Urban Apartment Boom (Raleigh)

[CHGuy]

Edison Office.

[Jones_]

Edison Office....the Hobby site is that old copy center behind what is now Beasleys....it would face the Edison Office building

[Jones_]

Tower crane at Link. Fifth floor at Elan. 

[Jones_]

And we have an Elan rendering http://www.elanapts.com/apartments/nc

Apparently they don't know the difference between the Raleigh and Charlotte skylines but hey beggers can't be choosers I suppose...

[RALNATIVE]

What is the location of Elan?

[Jones_]

Next to the State Government complex along Wilmington St. 

[Jones_]

The fencing is up around the Gramercy site. Demo should start any day now...

I believe the only apartments not moving are West I and II though there has been a fence around the West Condos sales parking lot for a while now. 

 

After a flurry of proposals it seems like there has been a lull...I suppose the developers are also wondering of things are overbuilt...? I'm curious...

[orulz]

Gramercy just got their "overhead protection" permit last friday, 9/19. I'm not entirely sure what this is, but I would guess that this has to do with the city requiring them to keep the sidewalks open during construction. The Ale House building under construction has shipping containers arranged end-to-end in the on-street parking spaces to act as a pedestrian tunnel for example.

[InitialD]

Lincoln apartments:

[Justin6882]

...inspired design.

[DanRNC]

Keep it square!

[Jones_]

To be fair, there is a lot more relief to the project than can be seen here....decent sized court yard facing Polk St, some recessed porches, some protruding porches. It'll be a noisy interior like The Wade and resemble Tucker or Wade on the outside, which I think will register somewhere between "fine" and "meh" for most people. 

 

Edit! crap. I thought I was looking at Elan when it said very clearly Lincoln right in the post. Apologies. Drinking and posting again....

Edited October 1, 2014 by Jones_

[InitialD]

Came across some more photos of Lincoln construction online:

Source: http://bannerupdates.com/2014/09/30/making-our-mark-in-raleigh-nc-construction-of-the-lincoln-continues/

[Euphorius]

Rendering for Gramercy from TBJ. It looks like the Edison. This is a pretty typical JDavis "design."http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/real-estate/2014/10/demolition-begins-for-6-story-apartment-building.html?s=image_gallery

[Green_man]

I don't think it looks anything like the Edison.  More like 401 Oberlin to me.  Yes, it's nondescript, but I think of it as no worse, and maybe even slightly better than 222 Glenwood.

[RALNATIVE]

To me, all of these apartment buildings currently going up look very similar in design. I'm having a hard time distinguishing any of them. Needless to say that Raleigh developers have a lack of creativity when it comes to designing residential and commercial buildings. I guess that the old adage is true...build it and they will come.

[Green_man]

I get that it might be a boring look, but my reaction is "who cares?".   It's a 6-story building.  Is there a reason people want this building to be architecturally unique?  Something specific about this site?  I don't get it.  6-story buildings are filler buildings.  It will serve its purpose of adding residential density and add ground floor retail and active uses along the strip where there was none before.  If it was a 8, 10, 12+ floor building, then yea I could understand the concern.

[Spatula]

The problem isn't that it is not unique, the problem is that it doesn't look good. 2604 Hillsborough looks good. Bloomsbury Estates looks good. And in Durham the Liberty Warehouse apartments look good as well. My favorite though is 132 Hunt Street in Durham. The point of all this is that buildings at this scale can be attractive and contribute significantly to the character of the city. This is the sort of architecture I'd like to see more of in Downtown Raleigh.

[orulz]

I updated the top page of this post. To me it blows my mind the percentage of projects this cycle that have actually gotten built (or are at least moving in that direction.)

 

Among the stalled projects, I hope that West Apartments goes back to the drawing board. They should allow Tucker Street to be extended between West and Harrington, and include more retail.

[Jones_]

Looks like 401 Oberlin and Crescent had a baby to me. Every area of the country seems to have its recurring style....Portland for instance seems to have this modern industrial look fused with a soft back to nature look. Not unlike some things in Durham. The Raleigh style is owned by J Davis and is a well built, unoffensive look. I am a little tired of it...especially when I see things I like much better when traveling around, but if we are at the stage of downtown development where fillers are getting filled by people who are not picky, then so be it I suppose. I am still excited, as orulz points out, that so many of the proposals went forward this go-round. The critical mass for daily living retail stuff (grocery store, retail clothing etc) seems like I could survive on the population this round is bringing. 

[Euphorius]

I guess I'm the only one who thinks it looks like Edison. I don't get it from the caddy cornered end at the SE corner, but I really do see a resemblance on the North St facing side.

[Jones_]

I don't know why this didn't occur to me before...if its even interesting to anyone else...but when standing in Moore Square (was near Longview Center) you can actually see Lincoln apartments rising above Moes Diner. Makes it feel less way out in east downtown and more like its part of the Skyhouse and Edison area. 

[InitialD]

Elan apartments

Source: https://twitter.com/trianglexplorer/status/519944099865309184

[Jones_]

Hey....that photog is like a floor or two below me....

[InitialD]

The L dorms (at least that what it looks like) from atop Citrix: