North Hills / Midtown area developments

[Jones_]

From downtown I can see that there is another tower crane up at North Hills way to the east side of NHE. Anyone know which building was actually next in line to go up?

[Euphorius]

The new crane is for the Allscripts building.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Euphorius

[Green_man]

Well the tower crane is erected on the Plaza apartment site, and the Allscripts has been using a boom crane I believe.  I was assuming this tower crane was for the new 16 story apartment building.

[Euphorius]

It could be for the apartment tower. I just assumed it was for the new office building when I saw it. I also noticed how ugly the screening for the parking portion of the new BofA building is. Sucks for the people in Park&Market who have that view from their windows. 

[Green_man]

14 hours ago, Spatula said:

North Hills is not an office park. Urbanity is not a black and white dichotomy. They'll put in a pedestrian bridge across Six Forks at some point. It's not as urban and walkable as downtown or even five points, but it's more urban than the strip malls and RTP campuses that this area is unfortunately known for. One could plausibly live in North Hills and ride mass transit. One could also plausibly do all their shopping where they lived. It's a nice node of density to have in North Raleigh, and over time I expect it will transform into something with more character.

 

 

[Moving this discussion to North Hills topic] 

Except the buildings' orientations discourage these exact points.  But the environment is definitely tough to overcome with Six Forks being so prominent.  Its like a mini Tysons Corner.  Last point about failed urban principles in North Hills; the newly installed sidewalks next to BoA tower aren't even as wide as the sidewalks Raleigh is constructing in residential neighborhoods.

Also something to think about:  front door of Target to Brueggers:  830 ft. as the crow flies... no one walks this.  City Plaza to Marbles:  1,650 ft  (twice as far)  but easily considered walkable.

[InitialD]

[orulz]

Thanks for the photo update.

I am surprised to find that the Park Central apartment complex is also underway, with next to no fanfare. North Hills East will be built out before we know it, and Kane will have to either look to the parking lots of North Hills proper or elsewhere in town (downtown, maybe?)

[paytonc]

Hi,

I direct the Urban Land Institute's Case Studies program, and we just released a 16-page report about North Hills: http://casestudies.uli.org/north-hills/

To answer orulz's point, Kane's principals insist that North Hills will "never" be complete, and point to the one-acre vacant lot behind Walgreen's and the Total Wine building as opportunities to densify the Lassiter. Redevelopment of the Exxon/tire shop was planned back in 1999 (early renderings show high-rises there and behind Walgreen's), but is only now possible because the remediation was just certified in 2015. JCPenney's lease will not be renewed, and the building will either be re-tenanted with junior anchors or re-developed, with the parking lots to its north and west.

Two interesting-to-me historical tidbits from the interviews that didn't make it into the report:
- Lowe's had a signed letter of intent to build a store *beneath* Target, with another layer of underground parking, but that fell through in 2001.
- Saks Fifth Avenue was courted to open a 50,000 square foot location where the cinema is now. At the time, they were rolling out a "Main Street" prototype to markets like Austin, Charleston, Pasadena, and Santa Barbara. Raleigh was not on their radar then, but they were excited enough by the demographics to sign for a full-sized store at Triangle Town Center. It's perhaps just as well, since most of the "Main Street" stores have since been closed.

Edited February 2, 2016 by paytonc

[orulz]

paytonc, interesting to hear that Kane will be considering redevelopment of the "lassiter district" into something resembling the newer parts of North Hills. My guess is that they probably won't mind a few more years of revenue from that while they develop other projects in the pipeline that go on vacant lots and parking lots. I note the citywide remapping puts this at cx-5-pl which would be up to 5 stories tall.

I recall that the empty lot behind Walgreens was originally planned to be an approximately 50-unit, 7 story condo building, "The Lassiter at North Hills." It was designed, marketed, had its own website, perhaps was even approved by the city, but never got off the ground due to a lack of pre-sales. You could probably go back a few pages in this thread's history and it will probably be mentioned, but I'm too lazy to look myself (haha.)

I was not aware about the longstanding remediation issues at the Exxon site. I do recall some controversy regarding redevelopment of that spot: Kane wanted to build nine stories right up to the Six Forks Road right-of-way but the city would not let them do it, because they wanted to be sure they had enough right-of-way to widen Six Forks. That was what pushed Kane to go ahead and get started at North Hills East. Well, now that the Six Forks Corridor Study up for consideration by council today that should make the city's future ROW demands more concrete so Kane may indeed have all his ducks in a row to start redevelopment over there. And I have to imagine he will, since that side of Six Forks has more retail.

The N&O article the other day did mention that homeowners on Dartmouth figure they will eventually get bought out and redeveloped so that is another way that North Hills will likely grow in the future.

Anyway there are plenty of ways for this district to grow even as the existing elements on the master plan are rapidly built out.

[orulz]

A site plan, SP-11-2016, was submitted by ITB Holdings LLC on Friday. That is the registered name of the owner of the Alcatel factory site on Wake Forest Road. The project is titled "Wake Forest Mixed Use." Plans are not up for download yet, but should be within a day or two. Plans call for 271,000sf on 20.3 acres which is a not especially impressive FAR of 0.3. Unless this is just one phase of a larger buildout, with FAR of 0.3, it's unlikely we'll see structured parking here,  unless they're being required to leave a large portion of the site empty due to floodplain issues. 271,000 square feet would probably be about 300 apartments plus some token retail. The lot itself is 23.12 acres so there is an extra 2.8 acres unaccounted for somehow.

[ctl]

Redevelopment of 2912 Wake Forest Rd has been such a long time in coming. I believe the first ITT buildings on the site were erected in the late 1950s. One reason it sat vacant so long: it was an EPA Superfund site, fully remediated now. The site has become an eyesore, and any rational use for it would be welcome.

ITT was once a significant employer in Raleigh. A small portion of that business survives as Mackay Communications -- still headquartered in Raleigh, a seller of marine electronics systems worldwide.

[Tenkai]

Update on the 2912 Wake Forest Rd development from TBJ:

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/real-estate/2016/02/wake-forest-road-raleigh-alcatel-retail-hotel.html

[orulz]

Site plan also posted on the city's website. http://www.raleighnc.gov/content/PlanDev/Documents/DevServ/DevPlans/Reviews/2016/SitePlan/SP-011-16.pdf

Disappointing, but not too surprising I guess, given how the Six Forks/Wake Forest intersection is basically loaded with single-story strip malls and big box retail as it is.

[Jones_]

The Wake Towne Drive extension is the primary plus here. And I guess technically the parking is in the center of the parcel...

[InitialD]

On 2/18/2016 at 3:48 PM, Jones_ said:

The Wake Towne Drive extension is the primary plus here. And I guess technically the parking is in the center of the parcel...

The road extension in the area I'd most like to see is Six Forks to Capital. I'm not sure if that is on the long term transportation plan but it sure needs to be.

[Jones_]

4 hours ago, InitialD said:

The road extension in the area I'd most like to see is Six Forks to Capital. I'm not sure if that is on the long term transportation plan but it sure needs to be.

It definitely was at one time, though some things from way back when have since been altered. I'm not sure what formal state the current transportation CIP is in. 

[KJHburg]

I was visiting from Charlotte and wanted to see your North Hills development. I remember this as an enclosed mall  with JC Penney and Dillards so the whole area was new to me. First the original North Hills site: that is a fantastic mixed used development with great retail, hotel anchor, movie theater anchor and some offices. The other side of the Six Forks North Hills 2 or Midtown was amazing. That is by far the most dense suburban development between Washington DC and Atlanta. Nothing in Charlotte has that kind of density in the suburbs. In saying that I can only wonder if those 17 and 18 story office buildings were built in downtown Raleigh how that would have really changed  your skyline and your downtown area. It is a well thought development though great mix of retail, apartments, hotels, and of course the 3 office towers. I told my Raleigh friends it reminds me of Tyson Corner VA.  Overall believe it or not Raleigh has more high rises in the suburbs than does Charlotte but we have them where it counts downtown. Overall very interesting area.

[Jones_]

Ah thanks for the pics, especially the first one. I can see North Hills from my downtown office but can't see details...the residential building in that pic is looking good. 

A lot of people sat on the sidelines of our downtown revival until they were sure they had a slam dunk investment wise. So now that the slice of humanity that like to take chances and make things interesting has ratcheted up the cache, all the national developers and biggest local developers are all like, we want in now! Lets just hope those guys don't make it all so bland and expensive that the creative folks have to move on again. 

North Hills also reminds me of Ballston Metro area a little, same side of the DC area...

[orulz]

Even at the current pace of building at North Hills we are still a decade or more from a full build-out scenario. There are plenty of parking lots and small outparcel buildings surrounding NH West, and the entire former Harris Teeter building could easily be demolished and replaced with new buildings.

If we are comparing Northern Virginia locations with North Hills, Reston Town Center would be my pick. The main thing missing from the mix is a good way to walk from one side to the other without playing frogger across right or nine lanes of traffic.

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[Jones_]

44 minutes ago, orulz said:

Even at the current pace of building at North Hills we are still a decade or more from a full build-out scenario. There are plenty of parking lots and small outparcel buildings surrounding NH West, and the entire former Harris Teeter building could easily be demolished and replaced with new buildings.

If we are comparing Northern Virginia locations with North Hills, Reston Town Center would be my pick. The main thing missing from the mix is a good way to walk from one side to the other without playing frogger across right or nine lanes of traffic.

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Huh...that is indeed very North Hill-esque. TIL there are numerous places in western DC metro that resemble downtowns in some manner. 

[Tenkai]

Even more North Hills coming.  Site plan for NH East filed recently.

http://gsa.raleighnc.gov/smb/ptlprdapp1/PTLPRD/PlanDev/Documents/DevServ/DevPlans/Reviews/2016/MasterPlan/MP-003-16.pdf

[orulz]

Pretty amazing. Couple more ~250ft buildings planned along the beltline. This plan covers everything up until the eventual Quail Hollow <-> Computer Dr connection.

I do hope/expect? that they will put a few more mid rises on the west side of Six Forks before they proceed with eastward expansion?

 

[Jones_]

Quail Hollow and Computer Dr are being connected eventually? I missed that but have mused the possibility often. Any idea if it'd be over or under the belt line? Looks like a rare case of either could work since the elevations are very different on each side...

[orulz]

I thought I remembered seeing that connection in the comprehensive plan or in some study somewhere, but on review I can't find it. Guess I made it up?

[Green_man]

Plaza Apartment tower & Allscripts building construction status from south side of the Beltline...