been getting.