Downtown Raleigh's Future

[RALBOI]

I would love to see this happen. A "stacked" mall several stories high with escalators up to each floor would be great. And, it seems like a way to get the middle America types to come downtown when they otherwise wouldn't.

Thank you for having real vision, you read my mind this mall can work for Raleigh!!!

[RALBOI]

I would rather see retail fronting the streets of downtown as opposed to a mall. Maybe a Bloomingdales or a Nordstrom that stands by itself with some other retailers along the street. Chicago's Miracle Mile comes to mind. Stores like Virgin Records, Tiffany's, Cartier and some higher end type of places that are unique to Raleigh would work well. Marshall Field's in Chicago and Nordstrom in San Fransisco are really cool places to shop.

Avery i have alot of respect for you, but get serious that's not going too happen no time soon you have to have a serious mass of retail for that to happen watch what happens in Charlotte when epic center goes up,i bet money they will get one or two of the stores your talking about that project is very close to a downtown mall it's a very nice and thinking out of the box project.

[RALBOI]

the one in norfolk was almost if not completely publicly financed. Also, the 3 or 4000 people in downtown raleigh hardly justifies a regional shopping mall.

First of all those numbers will be changing rapidly,and second the mall will serve more than that it will serve the region and state and whoever comes to it if you make it stand out.

[RALBOI]

I don't care for the idea of a shopping mall. I like the idea of getting more people out and about the streets than driving to a mall and going indoors all day.

that won't happen if the mall is done right,it will add more people to the streets that's why i like MacAuthur mall it adds people too it's downtown street go see for your self, but i understand were your coming from it can hurt downtown if done incorrectly.

[RALBOI]

Agreed, but what Raleigh needs more than anything is people downtown. A mall would help spur other developments and retail which would increase the number of people on the streets.

That's the point am trying to make thank you sir your reading my mind

[Damien]

^ post much? seriously, the last thing this area needs is another mall.

[monsoon]

The OverStreet Mall in Charlotte (built in the 1970s) sucked the live off Charlotte's streets like a vampire sucks blood. It has taken more than 3 decades to recover from that mistake so I highly recommend that Raleigh not build any malls near the downtown.

[RALBOI]

But would it be the typical 9-5 pedestrians. I doubt the mall would stay open till 9-10pm. This would bring DT back to the stagnet dead after five deal

Who saids it's has to have those times,remember think out of the box, i would hope the developer would see the potenial the convention center has and have extended hours for the shops that want to stay open during convention hour and downtown would still have other retail so thing won't be stagnet your thinking about the old Raleigh im thinking about the new Raleigh when all these projects get complete.

[RALBOI]

Why couldn't the mall stay open until 9 or 10? That is the whole point of the mall, it would attract people to DT Raleigh different parts of the day and on the weekend. Of the DT malls I know if they all stay open until 9 or 10 (even later when you consider many of them have movie theaters associated with them).

Bravo, great point you made i might have to treat you out for a beer!

[RALBOI]

It wouldn't undercut the urban fabric. It would just be a highrise building with intense shopping inside. A project like this would spur development through several surrounding blocks.

THINK YOU SIR!!!!

[RALBOI]

The OverStreet Mall in Charlotte (built in the 1970s) sucked the live off Charlotte's streets like a vampire sucks blood. It has taken more than 3 decades to recover from that mistake so I highly recommend that Raleigh not build any malls near the downtown.

Because like you said it sucked,MacAuthur mall was done right, and it's downtown and it's a real asset to Norfolk

[Damien]

There was an urban mall proposed for site 1 near the CC. I'm much happier with the twin towers proposal.

[RALBOI]

^ post much? seriously, the last thing this area needs is another mall.

The last thing we need is a dead downtown if you

want to be real about it, but hey i respect your opinion big D!!!

Edited April 7, 2006 by RALBOI

[Damien]

The last thing we need is a dead downtown if you

want to be real about it, but hey i respect your opinion big D!!!

Well a dead downtown is what we have had here for quite some time. It has just started turning around in the past several years. I think constructing a mall in a newly rejuvenated downtown wouldn't be a great idea. The point of the downtown revitalization was to get people out and about on the streets, not inside a mall.

Edited April 7, 2006 by Damien

[RALBOI]

The OverStreet Mall in Charlotte (built in the 1970s) sucked the live off Charlotte's streets like a vampire sucks blood. It has taken more than 3 decades to recover from that mistake so I highly recommend that Raleigh not build any malls near the downtown.

My bad Metro.m,i will cut back on useing caps.

[blburton]

Raleigh has major and minor malls on several of the highways going into downtown. They are easily accessible, as well, by people heading that way. Thus, who would want to go to downtown Raleigh to shop when you have Triangle Town to the northeast, Crabtree and North Hills to the north, Brier Creek, Northgate, and Southpoint to the northwest, and South Hills and Crossroads to the south?

The city of Norfolk is different from Raleigh for several reasons.

1) The Hampton Roads area is saturated of large strip malls, big box construction, and smaller malls ), but the only large regional mall that I know of in the area is MacArthur. Raleigh-Durham has Southpoint, TTC, Crabtree, North Hills area.

2) Downtown freeway leading to VA Beach (only 20 minutes away, largest city in VA (pop 450K)) which is a major tourist destination.

3) Part of a large interconnected metro area. People from 6 cities that pretty much border each other (Chesapeake, VA Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News) at least the size of Durham or larger can access this mall within 30 minutes with the help of an excellent freeway system in the area. Also, it has a larger metro pop than the Triangle if I'm not mistaken.

4) Downtown freeway gives easy access to the mall there as well as VA Beach. Once you get out of the Triangle, there's nothing until Greensboro or Wilmington which is at least an hour away.

5) Norfolk has some notable tourist attractions downtown (the Nauticus, for example), so of course, you get people going into downtown Norfolk who will see MacArthur Mall and shop there. Not enough people live in downtown Raleigh, nor is downtown Raleigh a toruist destination, nor does Raleigh have anything remotely close to a touristy spot like VA Beach within a comparable drive as Norfolk/VA Beach to promote people visiting a downtown mall like MacArthur.

I have been to MacArthur Mall and inside, it reminds me of 4 Seasons in Greensboro, so it was really nothing special to me being from the Greensboro area. Personally, I think 4 Seasons or even Crabtree or Southpoint are better than MacArthur. It's just not realistic that a downtown mall in Raleigh would thrive in the near future. Could any city in NC promote a downtown mall even?

[bdp]

just my two cents... I think the idea of a mall downtown is ridiculous.

Edited April 7, 2006 by bdp

[krazeeboi]

If Raleigh wants create something of an urban shopping district, then I think it should be something similar to Atlantic Station.

[Cotuit]

I don't really know much about Raleigh, so I can't say if a downtown mall would be good for Raleigh, but I can tell you about Providence's downtown mall, Providence Place.

In the middle and the end of the last century Providence had basically been written off. It's population had dropped by more than a third due to suburban flight. It's economy tanked as manufacturing moved to the south and then overseas. And at the end of the century we had a mayor that served 30 years (the longest serving big city mayor in US history) who was so corrupt that he is now serving time in federal prison for racketeering. Decades of neglect and corruption left us with a city that was crumbling and bankrupt, a condition from which we are still recovering. The upside to all this is that Providence was too poor to enact any of the 'urban renewal' schemes that blighted so many other cities in the 50s 60s and 70s and today we have a city that the entire downtown is listed on the National Register of Historic places. So the city was an empty shell of stunning historic buildings.

In the 90s, a project was done to move our elevated rail line into an underground allignment, uncover a river that had been buried under asphault (in the Book of World's Records as the world's widest bridge) and freed up acres of land in the city's core for redevelopment. The new land was called Capital Center and it was proposed to build a large mall at the edge of this land. Many many people insisted it would never work. We have a mall two towns away down Route 95 in Warwick and another large mall just across the Mass. line to the north (where the sales tax is 2% lower).

Far from failing, the mall has thrived. A big help was that we have a Nordstroms drawing people down from Boston. The mall is right on the highway with ramps leading more-or-less directly into it. Do people drive down the highway, into the mall, then back onto the highway and home without ever stepping foot in Providence? Yup. But before the mall, no one was driving to Providence for anything, the city was dead. The downtown core was a ghost town. People come and go without stepping foot in the city, but people also come to the mall to shop and step out into the city a bit. They head up to Federal Hill for lunch, over to Thayer or Wickenden Street for some more shopping... Then they discover the RISD Museum, the theatre, they find that there are more reasons to visit Providence and some come back not to visit the mall but to visit Providence. Now there is a huge residential boom going on downtown, is it all due to the mall, probably not, but thousands of people rediscovered Providence due to the mall.

The mall didn't drive any downtown retail away, there was no downtown retail to drive away, they'd all left for the suburban malls decades ago. But now retail is returning to the streets of downtown Providence.

Across the street from the mall, the first office building built in Providence in over a decade is under construction. Across the river from that, two new condo towers are rising. The Westin Hotel is attached to the mall by a skybridge and they are building a new condo tower.

The Westin attached to the mall by a skybridge, a new residential tower, taller than the existing tower is underway right now.

New GTECH office tower being built with the mall behind it.

Similar view, more recently and at night.

Another view of GTECH with the mall across the street and the State House in the background. You can see in this photo that many stores open to the street. The major restaurants open the street (the food court is inside at the upper level), Old Navy and Borders also open the street. GTECH and the Westin addition will have retail in their ground floors making Francis Street be a retail street.

Probably the most important thing about the mall, you can see the city. The center of the mall features this large winter gardern with city views. Everyone who visits the mall has to see the city, and even with the construction, it's pretty damn compelling.

New GTECH building and Waterplace Park from the Winter Garden.

Waterplace Park and the Waterplace Condo (two towers) construction site from the Winter Garden.

Regarding hours, the mall does feature a movie theatre, IMAX, and Dave & Busters on the upper level, the stores close 9:30pm (7:00pm on Sundays), but the mall stays open for access to these places, and the street level restaurants stay open late, some until 1:00am. On WaterFire nights, the mall and most stores stay open until 11:00pm.

[NCMike1981]

well this was definately a popular thread today....

[bdp]

You think everything is ridiculous

well, considering there are 3 huge malls within a 20 minute drive of downtown Raleigh, I still say that plunking a mall in the middle of downtown is not the brightest idea I have heard in a long time. I have never been to Macarthur Mall or whatever it is called... actually, I have never even been to Norfolk, so maybe I am just missing out. I doubt it though. I have, on the other hand, been to Providence Place on several occasions, and spent a lot of time in Providence in general. I had a sibling at Providence College, and when I visit my family in New England, I fly in to Providence nearly every time. It is a wonderful city that has truly been revitalized. I think Raleigh could learn a lot by looking to Providence. That does not mean a mall will be the answer to Raleigh's woes... I think the bigger problem with Raleigh is having a city council that listens to 90 year old women from Smithfield when deciding what to do downtown. That is just brilliant... let's build a downtown that caters to people who will be dead in 5 years! god... anyway, I think it would be great if Raleigh spruced up city market (and it will take more than some gas lanterns people) and the Moore Square area in general, and turned that whole area into a shopping district that could be on par with North Hills. Like everything in Raleigh, there is so much potential in that area, yet it just sits there... it is nice enough, but could be so much more. OK, time for work...

Edited April 7, 2006 by bdp

[JDC]

I'm a bigger fan of retail/shopping districts than malls. Besides, malls are just artificial city streets lined with shops. It'd be like building a plastic rock climbing wall on a mountain.

[paletexan]

I agree we have too many malls and shopping as it is. A really nice bookstore with a coffee shop inside would be a nice fit downtown however IMO.

[Richhamleigh, DC]

But would it be the typical 9-5 pedestrians. I doubt the mall would stay open till 9-10pm. This would bring DT back to the stagnet dead after five deal

It's interesting to read when people use the population of downtown Raleigh to argue against putting a major retail center downtown...how many people live within walking distance of Southpointe in Durham; Crabtree Valley, or Triangle Town Center????

Also, the idea that the facility won't be busy at night is also disingenuous. Has anyone visited a suburban mall during day-time hours on a weekday????

In any case, my 2-cents is that an enclosed mall in downtown Raleigh would be a bad idea but that an open area concentration of major and local retailers would be great and feasible as an attraction unto itself.

Edited April 7, 2006 by Phillydog

[Cotuit]

That does not mean a mall will be the answer to Raleigh's woes... I think the bigger problem with Raleigh is having a city council that listens to 90 year old women from Smithfield when deciding what to do downtown. That is just brilliant... let's build a downtown that caters to people who will be dead in 5 years!

We have the same thing here, we even have a town called Smithfield up the road. The people worried about their 'State House view' get all the attention.

A lot of things fell into place in the mid-late 90s for Providence and a lot of it was dumb luck. Some say the mall has held back the rebirth of Downtown, that our retail rebirth would be further along if the mall weren't there. I really can't agree with that though, I don't think our downtown retail rebirth would be happening without the mall. As I said, there was no reason for anyone to come here, most were afraid of Providence (a lot of people still are ), it took the mall drawing people into town to get them to look around a bit and realize the city had changed and it was worth coming here again. The mall is also a big sales point for the condos being built Downtown, the hotels, and the Convention Center.

Obviously every city is different, and Raleigh is different from Providence, so the city should think long and hard before investing in a mall. Cities around us, Hartford, Worcester, are tearing down there Downtown malls now, you don't want to build something that big and realize that it was a big mistake in 10-20 years.