Skyhouse Apartments

[Jones_]

Auger piles going in today. They sure were ready to start as soon as the permit was issued. 

[orulz]

According to the N&O, official groundbreaking is December 4th even though it's obviously already been underway for a while.

 

Does anybody know if the building permits cover the 13-story office building as well as the apartment tower?

[CHGuy]

The permits just cover the apartment tower.  The office building will be permitted separately.

[RALNATIVE]

Skyhouse Raleigh in 12 months??? That's an incredible development timeline for a project this size...

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2013/12/04/12-month-timer-starts-for-23-story.html

[OTSpazz]

Looks like the base of the crane has finally arrived onsite.  Hopefully we will see the crane rise before Christmas. 

[RALNATIVE]

I rode by the site yesterday and noticed that the crane was up. They are moving very fast with this project. With their plan to deliver this by year's end I'd expect to see the activity level substantially picking up next month. 

[Jones_]

More than just that, about half the first floor columns are poured. It'll top out by mid summer. I watched Progress 2 go up every day back around 2002 and was amazed at how fast this all happens. First floor systems are going in by about the time the main structure is half way up. Columns get poured essentially every day. Curtain wall started before it topped out. I would recommend making frequent stops to check it out if interested in this sort of thing. 

[DCMetroRaleigh]

what? finished by the end of the year? I want to see how they do it.

[NikOnder]

This will be a nice addition for Raeligh and, assuming they get parking and retail right, should promote rapid growth in the area as well. I am glad to see that there are plans to have ground level retail, a must for  spurring street activity. Can someone explain the parking with this one for an out of towner? I haven't really found many details. I'm assuming it is not going to be underground?

[Jones_]

They are making a physical resident/pedestrian connection to the City built parking deck in the center of the block and I think making arrangements for a long term lease for a block of the spaces. The City specifically built the deck in support of the original Edison concept which has now of course been reduced in scope to a degree. 

[NikOnder]

I see, that sounds like a clever use of resources. What is the status of the Edison project now? I can tell you that a project like that will cause development to snowball big time in the surrounding area. We are going through a big construction boom in Nashville right now with the completion of the Music City Center, new high rise apartment tower and luxury hotel proposals are popping up at almost a weekly basis now. I have family in Raleigh and have considered relocating, but I've really enjoyed being a part of the active urban renewal in Nashville. I hope it happens soon for RaIeigh, too, and I think once the Skyhouse is built that will be the start of an exciting new period of development for Raleigh, it will be fun to watch.

[Nraleighman]

I see, that sounds like a clever use of resources. What is the status of the Edison project now? I can tell you that a project like that will cause development to snowball big time in the surrounding area. We are going through a big construction boom in Nashville right now with the completion of the Music City Center, new high rise apartment tower and luxury hotel proposals are popping up at almost a weekly basis now. I have family in Raleigh and have considered relocating, but I've really enjoyed being a part of the active urban renewal in Nashville. I hope it happens soon for RaIeigh, too, and I think once the Skyhouse is built that will be the start of an exciting new period of development for Raleigh, it will be fun to watch.

This was the original Edison project with four towers on one city block. It was two 39 story towers at about 575ft and two 29 story towers. The whole project was canceled due to the economy. Now the "Edison project" is the Skyhouse, Edison office tower and Edison apartments. The Skyhouse is about 260ft 23 story apartment tower. Edison office tower is going to get built right in between Skyhouse and PNC tower standing at about 225ft, 13 stories. The Edison apartments is going to be built on the other side of the parking deck. Edison apartments are only going to be a 7 stories hoping for a grocery store on ground floor. With Publix announcing yesturday they are interested building a store in downtown. hmmmmmmm Picture below is Edison apartments.

Edison Office tower

 

Yes and Raleigh is about to be in a building boom. Skyhouse as you know broke ground in December. Another project called the L Building broke ground last month too. L Building is only going to be 7 stories high. Charter Square south tower is going to break ground next month. Its going to sit at about 215ft and 11 story LEED office tower. Residence inn is going to start soon and its a 11 story LEED hotel. Yea a LEED hotel kinda cool. There is another project no one is really aware of yet. Let me share with everyone. Its going to be a 9 story hilton garden hotel built next to the L building where the tire shop is. In the glennwood south area there is a 8 story apartment building that has been under construction for about a year. There is another 6 story apartment building called "The link" going up soon in the glennwood south area as well. There is a three story restaurant that broke ground about a month ago in the glennwood south area.  In the warehouse district Critrix is under construction. Old warehouse being turned into an office building at 4 stories. Just a little fill in for you about Raleigh's projects.

[Jones_]

I would say ours has been happening steadily since around 2001 or so with the first murmurs being in the mid/late 90's. There is a combination of local guys doing new and rehab stuff and some out of State firms dropping some new buildings and very recently some bigger headquarters locating downtown (big by our standards anyway. Our downtown is not as large as Nashville but I think it may actually achieve an 'all things to all people' vibe by being both, neighborhood-ish, large office environment, and a good amount of nightlife spanning all genres. Edison fills a gap sort of, between an old City designated redevelopment area called City Market, and where things started happening on their own the last decade. Edison started out being marketed as a 4 office tower development with the tallest to be 40-ish. It has been cut about in half to with Skyhouse apartments at 23 stories (NE corner of the block), Edison apartments at 7 stories I think, spanning the southern end of the block and the NE corner yet to be announced but likely a talked about 11 story office tower. This is east of our main downtown axis, Fayetteville Street, which east of becomes residential rapidly. West of Fayetteville is more thoroughly mixed in use for several blocks before it becomes mostly neighborhoods. Within those mixed blocks two 11 story ish hotels were mentioned in today's paper (one more certain one more 'envisioned') close to our new convention center, as well as an apartment building wrapping a parking deck being under construction and Citrix's headquarters going up. Edison probably won't be a catalyst as much as it is part of a uniform growing of our downtown from many angles. I follow an Instagram account called RDUBaton and through it you could see that many many people who moved here and fell in love with it (the baton/account holder switches daily) and share pictures of their favorite places around town if you were interested. 

[DanRNC]

With all the new developments going on, has there been any talk of rehabbing the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel building? Even with the Residence Inn proposed, downtown still lacks sufficient hotel rooms, especially of a boutique nature. Would make sense for this building. Also, what is the deal with City Market-its hard to believe they can't get something in that space?

[RALNATIVE]

This was the original Edison project with four towers on one city block. It was two 39 story towers at about 575ft and two 29 story towers. The whole project was canceled due to the economy. Now the "Edison project" is the Skyhouse, Edison office tower and Edison apartments. The Skyhouse is about 260ft 23 story apartment tower. Edison office tower is going to get built right in between Skyhouse and PNC tower standing at about 225ft, 13 stories. The Edison apartments is going to be built on the other side of the parking deck. Edison apartments are only going to be a 7 stories hoping for a grocery store on ground floor. With Publix announcing yesturday they are interested building a store in downtown. hmmmmmmm Picture below is Edison apartments.

Edison Office tower

 

Yes and Raleigh is about to be in a building boom. Skyhouse as you know broke ground in December. Another project called the L Building broke ground last month too. L Building is only going to be 7 stories high. Charter Square south tower is going to break ground next month. Its going to sit at about 215ft and 11 story LEED office tower. Residence inn is going to start soon and its a 11 story LEED hotel. Yea a LEED hotel kinda cool. There is another project no one is really aware of yet. Let me share with everyone. Its going to be a 9 story hilton garden hotel built next to the L building where the tire shop is. In the glennwood south area there is a 8 story apartment building that has been under construction for about a year. There is another 6 story apartment building called "The link" going up soon in the glennwood south area as well. There is a three story restaurant that broke ground about a month ago in the glennwood south area.  In the warehouse district Critrix is under construction. Old warehouse being turned into an office building at 4 stories. Just a little fill in for you about Raleigh's projects.

 

I hadn't heard anything about a HGI coming to downtown, so I did a little digging and found this article:

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/print-edition/2013/12/06/raleigh-rising-high.html

 

It does indicate that an HGI is planned (most likely next to the "L"). It also indicates that the Edison tower will be 16 stories, not 13 stories.

[Euphorius]

That article says downtown towers are capped at 40 stories. I thought there weren't any caps on building size in downtown except in the historic areas. If that is true, it's pretty booger. I'm all for more retail and a great street level experience, but, as I have said in other threads, I'm sick of these Eastern Bloc apartment buildings. People can harp all they want to about how the skyline doesn't make the city, and to an extent they are right, but the skyline is the calling card of the city. Why does our entire downtown have to be a bunch of mid rise buildings with little to no character? There are plenty of areas in downtown where these smaller buildings could be built. The core of downtown should be reserved for high rise buildings. Even though Skyhouse is the epitome of copy and paste architecture, at least it isn't a squatty, blocky mid rise building taking up a prime location.

[DCMetroRaleigh]

Beyond DC, why would any city have a height limit in its center city? Sounds Bama to me.

[RALNATIVE]

The reason is it's what some of the "natives" want. Some people in the area feel that Raleigh is "turning into NYC" with all of the tall buildings and they don't want to see that happening. It's basically the status quo argument. Essentially, they have pushed the city to limit building heights over the years and won.

 

Fortunately, progress cannot be halted and as Raleigh continues to grow and experience economic success, I do see things changing.

[NikOnder]

That article says downtown towers are capped at 40 stories. I thought there weren't any caps on building size in downtown except in the historic areas. If that is true, it's pretty booger. I'm all for more retail and a great street level experience, but, as I have said in other threads, I'm sick of these Eastern Bloc apartment buildings. People can harp all they want to about how the skyline doesn't make the city, and to an extent they are right, but the skyline is the calling card of the city. Why does our entire downtown have to be a bunch of mid rise buildings with little to no character? There are plenty of areas in downtown where these smaller buildings could be built. The core of downtown should be reserved for high rise buildings. Even though Skyhouse is the epitome of copy and paste architecture, at least it isn't a squatty, blocky mid rise building taking up a prime location.

 

Nashville actually has this problem, too. With the exception of the AT&T building, there are no towers that reach 500ft. Some people call it the invisible ceiling effect. There's been a couple proposals that would fall in the 500-700 range, but at this point nothing has broken ground. I think Raleigh is in a unique position because it basically will be able to have some consistency and quality control, for lack of a better word, in what kind of buildings get built in the coming boom. One of the things I think that holds back Nashvilles skyline is the number of dated buildings that are still very prominent. With the exception of the up and coming SoBro area, virtually all of Nashville's high rises were built in the 80's or earlier and in slow construction waves over several decades. It reflects in the sort of hodge-podge look in the CBD. I think Raleigh will eventually look more like Charlotte or maybe Austin. Not that anyone should aspire to copycat another city, but for what it's worth I think Charlotte has the most attractive skyline in the Southeast, and one of the better ones in the country.

 

At any rate, sorry to derail. If Skyhouse reaches nearly 300ft, that's definitely not shabby.  Even if it's not super tall, anything over 250ft will still look pretty prominent in the skyline, especially given the flat terrain. That goes for the Edison office tower, too. I gotta say, those original renderings were pretty darn sexy, though.

[NikOnder]

Beyond DC, why would any city have a height limit in its center city? Sounds Bama to me.

 

I know, at least in Nashville, there are some limitations in order to preserve visibility of the capitol building. I wonder if something like that might be the case in Raleigh as well?

[Jones_]

A 40 story cap is silly. I am a big proponent of street level life but putting standards in place for whatever proposal you get is how you handle that not by capping heights. Demand good materials, especially at street level. Demand loading docks be kept off certain streets. I prefer to keep the tallest buildings away from the historic areas to preserve the best street experience in those areas so would prefer to see a 60 story building say on the Berkley block or the just announced HGI block for instance. Were I around 25 years ago I would have fought hard to keep the Edison block 100% intact historicaly and all tall buildings out of the Morgan/Davie/McDowell/Person box with the aim of having tall clusters around Memorial and along Hillsborough St. The Sanders automotive buildings were the entire east half of the Edison block (of which Artspace was part of across Blount St) and would have been the best urban lofts in the region.The Capitol is part of the city designated Capital Square Historic District and as such any proposals in the area get reviewed with a lens towards preserving the overall feel of the district, which may include the view, shadows etc. 

[Nraleighman]

I hadn't heard anything about a HGI coming to downtown, so I did a little digging and found this article:

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/print-edition/2013/12/06/raleigh-rising-high.html

 

It does indicate that an HGI is planned (most likely next to the "L"). It also indicates that the Edison tower will be 16 stories, not 13 stories.

That's weird the site plans on Raleigh's website says 13 stories. I know there were some issues with parking spots. I heard rumors they might inclued couple floors for a parking deck.

[Green_man]

All this talk about the 40 floor cap is moot anyway.  When was the last time something was proposed at 40 floors (indicating that they were held back from going taller)?  My recollection is never.  What if someone proposed a 60 floor building?  Twice as tall as the next tallest would look pretty strange.  On the other hand, say a developer wants to build a 42 story building... I guarantee that if it met all the other requirements from the city, it would be approved.

 

I don't even know why we are talking about this.  A hypothetical cap on hypothetical buildings.

[orulz]

Agreed. The political establishment in Raleigh is so developer-friendly that if a developer came along wanting to build a 50 story building, I am sure council would not turn it down.

 

Perhaps this just means in practice that buildings over 40 stories can't be built without a special exception granted by council. Perhaps council would just try to extract a few more concessions or something.

[Euphorius]

All this talk about the 40 floor cap is moot anyway.  When was the last time something was proposed at 40 floors (indicating that they were held back from going taller)?  My recollection is never. 

 

The Reynolds tower was supposed to be 42 stories at one point. I think One Glenwood was to supposed to have a similar floor count.