111 Seaboard Condos

[ncsugrad204]

New Condos on Peace Street

[ChiefJoJo]

FYI, here is the location. It's right next to the new Sunflowers (old Hardees) lunch deli, and should help reinvigorate that area and provide a nice frontage to the Seaboard Station. This is should hit the market soon after the Blount St project phase 1 which will be going up across the street at Peace and Wilmington St.

[RaleighRob]

I really liked this part of the article: Dockery expects there will be demand for his condominium project, which has tentatively been named 111 Seaboard, because units will be less expensive than many others being sold downtown. The condominiums will be mostly small, one-bedroom units with 800 or 900 square feet. Some will be priced for less than $200,000 and the average price will be $225,000 to appeal to younger buyers, Dockery said.

(Although personally, even $200,000 is pretty darn high for a one-bedroom, but at least it's a start in the right direction, price-wise!)

[carynative]

Great project all around. I've thought that sunflowers looked lost in that lot. This, combined with the Blount Street project will make for great additions to this area.

[Jones_]

This project is as or more important to downtown than most of the other big ticket projects. It takes down a windowless warehouse with State offices (that I did not even realize was being unloaded) with a street friendly residential building (assuming based on the article, renderings will bear this out hopefully). Peace St is in need of a huge make over in terms of what is on it. Its a very important axis downtown (maybe the most important), as it connects Glenwood South and the future Blount St project and Oakwood. Five stories is perfect too. You might be getting something of a real "neighborhood" in this area to develop....a good coffee shop and an independant book store on say North Person and that sort of semi bohemian feel I am looking for might just come to be in this area.

[jumboman]

"We're hoping to have this cool young-folks' place," Dockery said. "What we're trying to do is something that's more of a niche market -- it's an unmet market in that they're smaller units and affordable.

[plus2]

I hope the take advantage of the classic academic style of the Peace College buildings next door. Perhaps it could look like a brick dorm, but with some funky modern glass elements.

[RaleighRob]

a good coffee shop and an independant book store on say North Person and that sort of semi bohemian feel I am looking for might just come to be in this area.

[dmccall]

Good idea...maybe you can convince Quail Ridge to move.

[orulz]

I would have to guess that the main catalyst for this project is not Glenwood South, not the Blount Street redevelopment, and not Peace College itself. It has to be the Seaboard Warehouses & CC Grocery. With these amenities, and the pleasant atmosphere and architecture of Peace College, this has the potential to become perhaps the most liveable neighborhood in central Raleigh.

I really, really hope CC Grocery can hold on for a while. If they can't, it will set this neighborhood back by several years. Come on, city, throw 'em a bone, let them put a sign on the roof of their building... something visible from Peace Street day and night- blue neon perhaps! If you can see it from Capital Blvd too, that's even better. I would not be offended at all by a tastefully done but bright, eye-catching, and rather large sign for an independent, privately-owned grocer. Wonder how neighborhood residents would react? Until this neighborhood has enough people to support this grocery store on foot traffic alone, there needs to be something to catch the eye of drivers on the way in and out of downtown.

[nadcock]

"Some will be priced for less than $200,000 and the average price will be $225,000 to appeal to younger buyers, Dockery said."

Thank God....people are catching on.

[ncwebguy]

From the article, it sounds like the property is replacing the Insurance building at Peace and *Salisbury*, not Peace and Halifax, as indicated on ChiefJoJo's map. The building in google's sat photo has been gone for years and is now a dirt field. The Insurance building won't be missed by anyone, though being directly around the corner from a gas station may be the reason why they're not targeting an upscale market for these units. I am also suprised that it was up for grabs.

The space between Sunflowers (formerly Hardees) and Halifax would be a good place for another five story building, and Peace College owns that land -- they recently installed rounded brick signs on the two north corners at the Peace/Halifax intersection. They just built a new dorm along Halifax, so maybe the next one will end up there? Then move the tennis courts off Halifax (land swap for space further up Halifax?) and there is space for more retail.

This project, combined with the "Seaboard buidling", the leveled area behind Ace Hardware, will add a lot of residents to an area that is coming into its own with Capital Park, Pilot Mill, etc.

I too hopey Capital City Grocery will still be in business by the time the dust settles and people move in. The only problem is it isn't visible from Capital Blvd -- the Cotton Mill is in the way. If CCG fails, I hope someone would take their place, but that would be a hard sell for the next year or two at least.

Development on the west side of Peace from Captiol to Glenwood will always be hampered by its proximity to the solid waste center. When/if it goes, the sky is the limit for that area!

Finch's (the "drive in burger place") is an ITB institution! It looks empty if you go by at night or on the weekends after lunch, but during lunch on weekdays, it is quite hopping! I think they would do well if they started opening at night for dinner, but I don't know when/if that will happen.

The shoe repair and cleaners are older buildings, and I'm not sure how historically important they are. They would be perfect ground floor retailers for a 5-10 story apartment building on that space, with a parking deck with access at North Harrington street. This would start to fill the "hole" from West at North to Seaboard.

[urbanesq]

Another solid link in the downtown redevelopment chain. This is very exciting news.

[carynative]

Don't take away Finches!!! Give 'em a facelift maybe, but not take them away!

haha.

[ChiefJoJo]

From the article, it sounds like the property is replacing the Insurance building at Peace and *Salisbury*, not Peace and Halifax, as indicated on ChiefJoJo's map.

[RaleighRob]

Here's the CORRECTED location, with a 2005 aerial photo--it's the white-roofed building at the bottom of this photo:

[orulz]

Having a building there on the south side of Peace might make it difficult for the city to remove those damn Halifax-Salisbury/Wilmingon connector streets that are completely unnecessary, an incredible waste of land, and destroy the area's urban block layout.

[ChiefJoJo]

Having a building there on the south side of Peace might make it difficult for the city to remove those damn Halifax-Salisbury/Wilmingon connector streets that are completely unnecessary, an incredible waste of land, and destroy the area's urban block layout.

[capitalapts]

Having a building there on the south side of Peace might make it difficult for the city to remove those damn Halifax-Salisbury/Wilmingon connector streets that are completely unnecessary, an incredible waste of land, and destroy the area's urban block layout.

[Jones_]

boy, you said it. i've always thought this interchange was stupid. why did the city effectively cut away a couple of blocks? i think that the little "orchard" which is what i call it that's bounded by peace, and the current and historic alignments of wilmington st. is supposed to get developed though as part of the blount st. makeover. at least that's what a rendering that was posted here called for.

[dmccall]

Wasn't that interchange put in place during a time when Washington's govt. mall was really coming together to be "America's front yard"? I imagine the perks as they saw it were: 1 intersection on Peace instead of 2, this intersection matches up with the grid on the N. side of Peace, and the availability to do a 180 back southbound without encountering an intersection. It seemed like a copycat of the way that McDowell and Dawson pinched together to get under the RR tracks.

Has their been any talk of realignment of Wilmington and Salisbury? We should definitely reserve that whole intersection so that we don't force this pinch to stay forever. Leave the land flanking this intersection undeveloped!

[ChiefJoJo]

I was wrong about the location--I think RaleighRob was right. It's NORTH OF PEACE ST.

[ncwebguy]

It is on the northwest corner of Peace and Salisbury. The south side will hopefully be redeveloped soon if they're willing to let go of the insurance building. Starting from Peace college and going west on the north side of Peace Street, there is Halifax, the empty lot, Sunflowers (former Hardee's), Salisbury Street, the insurance building (to be torn down and replaced by the five story building) wrapping around the north side of the Shell station, the train bridge, the Jersey Mikes/Dry Cleaners building, Capitol Blvd, Raleigh Solid Waste, and Flythe Cycles/Endless Grind.

The Peace/Halifax-Salisbury-Wilmington "wishbone" consolidated the three Peace intersections into one. When it was built, blocks were expendable -- the rejected "Oakwood freeway" left the state with plenty of land in the area.

Wilmington dead-ends at Peace at Peace College's doorstep. Salisbury ends a short block up at Seaboard. Halifax is the only one that continues north. Halifax used to be the "north" road from Capitol Square. Halifax, Hillsboro, Fayetville, and New Bern were four other cities considered for the State Capitol, so the four compass direction streets were named for them. Halifax from Edenton to Peace was removed for the General Assembly building, the parking deck under the state government plaza/mall, and the Archdale building.

The "plaza" formed isn't North Carolina's front yard. More like a well-groomed, abandoned, empty lot that has a "u-turn" road through it.

Most of the traffic going through the wishbone is generated by state govt employees -- really bad at rush hour, and quite light otherwise. A series of signals at Peace and Wilmington/Halifax/Salisbury could be synched to handle this, and restore the grid.

[ChiefJoJo]

Most of this we already know, but I saw an update from the five-points CAC notes:

• 5 stories

• 10k sf retail

• 53 condos, 600-1200sf

• units starting at under $200k

• const may begin in mid-'07

[bikwillie]

Its amazing to me to compare what that area was like just five years ago. What a rapid and powerful impact that HOPE VI project had in turning that area around. Hopefully the Chavis project is equally successful in East downtown.