Jump to content

First Ward Urban Village / North Tryon Vision Plan


uptownliving

Recommended Posts

yes your sources are correct on it being a modern building, however it's more in the 10-13 story range.

Well Even MC quotes directly from the Chancellors letter, that the building will be in the 15 story range, not to mention the same is said by the architects of the building. So I guess we'll just have to wait 2 weeks to find out who is correct.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


This is great news in my opinion....with the smaller building footprint, hopefully the excess land will be used to extend the proposed park.

Also, at 175'-200', this will have a noticable impact on the skyline, considering how barren that area is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My heart was warmed when I heard that Kieran Timberlake would be the design architects for this project. I can personally take or leave Gant's work, though. KT's involvement gives me great hope that we are going to see an incredible piece of architecture.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The height information was given to me by someone at the university who told me that "the building is currently in the 15-story range". There's that word, "range". Maybe they were counting basement and mechanical levels. Either way, it will not be five stories nor will it look like that awful rendering put out about three years ago by UNCC. It will be LEED and it will be modern.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really appreciate that they are looking to go about 10 stories. That type of height and the amount of space inside will really help support much more activity in that area.

I've some rumors that UNCC is also looking at longer term plans for the land across 9th Street from their currently planned building. It is possible that with the taller building they plan for the first building, it would put off those ideas of getting control of adding new land to the mix. Given the emptiness of that area and the fact that it is obvious that major uptown employers would not even considering growing in this part of uptown, UNCC's choice to grow a miniature campus here is going to really create a significant base of activity in this area.

I hope that this project gets far enough along that CATS is allowed to use the project in their ridership modeling for the NE extension of the Blue Line. If it does turn out to be ~15 stories right next to a planned station, there could be a decent number of travelers between the main campus and the uptown campus.

While I'm not a design junkie, I must say that I am happy that this project will be more modern. That placeholder rendering they released a couple years ago was laughable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regardless of the height of this building, it will still be only about 150k sq. ft., as that is what they got approval from the board of regents and the legislature.

So, if you heard rumors of them looking at additional land, I wouldn't think the height would preclude them from moving forward if that truly was their intent.

It would be great if they had 2-3 buildings clustered there, hopefully with cafes/coffee bars, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I'm not a design junkie, I must say that I am happy that this project will be more modern. That placeholder rendering they released a couple years ago was laughable.

That rendering never had any power to it. It was just a place holder from a building rendering for the main campus. I totally agree on the impact of this, however. 10-15 stories for a university tower is going to bring a tremendous amount of people, not just students but for classes, seminars and workshops, jobs, and possibly summer camps and special events. The LYNX is going to provide the most brilliant connection for all of these people and make the two campuses feel connected. I can see a lot of people continuing to live in their apartments up in UCity and using this connection to get to jobs and grad classes in uptown since it's much more affordable. Also, since a good number of students already live without a car, this is going to truly promote an unnecessary means for having a car.

I wonder what they are considering in bringing uptown in a second building. Last I heard this current building was suppose to house some arts and finance graduate courses.

As far as the LEED certification, this should be expected by any state institution in today's time.

Edited by Andyc545
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's clear enough that Levine would rather the Treolar house just degrade to the point that it's unsalvageable. Maybe it would make more sense to just ask that some of the facades be moved elsewhere into whatever happens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is obvious at this point that Levine is intentionally following a course of demolition by neglect. It would have been better for the building had it remained a bailbondsman for an extra 5-10 years and at least the core of the building could have been maintained for that tenant.

We are now in a strange catch-22 where we obviously want something to happen on his land, but I really wish there would not be a dime of public money to help him do it. He has blatantly lied to the public about this and other plans for historic buildings on his land. The plain fact that the old CHA building has been able to be leased, so the excuses are thin as to why Treloar is not able to have been leased. It is now obvious that his statement that "we're close to leasing to a fresh food restaurant" is a blatant lie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

The Quad, that I had previously omitted. I dig the crescent-shaped brick step thingys.

post-1289-1216605742_thumb.jpg

In other Quarterside news, now that the siding is up on The Ledge (not the building in this photo), it looks horrible in the light beige. Can anyone confirm that they are planning to paint it dark grey as in the renderings. Right now, a building that I thought would turn our visually interesting would pass for a physician perscribed sedative.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The city is going to get a presentation this Monday about the general framework for the proposed 1st Ward Park, the public parking decks, and Levine's intial development.

The general plan is for the the block bound by 7th, 8th, Brevard, and LRT to be park (with Dixie's possibly staying???) and NO parking beneath the park. On the other side of 9th, the park will take up about half the block, with UNCC taking the corner of 9th and Brevard, and an unannounced mixed-use tower taking the corner of 9th and the LRT. There will be 435 underground spaces under the tower and a part of the park on this block.

Seperately, on the block bound by Brevard, Caldwell, 7th and 8th, there would be a 1,500 space parking deck wrapped by 525 residential units and 40,000 sq. ft. of retail.

The city would help finance 1,335 of the 1,935 total space, and these space would be to serve the public and UNCC, though Levine would retain control and receive revenues. 305 spaces of the 1,335 would be for UNCC.

The County would get the block containing Dixie's (which Levine owns) in exchange for the Caldwell, Brevard, 8th and 9th (which the county own).

Other notes of the plan. Market St. would get built on the West side of the LRT line between 7th and 9th. There is debate whether 8th would be closed through the park. The County and UNCC want is close to have a larger contiguous park, but the City wants it to remain open for street connectivity sake. The compromise looks like it will remain open, but be allowed to close for events and such.

^ I think 8th should be open but hardscaped to not really look like a street. Access could be controlled by bollards that are normally extended, but could retract during rush hour to allow for better traffic flow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My understanding is that Dixie's Tavern will remain but the buildings by 8th and the LRT tracks will come down.

They are also looking at taking the dirt dug up for the underground deck and using it to raise Brevard St between 9th and 7th so that it is level with the LRT tracks. This will take care of the current grade chage and will allow the park to be relatively level.

The 8th St closure is something up for debate. It comes down to the choice of having a nicer park that is not divided or sacrficing the park for a piece of the grid. Even if 8th St does end up closing there will be 3 new blocks of roads (2 blocks of Market St and 1 block of 10th St) added to the grid that don't exist today. So even if 8th is closed this project could have the potential to actually increase connectivity.

Add this all together with UNCC and this could be a transforming $1B+ catalyst project for First Ward.

Edited by uptownliving
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What kind of time frame are we looking at now for these projects? Would the park have to wait for the underground deck to start because of grading? And how likely is this mixed use tower since it seems to be a major component now?

With other players in the mix now instead of just Levine, I have hope the ball will actually start rolling.

Edited by Mobuchu
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can see it both ways on 8th. On one hand, it is minimally used street because it is closed off in Fourth Ward (it should probably be reopened at Church) and does not really have any destinations on it. I agree that Market Street and extending 10th to Caldwell would mitigate much of the connectivity impacts of closing 8th. They should probably also fix the light at 9th and Caldwell which is so torturous that it is worth it to go out of your way to 8th rather than sit at a red light for 5 minutes with no one on Caldwell.

If 3rd can be closed with enough mitigation, then certainly 8th can be. However, I agree with atlrvr that it can almost certainly be kept but closed off with bollards in off hourse if they improve the aesthetics of it.

All in all, I really want them to keep the Dixies building, which has shown that it can be viably reused. The rest of these changes sound reasonable. I'm glad they ignored Levine long enough that he go off some of his desire for a massive parking deck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think 8th should be open but hardscaped to not really look like a street. Access could be controlled by bollards that are normally extended, but could retract during rush hour to allow for better traffic flow.

I think that's the perfect solution, it's been said that brick is not possible depending on who owns the street (city or state), but the added benefit of something like brick or cobble stones is that it will slow cars since people will likely cross between the two sides of the park often.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The framework in the city council agenda indicates that they will keep 8th street open, at least on a limited access basis, based on the connectivity concerns of the city. So it appears that issue was already considered and they opted to satisfy the city by leaving it open.

In my view, 8th St is not used enough to worry so much about keeping open, BUT is used so little that it won't have as much of an impact on the operation of the park. That is very different than the impact on the park than the city's proposal to keep 3rd open through the original location of the 3rd Ward Park.

Overall, I think this framework seems quite reasonable and is a very good way for the city and county to add a long planned park in a neighborhood that needs a park to replace the poorly planned First Ward Park around 6th and McDowell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.