Elizabeth Projects (7th St, Elizabeth Ave, etc)

[RANYC]

3 hours ago, jthomas said:

This project is a great illustration of how a building doesn't have to be tall to be "urban". In fact, the smaller scale is a virtue - it allows for more active uses within the perception of the pedestrian. And as mentioned, the quality and variety of materials on the exterior is really nice. I'd take this over a 30 story podium tower any day.

Preach!

[Owenorange]

Close up of the parking deck for this building. Cladding looks good, and this is facing an alley! The rest is wrapped with the office/retail. Other pics showing final materials for the flatiron portion which really finishes this building off beautifully, and then some pics down the 7th street portion.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Owenorange

[deleted account]

A lot of people criticized neighbors for demanding a quality project that fit their neighborhood.  Good for them (and the developer) for not settling.  

[JacksonH]

3 hours ago, JBS said:

A lot of people criticized neighbors for demanding a quality project that fit their neighborhood.  Good for them (and the developer) for not settling.  

The criticisms I recall were of the neighborhood turning down the previous proposal because it included residential.  I felt that was a mistake then and I still feel the same way.  Having new residents would have meant more people to support the businesses in the neighborhood, not just during work days, but seven days a week, both night and day.  It would have meant a guarantee of more vitality on the streets.  The concern the neighborhood was raising was that new residents would bring more traffic.  That didn't make sense to me at all because people moving into the neighborhood likely would do so because they were working Uptown and could walk to work or take the Gold Line to get to work.  But filling this building instead with just offices instead of residents will guarantee more traffic because it's unlikely many of the people working in this building will be from the neighborhood. They will be driving into the neighborhood every weekday morning and leaving every weekday afternoon. Also, although this building is very handsome, the renderings of the version that was turned down had a classier look that seemed more fitting for an early 20th century neighborhood.

[Synopsis101]

 

 

[JacksonH]

^Thanks for that, Synopsis101, but it kind of breaks my heart seeing what could have been yet never will be.  That rendering is beyond gorgeous.

[sakami]

Signage went up in front of the Terry Building last week and I have seen tenants moving out this week. 
 

https://indd.adobe.com/view/b7a89899-d7fb-4e88-991a-686dfe2422e5
 

[j-man]

On 11/7/2021 at 7:00 PM, JBS said:

A lot of people criticized neighbors for demanding a quality project that fit their neighborhood.  Good for them (and the developer) for not settling.  

This projects actually looks better in person than the renderings. And that is kinda rare. 

[Owenorange]

Exterior very close to being done, including hardscaping and a nice, wide planting strip. The elevator lobby is being finished and I expect they can start the rest as soon as they confirm tenants. Lastly, the top floor will have a stellar view.

[Mgelbach]

SO MANY POWERLINES

[JRCLT]

Those planted trees are going to end up gobbling those lines…

[CLT2014]

8 minutes ago, JeanClt said:

Those planted trees are going to end up gobbling those lines…

Duke can do what they do best and go in and decapitate the trees cause heaven forbid they bury the lines!

[RANYC]

I wish there was a solution that could be sprayed on a power line all along the path where it connects with and is close to a tree, and that foamy solution would harden around the line as a protective coating or insulation, and prevent electricity from arcing from the line to the tree.  In other words, if we're not going to bury, then perhaps let's "treat" the line instead of hacksawing the tree.

 

 

[CLT2014]

7 minutes ago, RANYC said:

I wish there was a solution that could be sprayed on a power line all along the path where it connects with and is close to a tree, and that foamy solution would harden around the line as a protective coating or insulation, and prevent electricity from arcing from the line to the tree.  In other words, if we're not going to bury, then perhaps let's "treat" the line instead of hacksawing the tree.

The problem isn't so much the power line touching the tree for arcing energy, but the inevitable branches that fall on the power lines. When the wind picks up, branches fall from above on the power lines below and BOOM, outage. Duke cuts the trees back to reduce the amount of outages that happen in storms.... such as the storm on Monday this week that left 100,000+ customers without power, often due to trees / branch hitting the line. 

[RANYC]

11 minutes ago, CLT2014 said:

The problem isn't so much the power line touching the tree for arcing energy, but the inevitable branches that fall on the power lines. When the wind picks up, branches fall from above on the power lines below and BOOM, outage. Duke cuts the trees back to reduce the amount of outages that happen in storms.... such as the storm on Monday this week that left 100,000+ customers without power, often due to trees / branch hitting the line. 

I love street trees and streetscape canopies, and consider them the crown jewel of our attractiveness and distinctiveness as a big city.

But there's got to be better coordination between Duke and the Division of Tree Mgmt/Urban Forestry Division.  Why put these trees just underneath lines for them to get decapitated and disfigured in a few years.  Then again, even disfigured trees provide shade to sidewalk pedestrians...well, theoretical sidewalk pedestrians.

 

[JRCLT]

It’s simply cost-benefit analysis and burying those lines are just not on the table. Burying power lines is expensive (7-10 times as much as overhead) and thereby unattractive. There’s also the con that it can be harder to provide maintenance to these lines when they are buried as it is harder to locate damage. Sometimes overhead is the “better” option.

[Norm2]

If Charlotte had alleys, the power lines would go in the alleys. I wish that was a solution

[KJHburg]

2 hours ago, JeanClt said:

It’s simply cost-benefit analysis and burying those lines are just not on the table. Burying power lines is expensive (7-10 times as much as overhead) and thereby unattractive. There’s also the con that it can be harder to provide maintenance to these lines when they are buried as it is harder to locate damage. Sometimes overhead is the “better” option.

Yes very expensive power company customers in Hilton Head have been paying a fee on our bills for 20 years to bury all the local lines on the island.  However I dont understand why Duke won't allow private developers bury them when they do a project as many want to do.  

[RANYC]

6 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Yes very expensive power company customers in Hilton Head have been paying a fee on our bills for 20 years to bury all the local lines on the island.  However I dont understand why Duke won't allow private developers bury them when they do a project as many want to do.  

Might be the maintenance and troubleshooting point someone made up above.  Harder to troubleshoot and fix buried lines versus those overhead.  Definitely doable since other places have buried, but you need sophisticated software to troubleshoot, and then to fix might involve digging things up.  Having said that, there's likely fewer maintenance issues and reasons to troubleshoot when lines buried in the first place.

[TheMightyBK]

How hard would it be to offer architectural power line poles? Different materials, shapes, designs. Or maybe allow artists to do their thing on the existing cheap wooden ones?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CLTdev18]

18 hours ago, RANYC said:

Might be the maintenance and troubleshooting point someone made up above.  Harder to troubleshoot and fix buried lines versus those overhead.  Definitely doable since other places have buried, but you need sophisticated software to troubleshoot, and then to fix might involve digging things up.  Having said that, there's likely fewer maintenance issues and reasons to troubleshoot when lines buried in the first place.

I have tried to work with Duke about burying the lines on a few projects, but it's incredibly difficult to work with them and prohibitively expensive. The last time I tried to do this, I was quoted around $150,000 to burry a ~400' section of overhead line. And that was just Duke's price. It was another ~$200k from AT&T and another ~100k from Spectrum. We just didn't have it in the budget to spend more than $450k just to burry some overhead lines.

Even if we were doing the type of project that could cover this, Duke is very reluctant to do it. One of the reasons I have been told is that it's a safety issue. For the vast majority of Duke's utility poles, the electricity runs from the overhead line to the underground line (where you start to burry the line). It is a comparatively rare situation to have the electricity run from the underground line to the overhead line (where the buried line ends). If there is an issue with a line (storm debris mostly), then the linemen who are out there are very familiar with expecting the live side of the line to be coming from overhead going down the pole, but are not as familiar with the underground side going up the pole being the live side. There are many 'holes' in this excuse, but that is just what I've been told by Duke.

[ArchiCLT]

We talk about the realities of burying poles, but Duke Energy has no problem at all repairing the same poles over and over again numerous times per year following fatal car accidents. Multiple-times per year, some car snaps a pole in half along South Blvd and power goes out to thousands. It's been documented in the South End Midrise thread. Fortunately, ice storms aren't as common here anymore.

Duke Energy has no problem leaving thousands of their poles 1 inch off the back of curb along busy roads with already-narrow lanes - as if that's acceptable urban design? That's a problem in itself.  There has to be a better solution in fast-urbanizing areas.

As an architect, I can't tell you how many projects we opt to use the final rendering for marketing because the the power lines make the completed photos look terrible. Thank goodness for Photoshop.

I say all this as Duke/Asplundh just trenched my backyard this week to absolutely-butcher trees along our rear fence line under a power line. They left tree debris everywhere for several days until we called and complained.

Edited January 7, 2022 by theronhobbs
typo

[RANYC]

32 minutes ago, theronhobbs said:

We talk about the realities of burying poles, but Duke Energy has no problem at all repairing the same poles over and over again numerous times per year following fatal car accidents. Multiple-times per year, some car snaps a pole in half along South Blvd and power goes out to thousands. It's been documented in the South End Midrise thread. Fortunately, ice storms aren't as common here anymore.

Duke Energy has no problem leaving thousands of their poles 1 inch off the back of curb along busy roads with already-narrow lanes - as if that's acceptable urban design? That's a problem in itself.  There has to be a better solution in fast-urbanizing areas.

As an architect, I can't tell you how many projects we opt to use the final rendering for marketing because the the power lines make the completed photos look terrible. Thank goodness for Photoshop.

I say all this as Duke/Asplundh just trenched my backyard this week to absolutely-butcher trees along our rear fence line under a power line. They left tree debris everywhere for several days until we called and complained.

Is there room for the Planning Department to coordinate with Duke on the UDO?  If the UDO can talk about all sorts of  "placements" in the built environment, surely it should contemplate placement of utilities?  If UDO is going to increase densification, that's going to look really ugly if something isn't figured out with the lines.

[jjwilli]

You end up with situations like this down S Tryon where all the utilities have been “dumped” on the residential side of the street from the South End developments. 

 

[SouthEndCLT811]

11 hours ago, theronhobbs said:

We talk about the realities of burying poles, but Duke Energy has no problem at all repairing the same poles over and over again numerous times per year following fatal car accidents. Multiple-times per year, some car snaps a pole in half along South Blvd and power goes out to thousands. It's been documented in the South End Midrise thread. Fortunately, ice storms aren't as common here anymore.

Duke Energy has no problem leaving thousands of their poles 1 inch off the back of curb along busy roads with already-narrow lanes - as if that's acceptable urban design? That's a problem in itself.  There has to be a better solution in fast-urbanizing areas.

As an architect, I can't tell you how many projects we opt to use the final rendering for marketing because the the power lines make the completed photos look terrible. Thank goodness for Photoshop.

I say all this as Duke/Asplundh just trenched my backyard this week to absolutely-butcher trees along our rear fence line under a power line. They left tree debris everywhere for several days until we called and complained.

Here's a "favorite" where the damaged pole is still hanging behind the new pole at the corner of Clanton/Tryon

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1960994,-80.8769693,3a,51.6y,189.19h,96.37t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAv7BwCXW1k2tvBWWb9gGGg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192