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Downtown Raleigh's Future


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Market Raleigh as a technology and arts center. Play up RTP, Centennial Campus, the universities, etc, etc. even if they are not located downtown. Get free wi-fi rolled out along Fayetteville Street to compliment outdoor areas and for the convenience of visitors. Get a central library down near site 1 and 4, with a visitors center incorporating City and State info. Make sure the site 1 and 4 buildings feel like they represent one of the leading edge technology centers in the world. Incorporate a central arts "hall" in the visitors center with a map to each gallary, including CAM and Artspace and others. A schedule of upcoming Hurricanes games should be up. A shrine to Duke State and UNC NCAA basketball champioships should be near the visitors center. Placards touting big name companies and institutions like Red Hat and the Duke Cancer center. Everything that we are, everthing that we are proud of as a region should be reflected in the center of the region. We have to posture ourselves as the Center of all that is RDU. It takes the landmark buildings we are getting built. It takes the voice of our elected leaders. It takes the finer touches....the residents, the glassy buildings, the historic buildings. The Downtown Raleigh Alliance should consider moving to ground floor space at Site 1. From that vantage advertise our regional attractions from downtown. Bring people downtown to learn about the larger area. Something like that anyway.

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I would defintely increase the size of all the street signs along Fayetteville St. and increase the signs to points of interest downtown. Also play up the historical walking trail downtown which nobody seems to even know about. I stumbled by the Mordecai House by accident one day and didn't understand why there were no signs to the place. Connectivity, which people have brought up before, is one of the keys to making this thing work. Downtown has all these little cool places (Warehouse district, Glenwood, Powerhouse Square, Moore Square/City Market, etc.) but they feel they are so far away from each other.

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I've had an idea floating around in my head for the past week or so about a NC famous people museum. I think it would be a great addition to downtown, and something that wouldnt only be cool for Raleigh, but for the entire state.

I just went out to go to the store and heard a radio ad about visitraleigh.com. It was pretty catchy, and they even had a cute little slogan "City life..Carolina style"

Edited by Damien
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Market Raleigh as a technology and arts center. Play up RTP, Centennial Campus, the universities, etc, etc. even if they are not located downtown. Get free wi-fi rolled out along Fayetteville Street to compliment outdoor areas and for the convenience of visitors. Get a central library down near site 1 and 4, with a visitors center incorporating City and State info. Make sure the site 1 and 4 buildings feel like they represent one of the leading edge technology centers in the world. Incorporate a central arts "hall" in the visitors center with a map to each gallary, including CAM and Artspace and others. A schedule of upcoming Hurricanes games should be up. A shrine to Duke State and UNC NCAA basketball champioships should be near the visitors center. Placards touting big name companies and institutions like Red Hat and the Duke Cancer center. Everything that we are, everthing that we are proud of as a region should be reflected in the center of the region. We have to posture ourselves as the Center of all that is RDU. It takes the landmark buildings we are getting built. It takes the voice of our elected leaders. It takes the finer touches....the residents, the glassy buildings, the historic buildings. The Downtown Raleigh Alliance should consider moving to ground floor space at Site 1. From that vantage advertise our regional attractions from downtown. Bring people downtown to learn about the larger area. Something like that anyway.

my thoughts EXACTLY! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

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The point about making DT Raleigh the center of all that is RDU...I certainly agree with :thumbsup:

Additionally, and to me most importantly, Raleigh needs to be marketed as the fun place to be for the region. The fact that Chapel Hill still kind of holds this distinction is borderline ridiculous to me. Downtown Raleigh already has a ton of fun places to listen to a band, catch an art crawl, go to a performance at the theater, etc. It needs to capitalize on that I think. RTP is great and all, but let's face it....The place is damn boring to much of the outside world. Yes, it does contribute to this place in ways words can't describe. Bottom line though, is that a strong and FUN downtown Raleigh is what needs to be marketed. You want people leaving (or better yet..not leaving at all)and telling their friends about the great time they had shopping, dining, etc. And for locals, Raleigh can be that place where your worries melt away from the day at work after a wild night on the town. Just my thoughts.

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  • 1 month later...

Hopefully we will have some kind of Highspeed Rail by that point. I envision midtown (atlantic ave. to crabtree) being really upscale and flourishing. Cary will be even more sprawling and monotonous than ever, with Apex and Holly Springs not too far behind. On the brightside I think downtown will have some "true" skyscrapers 40 stories plus. The airport will be finished with both new terminals A and C renamed to A and B, and the second parking deck will be complete. Southpointe, Triangle Center and White Oak Malls (in Garner) will be main focuses of retail along with established North Hills and Crabtree. And Brier Creek southwest to Highway 55 will be the most exclusive area of the triangle stretching well in to Durham County.

2020 my Future populations estimates:

Raleigh- 526,000

Durham- 302,000

Cary- 205,000

Chapel Hill-115,000

Wake Forest- 100,000

Apex- 60,000

Knightdale-40,000

Garner- 32,000

Clayton- 26,000

Triangle at large 2.2 million

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that is so weird to me... when i was in high school (not too terribly long ago) wake forest had a little over 6000 residents. it is like the town is on steroids. I can't believe all those people don't mind sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on capital blvd morning and night.

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Hopefully we will have some kind of Highspeed Rail by that point. I envision midtown (atlantic ave. to crabtree) being really upscale and flourishing. Cary will be even more sprawling and monotonous than ever, with Apex and Holly Springs not too far behind. On the brightside I think downtown will have some "true" skyscrapers 40 stories plus. The airport will be finished with both new terminals A and C renamed to A and B, and the second parking deck will be complete. Southpointe, Triangle Center and White Oak Malls (in Garner) will be main focuses of retail along with established North Hills and Crabtree. And Brier Creek southwest to Highway 55 will be the most exclusive area of the triangle stretching well in to Durham County.

2020 my Future populations estimates:

Raleigh- 526,000

Durham- 302,000

Cary- 205,000

Chapel Hill-115,000

Wake Forest- 100,000

Apex- 60,000

Knightdale-40,000

Garner- 32,000

Clayton- 26,000

Triangle at large 2.2 million

When that number of 526K offered up, is that not Wake County?, which would already include Cary, WF, Apex, KD and Garner? Or was it only Raleigh?

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The airport will be finished with both new terminals A and C renamed to A and B, and the second parking deck will be complete.

This is where you lost me :D I agree that we will have new terminals, but given that the Airport Authority is running the show, they will be named "Terminal 1" and "Terminal C".

Better yet, they'll probably scrap the current site and build a new one for the Triangle near Sanford :rofl:

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Hopefully we will have some kind of Highspeed Rail by that point. I envision midtown (atlantic ave. to crabtree) being really upscale and flourishing. Cary will be even more sprawling and monotonous than ever, with Apex and Holly Springs not too far behind. On the brightside I think downtown will have some "true" skyscrapers 40 stories plus. The airport will be finished with both new terminals A and C renamed to A and B, and the second parking deck will be complete. Southpointe, Triangle Center and White Oak Malls (in Garner) will be main focuses of retail along with established North Hills and Crabtree. And Brier Creek southwest to Highway 55 will be the most exclusive area of the triangle stretching well in to Durham County.

2020 my Future populations estimates:

Raleigh- 526,000

Durham- 302,000

Cary- 205,000

Chapel Hill-115,000

Wake Forest- 100,000

Apex- 60,000

Knightdale-40,000

Garner- 32,000

Clayton- 26,000

Triangle at large 2.2 million

You backing up these #'s with anything or are these strictly your numbers. When I moved to Wake Forest in 1987 it had about 2500 people. There is no plan to densify so assuming the entire ETJ is filled with subdivisions you might double to around 50,000. Thats my guess -_- To anyone interested, there is a master plan of road realignments for WF either on the town website or at a DOT website that is pretty interesting....Ligon Mill gets extended all the way to Stadium drive, Falls of Neuse goes straight into downtown along the current 98 alignment, 98 reidentifies itself along the bypasses entire length, several downtown streets get extended to make the grid somewhat complete albeit a bit suburban in nature.

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This is where you lost me :D I agree that we will have new terminals, but given that the Airport Authority is running the show, they will be named "Terminal 1" and "Terminal C".

Better yet, they'll probably scrap the current site and build a new one for the Triangle near Sanford :rofl:

Yeah, I agree that the Chapel Hill numbers are way too inflated. Part of the identity of Chapel Hill is being a smaller college town, and I don't think we'll see that go anywhere. I would say the Garner numbers are low, especially with that mall going up close by, and easier access to a renewed downtown Raleigh.

As for RDU, I would just like to ask the forum if others have as much trouble with luggage as I do. It seriously takes waaaay to long to pick up a checked bag - like 30 minutes minimum. Maybe it is just me, but I think RDU is one of the worst airports for waiting on baggage. Does anyone else have this problem, or know a reason for it?

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Wake Forest Has tons of room to expand to the east to highway 401. Maybe 100,000 is a bit high. Yeah those are just guesses based on population trends, potential growth and road access to certain areas.

Rolesville straddles 401...WF won't go much further east past Heritage....I'll give 100k at build-out but only 50k by 2020 :thumbsup:

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"Log Into The Future"

"Raleigh, North Carolina's NETtropolis"

"America's New City"

"Mycity, USA"

"teknically.lovable"

"the Envy of N.C."

"R-space"

"R-Town"

"It's Rrrraleigh cool"

"Raleigh, What happens in Raleigh, stays...the envy of everyone else."

I've always liked the tried and true "Raleighwood"

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