Downtown Raleigh Home Tour 2009

[paletexan]

Hey all,

Thanks to everyone who particpated in Big Ideas week, we are working on a publication to showcase the best ideas and themes.

If you are looking for something to do this Saturday, the Department of City Planning UDC will be hosting a Downtown Tour of Homes from 11am to 5pm. Tickets are $10 and can be picked up at the UDC on Fayetteville Street. This is your chance to see condos/apartments/show units in over 20 projects on one day!! Please join us...the weather is looking good.

For more information: www.raleighdowntownliving.com

Thanks Dan

[ChiefJoJo]

Here's some coverage of the home tour.

[ncwebguy]

We had company most of Saturday afternoon, so couldn't go on the tour, but the weather was perfect for it. With the under construction to open units ratio, I didn't leave the wife alone with her friends.

I walked by the house around the corner from mine, #5, but for some reason it was taken off the tour. It would have been a good chance for people to see the improvements made on the east side of downtown. And that "downtown" isn't automatically out of the majority of peoples' price range. But that takes away from the mindshare for certain real estate agents, so it gets left out of the downtown living conversation. I noticed a couple groups of people with tour maps making the trip anyway. Maybe by next year's tour, there will be construction on the Gordon Smith/Woodpile apartments.

[RaleighRob]

^Yeah fortunately they do have Capital Apartments and I think the Prairie Building, but you're right---more of the inexpensive inventory should be on there too. I'll bet Tucker Apts might be included when they're built perhaps.

I think some of the 1930s apartments along Hillsborough and West Morgan might be interesting to tourgoers too...particularly the recent renovations at Boylan Apartments. (I can't believe how in only a month living here how many "Wow!"'s I get from visitors. )

[DPK]

I walked by the house around the corner from mine, #5, but for some reason it was taken off the tour.

[ERG]

#6, though, was an amazing, breathtaking home that i was glad to see. i hope it encouraged people that you can also buy a historic or just an older property and renovate it instead of buying a cookie-cutter-brand-new-apartment. some of the apts and condos on the tour seemed so poorly made and lacked any attention to detail. (in the construction/finishes)

[ncwebguy]

If the Cotton Mill and Pilot Mill houses are "downtown", then Boyaln Apartments are too! Prarieview is nice, but Carlton Place was right down the street from house #6 and Founder's Row, yet didn't make the tour. I've heard the market rate units are spoken for, so there isn't much incentive to let people in there I guess. It would be nice to check out those and units in the Paramount, Quorum Center, etc. but if they don't want to let people in, that is the owners' decision to make.

The N&O had a Q&A with Charleston's longtime mayor discussing the benefits of historical preservation as a way of creating a sense of place and increasing the value of land throughout the city. With the increased costs of supplies, the "costs" of preservations like house #6 will start to be cost effective.

It is a shame the builder for house #5 was not cooperative with the tour. It was/is one of the first projects of the Martin Street Baptist church's Community Development Corporation and another sign of the partnerships improving the neighborhood.

[DPK]

I will concur with #6, as it was one of my favorite places on the tour. I think the guy is a programmer for the NC Railroad or that's what a volunteer told me when I asked. That place is the ultimate bachelor pad. Did you check out the moving artwork on the walls? I want to know where he got those things. I was enthralled for like 10 mins trying to figure out how they worked without touching them.

[Jones_]

I thought very hard about buying that place but did not have the money to do that kind of renovation.

[paletexan]

The annual downtown home tour is this weekend, and i will be volunteering for the 4th year now. It has grown each year in both attendance and units to show as downtown residential projects get completed. It will be interested to hear about the figures this year given the downturn, and i'll share them once i get them.

http://www.godowntownraleigh.com/RaleighDo...iving/index.htm

Anyone else planning to attend?

[ChiefJoJo]

This was my first DTR home tour and I'm glad I attended. I visited Bloomsbury, 222, Dawson, West, RBC, Palladium, Quorum, Founders Row, Dawson, & Hue. It's clear that for the first time in decades, there is now a wide variety of places to live downtown. Among the units I saw, if I could stitch together my perfect condo it would be the courtyard and greenery at Founders Row, the floor to ceiling windows & wow factor at RBC, the location of Hue, common area detailing of Bloomsbury, and the interior of Quorum. Of course I already knew the architecture is all off-the-shelf JDavis or other some other uninspiring designs. I didn't tour 510 Glenwood, but it's probably my favorite condo building in terms of urban design... but it's not fantastic. I think we're all still waiting for that one.