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Planning for a new downtown arena


Subway Scoundrel

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Lake Shore Drive in Chicago used to tunnel under a convention center there before they moved it and started the New Soldier's Field project. Though "terrorism" may nix any "road under public gathering spaces" ideas, it would be pretty cool to "bridge" Capitol with an arena from south of Peace to the McDowell/Dawson merge. That puts it near Glenwood South but eats up little land there *and* becomes accessible from both sides of Capitol -- the state government parking decks for the tailgaters and office workers from F Street, and the Glenwood South side for the hotels/bars/restaurants/condo residents crowd.

As for the west side of Raleigh Memorial, PSE&G has offices at the end of Kindly. I don't know if gas pipelines make the area bound by the tracks, McDowell and MLK unfit for redevlopment. But if they don't have to be there for operational purposes, an arena there could spur development south of MLK and west of Dawson, though the rising downtown and convention center may do that on its own in the next few years.

Since this is UrbanPlanet.org, I think it makes sense to think about how to incorporate a sports arena into the downtown street grid instead of a paved over field closer to downtown Cary (though also the rest of the Triangle) than Raleigh's CBD. Or is it ok for Durham to keep the Bulls downtown but it is wrong of Raleigh to want the Hurricanes to be anywhere near their downtown? And the idea of moving people along the tracks from the multimodal center to the convention center via trolley was mentioned in some of the charettes for redevloping the city's parcels near the CC and Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, since they own land under the tracks near McDowell and South.

The fact that the Devils and Nets will soon play somewhere other than East Rutherford is a sign that the Meadowlands site (google maps) was not healthy for two pro sports franchises. Even the MLS's New York Red Bull are moving, but that is because they want a soccer-only stadium.

When in north NJ, did you ride on the Paramus bus system? The Newark light rail? The Patterson trolley? The Maywood bus? The Hackensack train? No, you rode on the New Jersey transit system. Those towns, to say nothing of the small towns along the 4, 17, 208, I-80 and other highway corridors could NOT support seperate, unconnected transit services.

Yet that is where the Triangle is right now, a network of barely connected networks -- CH Transit, DATA, Duke U buses, C-Tran, Wolfline, CAT, and TTA. But that is changing. To say we "need" mass transit is foolish since it is already here. We need better connected transit, but that is another argument.

As for homless people in "every green space", I've never seen anyone sleeping on Capitol Square. Nash Square doesn't see too many homless people at night since police HQ is across the street. There is some traffic after the Good Sheppard's soup kitchen a couple of blocks to the north, but it isn't a problem. Shaw has a fair amount of green space, yet I've never seen homeless people sleeping there either. I walked all over downtown from 6:30 to 8:30 last night taking pictures and was only approached for money once, on Wilmington just south of Martin. Well twice if you count the drink I bought a minute earlier at City Mart, but that was to be expected. If I looked homeless, I apologize. But I didn't ask anyone for money.

No one on the steps in front of the Wake County Courthouse or the benches of what will be City Square. Some "homeless" people near there were spending the night in the Sheraton, but I don't think of them as a problem. People wouldn't sleep in City Market if the old Greenshields building had a tenant, but that is a property managment issue. I'm going to stop asking for a solution, since the "more people downtown" plan seems to be working.

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I gotta say that everytime they showed arial views of the RBC last weekend my reaction was always they same, "what a horrible place to go see a game" (based solely on the sea of parking which isolates the arena).

This is precisely the opposite reaction that three people behind me and I all had when they showed the blimp views on the JumboTron.

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Lake Shore Drive in Chicago used to tunnel under a convention center there before they moved it and started the New Soldier's Field project. Though "terrorism" may nix any "road under public gathering spaces" ideas, it would be pretty cool to "bridge" Capitol with an arena from south of Peace to the McDowell/Dawson merge. That puts it near Glenwood South but eats up little land there *and* becomes accessible from both sides of Capitol -- the state government parking decks for the tailgaters and office workers from F Street, and the Glenwood South side for the hotels/bars/restaurants/condo residents crowd.

As for the west side of Raleigh Memorial, PSE&G has offices at the end of Kindly. I don't know if gas pipelines make the area bound by the tracks, McDowell and MLK unfit for redevlopment. But if they don't have to be there for operational purposes, an arena there could spur development south of MLK and west of Dawson, though the rising downtown and convention center may do that on its own in the next few years.

Since this is UrbanPlanet.org, I think it makes sense to think about how to incorporate a sports arena into the downtown street grid instead of a paved over field closer to downtown Cary (though also the rest of the Triangle) than Raleigh's CBD. Or is it ok for Durham to keep the Bulls downtown but it is wrong of Raleigh to want the Hurricanes to be anywhere near their downtown? And the idea of moving people along the tracks from the multimodal center to the convention center via trolley was mentioned in some of the charettes for redevloping the city's parcels near the CC and Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, since they own land under the tracks near McDowell and South.

The fact that the Devils and Nets will soon play somewhere other than East Rutherford is a sign that the Meadowlands site (google maps) was not healthy for two pro sports franchises. Even the MLS's New York Red Bull are moving, but that is because they want a soccer-only stadium.

When in north NJ, did you ride on the Paramus bus system? The Newark light rail? The Patterson trolley? The Maywood bus? The Hackensack train? No, you rode on the New Jersey transit system. Those towns, to say nothing of the small towns along the 4, 17, 208, I-80 and other highway corridors could NOT support seperate, unconnected transit services.

Yet that is where the Triangle is right now, a network of barely connected networks -- CH Transit, DATA, Duke U buses, C-Tran, Wolfline, CAT, and TTA. But that is changing. To say we "need" mass transit is foolish since it is already here. We need better connected transit, but that is another argument.

As for homless people in "every green space", I've never seen anyone sleeping on Capitol Square. Nash Square doesn't see too many homless people at night since police HQ is across the street. There is some traffic after the Good Sheppard's soup kitchen a couple of blocks to the north, but it isn't a problem. Shaw has a fair amount of green space, yet I've never seen homeless people sleeping there either. I walked all over downtown from 6:30 to 8:30 last night taking pictures and was only approached for money once, on Wilmington just south of Martin. Well twice if you count the drink I bought a minute earlier at City Mart, but that was to be expected. If I looked homeless, I apologize. But I didn't ask anyone for money.

No one on the steps in front of the Wake County Courthouse or the benches of what will be City Square. Some "homeless" people near there were spending the night in the Sheraton, but I don't think of them as a problem. People wouldn't sleep in City Market if the old Greenshields building had a tenant, but that is a property managment issue. I'm going to stop asking for a solution, since the "more people downtown" plan seems to be working.

The Newark Subway from Belleville to downtown Newark, Uh Yes I rode it. NJ transit went many many places.

Look I am on YOUR SIDE . I just see mistakes being made that were made in the Northeast. Suburban sprawl, heck SE Raleigh is still a troubled area, even walmart decided not to build. Downtowns all over the country need a real infusion of money and ideas.

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This is precisely the opposite reaction that three people behind me and I all had when they showed the blimp views on the JumboTron.

I agree. I thought it was OK but it would have been better if he said something like "you know Raleigh is called a Park with a city inside" Because as we all know, there are a lot of trees in this city.

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Assuming that the RBC Center has another 15 years of viability, the area around the arena will look drastically different by then. I'm sure more entertainment options will exist by then.

In 15 years, who knows what will be available in downtown and what transit options will exist either. It is fun to speculate, because Raleigh should have pressed harder for a DT arena in the first place. Shoulda, woulda, coulda...

The best option now is to concentrate on the development around RBC and worry about a replacement in another decade. Handover the reigns to NC State and the Centennial Authority in 15 years. Concentrate on a new arena in 2018. Who knows if the Canes will even be around then. Here's hoping...

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  • 3 weeks later...

I think that the area around Peace and Capital is probably the best as far as immediate potential. With an improved Capital Blvd. (which I think needs improvements anyways), the area has potential for high density while also providing fairly good access to the arena from I-440. Cars (fans) will take whatever way they think is fastest, but trucks will take what provides the best access. If built right trucks could enter/exit straight from/onto capital and not have to enter the downtown grid. The area between the tracks, from Johnson St. to Wake Forest Road (in my opinion) is ripe for major redevelopment anyways, in addition to the areas bounding Capital northward to the Beltline.

I also like the idea of south of Downtown near Wilmington St. This idea takes more imagination though because there is little development there or connectivity to Downtown Proper. Again, will the proper vision, the blank slate could be transformed into huge economic stimulator for areas south of Downtown, with better housing. The connectivity here is already pretty good.

(If anything this area should definitely be redeveloped. The land I would suspect wouldn't cost too much and the large tracts of land leaves the possibility for single family homes. If done right, could be amazing.)

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What connectivity? There are two roads accessing the area. How is that any advantage over the current RBC location?

Maybe my statement was too general. The RBC Center location can't be beat as far as its position in the Triangle region, and its accessibility to expressways leading in every direction. When I said the connectivity in the S. Wilmington Street area was pretty good, a more accurate summarization of my thoughts would have been: Even though there is no direct access to I-40 and little connections to S. Saunders and Hammond Rd., the location of the area as well as the sparse development make it a good candidate for new but less invasive roads, providing moderately good connectivity to the area.

The main con of this area, and any one side of downtown is that there isn't an expressway running north and south through downtown, instead we have the Beltline. This, I believe is the reason why the RBC Center is where it is today, next to highways, which is not possible in Raleigh's downtown. In Charlotte, its downtown has its own interstate loop meaning that there is fairly easy access to the arenas (Bobcats and Panther's).

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  • 2 weeks later...

There was a piece on the WTVD's Sunday news program about moving the RBC Center downtown. It was acknowledged that the RBC Center has a life span of 20-25 years and many forces in town want a new arena DT instead of upgrading RBC after this period. They had conceded that the RBC Center has been a massive failure in leading to redevelopment of west Raleigh and probably never should have built there.

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  • 3 weeks later...

NCSU will never leave the RBC center, because they own the land and their football stadium is next door. the hurricanes could eventually leave to a DT arena though. This would be expensive for them and since they are operating in the red already, not likely. unless the city/county invest a huge chunk again. it is possible for a compact arena, ie. Newark(Prudential) built, to work downtown. it would reduce the price tag somewhat and would allow the RBC center to still exist. still, can two 15000+ arenas exist in Raleigh? one will suffer for sure.

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  • 1 year later...

Raleigh's RBC Center turns 10 next month. Believe it or not, it's time to start planning the sports arena's replacement -- it's almost middle-aged.

http://www.northraleighnews.com/columns/ma...story/1341.html

City officials envision two general locations for our next arena: either between downtown and Dix Hill, near the Boylan Heights neighborhood, or off South Saunders Street near Interstate 40.

The former would link to future rail transit and do more for our existing downtown, while the latter would provide faster highway access and help pull downtown south.

So it looks like we're just starting to begin the planning stages of a new arena. Personally I'd rather see it in the Dix/Boylan area closer to downtown, but that's just me. What do you think will happen to the old one in 10+ years when the RBC Center is replaced? Transfer ownership to State? Carter Finley is over there already, perhaps NCSU could see this as an opportunity to start building out their campus more around that area since commercial development doesn't appear to be working very well out there. Just rambling on my part, but interesting to me none the less.

At the northeast corner of the Dix property where Western Blvd meets Saunders, could be a possibility. You'd have connection to both of those main thoroughfares and you wouldn't be ripping down any homes. The only problem I can see is Boylan residents raising a stink about noise on game nights. However if planned correctly I feel that noise could be reduced considerably. I'm not a sound engineer, but I'd imagine there'd be some pretty cool advances in tech in the next 10 years that could help with a problem like this.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&am...013937&z=17

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I'm not sure what these buildings are, but I'd try to squeeze it in here: Near Progress Energy Center

You'd have the tracks on one side to worry about, but it's near the convention center and the performing arts center. Maybe too much together.

I believe those buildings belong to the NCAE (North Carolina Association of Educators). While I agree it'd be great to have it so close to the convention center and the progress energy center, it'd be a logistical nightmare for traffic when a game got out. Unless you could somehow get a dedicated exit/flyover/under to South Dawson/Saunders and Western Blvd. You somehow need to get traffic to those two main corridors, I don't care where you stick an arena, but you absolutely need an "easy out" for traffic.

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I would love to see it down by Red Roof Inn. Arenas are huge disruptions to existing neighborhoods, and the I-40 South Saunders area is already graded for a business park that never really got built

I too feel that this area is perfect for an arena. It would be an even better fit for a baseball stadium.

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I too feel that this area is perfect for an arena. It would be an even better fit for a baseball stadium.

I don't think you'll see a baseball stadium. I think someone told me league regulations prevent one or some bs because of the proximity to the Durham Bulls. Could be wrong, but I swear that distance was a factor, which is why the Carolina Mudcats are out all the way past Zebulon and not closer to Raleigh.

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I'm not sure what these buildings are, but I'd try to squeeze it in here: Near Progress Energy Center

You'd have the tracks on one side to worry about, but it's near the convention center and the performing arts center. Maybe too much together.

This area looks like a great place for a new arena....IMHO!

This Google Map shows the new Raleigh Civic Center, then just south is the parking deck, NCAE building,(partially underground), then the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce just south of that.

Now, if you look just to the west of the GRCC you'll see a building with a parking lot that sits on a bit of a hill? I remember seeing from a WRAL news show done a while back, some info that this is some sort of control facility for the Sharon Harris Nuc facility out in SW Wake county? Does anyone else have knowledge of this? :dontknow:

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Personally I think the idea that arenas should be replaced every 20 years is completely ridiculous. Huge waste of money. The RBC still feels new and modern enough - I can't think of any problems with it at all. If it were due for replacement say 25 years from now, then I hope a downtown location would be considered - somewhere in the MLK/McDowell/South/Salisbury block would be ideal, provided it doesn't all get developed before then.

The thing about downtown arenas is that you don't park at the arena itself. Parking does not have to be incorporated on-site. Instead, you park at the parking decks around the arena, which there are plenty of in that part of town. There are literally thousands upon thousands of superfluous parking spaces in that part of downtown that are largely empty even on weekdays and entirely deserted on weekends and evenings.

There's the underground deck at the convention center, the Progress Energy center deck, the one below 2 Progress Energy, the new one for the L building, the 2 Hanover and the Sheraton deck...

Also, the beauty of the downtown grid is that there are so many streets to absorb the traffic. The fact that the parking would be spread out across multiple decks in different locations, plus the fact that that there are so many major streets in the immediate vicinity, that it would probably handle the traffic even better than the RBC does right now.

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As a general rule, I would not call traditional arenas urban redevelopment catalysts, but some have succeeded nicely (when done right). You clearly have to differentiate football stadiums from multi-use arenas. A multi-use arena with perhaps 150 event days per year (basketball, hockey, concerts, special events, etc) could be a reasonably good economic development generator. But a typical football stadium is only used a handful of days per year. That's why the RBC Center essentially gets no boost from having Carter-Finley Stadium next door (not to mention the vast fields of state land and parking surrounding it). Then you consider that a football stadium takes up much more land, and that makes it a dog for an urban location. (At least in Charlotte, they put it over by the interstate).

It's obvious that in the rush to build an arena as cheaply as possible (using the state land for the RBC), the city/NCSU/Centennial authority made a mistake in putting the arena where they did. Still, I'm not in any rush to build a new one any time soon. IIRC, the RBC Center is good until 2034, so there's no rush. But...

I'm not sure what these buildings are, but I'd try to squeeze it in here: Near Progress Energy Center

You'd have the tracks on one side to worry about, but it's near the convention center and the performing arts center. Maybe too much together.

That's potentially a very good one... close enough to the grid for people to walk to/from retail/residential/parking decks but far enough to the south to not disturb the grid... maybe you could add a future special events transit station, a la Victory Station in Dallas?

I had previously put forward this site, but I favor the one rooster posted.

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I'm not sure what these buildings are, but I'd try to squeeze it in here: Near Progress Energy Center

You'd have the tracks on one side to worry about, but it's near the convention center and the performing arts center. Maybe too much together.

If it would end up in "the grid" thats a good spot, but in passing, I was under the impression it was not physically big enough..even for the building. There might be a way to incorporate splitting the Dawson/McDowell connector even wider, or somehow sitting the facility above it, but I don't have a good idea how much sense that makes on the reality meter.

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I prefer the blocks bounded by Cabarrus, Wilmington, South and Blount. That way it can use all the adjacent parking, help to create a new square (really underground parking with a park on top, bounded by Blount, Person, Cabarrus and Lenior) feed folks into City Plaza at the end of events and create a synergy with PEPAC, CC, Shaw and City Plaza. It also balances the draw of the CC with Fayetteville Street running right up the middle - feeding folks out on to it after events as well. See this link - for a drawing - http://www.sparkcon.com/2009/09/17/pecha-kucha/

douglas1.jpg

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