Raleigh, North Carolina.  Downtown Raleigh’s Newest Showplace To Open Today.  The Raleigh Marriott City Center will have its grand opening at 4:30 this afternoon.  The developer is the Noble Investment Group of Atlanta.  The location of the 400 room $75 million hotel is 500 Fayetteville Street.  Its key function is that of providing support for the Raleigh Convention Center which will open next week.  Gala goodies for the those attending the opening will include food, beverages, the Carolina Ballet and the North Carolina Symphony.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com (currently being revised) 

Raleigh, North Carolina.  Tight Money Delays Downtown Raleigh Projects.  As reported in previous posts, projects just underway or not yet coming out of the ground in the downtown Raleigh area are running into a number problems.  They include slower home sales, slower consumer spending, higher gas and grocery prices, rising construction costs and a substantial decrease in lender funding.  Projects on indefinite hold are One Eleven Seaboard and one by Winston Hospitality.  One Eleven Seaboard was to be a 53 unit condo project by York Properties.  The Winston Hospitality project was to have been a 25-story building with 200 hotel rooms and 200 condos.  A third project, a 22-story condo and hotel project by Raleigh developer Reynolds & Co. has been scaled back.  However, Reynolds hopes to have financing for the revision by the end of July.  Losing or substantially delaying these and several other smaller projects as well will leave downtown Raleigh with considerably less residents than the 10,000 needed to attract major retailers.  What the delays will actually mean for downtown Raleigh in the medium and long runs will depend on how long the downturn lasts and how long credit remains tight.

THE RALEIGH CONVENTION CENTER’S UNIQUE SHIMMER WALL A GREAT ADDITION TO THE CITY        What has 79,464 light and dark aluminium squares, is 44 feet high, 211 feet long, has 56 light-emitting diodes to light it and looks like an oak tree?  It’s the shimmer wall on the west side of Raleigh’s new convention center.  This is an apprapo work of art since Raleigh is known as the City of Oaks.  The LED’s that will light the work at night will not be turned on until the convention center’s grand opening on September 5.  Cree Inc., which manufactures semiconductors for LED lights, donated $1 million to build the wall. 

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com

Raleigh, North Carolina.  Ground Broken On Blount Street Commons.  In a recent blog I mentioned that some planned downtown projects have been put on hold because of lending and housing industry problems.  However, this week ground was broken on Blount Street Commons.  It is a redevelopment project of 21 acres in downtown Raleigh that will include new as well as redone homes and multifamily dwellings.  The project was originally announced in 2005.  It will comprise the building of 495 condominiums, town houses and single-family homes.  There will also be 110,000 square feet of shops.  Homes that will be renovated include several of historical value.  Prices will range from the high $200s to over $1 million.  There are those around town who have little liking for all the time, effort and money being expended on the downtown area by the City Counsel and various developers.  Overall, I think it is a healthy thing for the entire Triangle area and strongly indicates to corporations that this is a very vibrant area and one they need to give serious consideration to when looking for places to expand in. 

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: wwwJohnFish.com

Raleigh, North Carolina.  Greg Sandreuter Proposes Four Major Buildings For Downtown Raleigh.  A plan Greg initially presented a year ago has been revised and expanded.  It now calls for two 39 story buildings and two 29 story buildings.  It would also have many street level shops and restaurants, a hotel, condos, half a million square feet of offices and 1,600 parking spaces.  Construction would start in two years and take eight years to complete.  Adding this to all the other downtown projects, both underway and planned, would take what has been (just in the recent past) a pretty drab an dumpy downtown and transform it into almost anyone’s vision of what a new and vibrant American city should look like.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com

Raleigh, North Carolina.  Hue, A Mixed-Use Condominium Project In Warehouse District Will Offer Convenience And Quality.  When you open a sales center you are ready to get serious about selling whatever it is you want to market and the sales center for Hue is now open.  The new mixed-use project in downtown Raleigh is being developed by Trammell Crow Residential (TCR).  TCR is the nation’s leading premier multi-family real estate firm and the only full-service, multifamily company that has been in business, nationally, for more than twenty years.  They have built more than 200,000 units.  Hue, when completed, will be a seven story building containing 208 condo units and 7500 square feet of retail space at the ground floor level.  Amenities will include a private pool courtyard with barbecue grills, a fitness facility and a sundeck.  Resident parking needs will be handled by a six-story 300 space parking deck.  Hue is located at the northwest corner of Hargett and Dawson streets across from the municipal building.  Hue’s first tenants are expected to move in during the Spring of 2009.  For more information about Hue call me or send me an email at the number or address given below.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com   Website:  www.JohnFish.com

Raleigh, North Carolina.  Nearly Sixty-Five Percent of Planned Downtown Hotel Rooms Threatened.  Bob Winston, president of Winston Hospitality says the credit markets are in a deep freeze.  This deep freeze might mean that 500 of the 850 rooms currently planned for the downtown area might never be built.  This at a time when the opening of the new convention center is only six months away.  Winston pulled the plug on a 25-story hotel and 200 condos at Hillsborough and Harrington streets.  The other credit crunch casualties are the 136 room boutique by Reynolds Co. and the 22-story condo-hotel by Empire Properties.  Whether or not these projects are just delayed and not down for the count remains to be seen.  Either way it causes convention planners to rethink whether or not the Raleigh Convention Center can continue to be in the running as a site for their conventions. 

With the inclusion of the new 400 room Marriott hotel the downtown inventory of rooms will soon rise to 950.  That is enough rooms to handle a convention of 1,200 people.  As the convention center will be able to handle conventions of 5,000 people the shortfall of hotel rooms could prove very costly to the center’s convention business.  Convention planners say 600 more close-in hotel rooms are needed to attract mid-size trade shows.  While other hotel companies and developers are giving serious consideration to building hotels near downtown Raleigh, “maybe”, “perhaps” or “we’ll see” is not rooms you can count on.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com

Raleigh, North Carolina.  Ten Story Hotel For Glenwood South.  The 134-room Powerhouse Plaza hotel would have a roof top bar and 85,000 square feet of offices.  It would also have ground floor restaurants and shops.  The location is the southern half of the block that is bounded by Jones, West, Harrington and Land streets.  Powerhouse joins the rush to build downtown area hotels to service the convention center which will be completed later this year.  Others are the 136 room hotel being built by the Reynolds Corp. and a 200 room hotel by Winston Hospitality.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com

Raleigh, North Carolina.  LEDs By Cree Inc. Saves City $2,800.  It is encouraging to see that there are programs that save money rather than lose it in cost overrides.  The program in question in Downtown Raleigh utilizes 141 LEDs in a downtown garage that saves the city through lower electricity costs.  By the seventh year the $42,300 cost will start to provide savings.  At the south end of Fayetteville Street another garage will also use LEDs.

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John Fish (919) 696-3474  Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com  Website: www.JohnFish.com

Raleigh, North Carolina. “Teardowns” change subdivisions.  Recently there have been a number of newspaper and magazine articles about builders tearing down older homes and replacing them with much larger and more expensive ones. Residents in the subdivisions say they are out of keeping with the character of their neighborhoods. For the most part the subdivisions are located in what is known locally as “inside the beltline.”  I think this is the business of the homeowners being “impacted” so I won’t get into the debate other than to say that I think, for the mostpart, it increases the value of their homes.  I will, however, make a couple of  comments as to the why of it. 

Very simply, the forces of supply and demand are at work.  The massive growth and renovation of downtown Raleigh is making Raleigh’s core area and the areas surrounding it more and more desireable as a place to live as well as to work.  The number of people projected to work downtown during the next five years is skyrocketing.  More corporations are housing their offices in the buildings being built there. More restaurants, shops and stores are opening to meet the needs of these people.  It is only natural that more and more people want to live close to their place of work and escape a long daily commute.  As many of them have high paying jobs a sizeable number want single family homes rather than condos and town homes. 

The core area blight that has infected many of our major cities has certainly been a problem for Raleigh as well.  Fortunately, we have people some forward thinking leaders who are doing something about it and the change that is taking place is nothing less than astounding.  As the core area growth continues the replacing of slum and semi-slum areas in south-east Raleigh that are close to it will, I think, gain momentum as well.  While Raleigh’s slum areas are certainly not nearly as extensive as those of many cities our size they do, none-the-less exist.  I would not minimize the problem.  There are many homes in south-east Raleigh that are in very bad condition and approximately 80 are totally boarded up.  The demand for living space by those that can afford it usually has the effect of displacing those that can least afford it.  Along with displacement comes a lot of anger and resentment.  The efforts of organizations like Habitat for Humanity are to be applauded but they do not being to meet the needs or solve the problems of people who live in such areas.  Because of the forward looking attitude being evidenced by some of our city planners and because of the size and number of medium to large sized corporations that are in and moving to the core area, it is my guess that they will band together to create some kind of master plan to make major inroads into the problem.  None-the-less, the “haves” who are living in established neighborhoods surrounding the core area see them being replaced with larger homes and more businesses and activity.  The “have nots” who are either being displaced or feel that nothing is being done to solve their problems see the growth as no benefit to them. One way or another, both are going to continue to feel the squeeze well into the future.  Frankly, I would rather or city be in a position of replacing bad with good and good with better than either do nothing or fight to try and stay even.

Home owners inside the beltline are not the only ones seeing homes being torn down and replaced with larger and more expensive ones.  North Ridge, an area whose commerce is also experiencing tremendous development, expansion and renovation is also seeing the same thing happen; especially in the North Ridge Country Club area.  Three or four years ago one of Raleigh’s top residential builders more or less got the ball rolling in that area when he tore down a golf home and replaced it with one that is far larger than the homes in both its immediate and surrounding areas.  It sat on the market for several years without being purchased.  Without going into the reasons why suffice it to say that someone always has to be the leader.  The area is a natural for it and in the intervening period the same senario has played out many more times.    

John Fish - Tel. (919) 696-3474      Email: Marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com 

Raleigh Convention Center to be a boon to Triangle.  While still a year from completion many events are already on the books for the Raleigh Covention Center.  Five international conventions, 17 national conventions, 55 state conventions and various and sundry car shows, boat shows, home shows and others have already said “count us in!”.  Among the conventions the 500,000 square foot, $200 million facility will host will be the Southeastern United States/Japan trade conference.  A covention first, not only for the Raleigh Convention Center but for the United States as well, will be the International Association of Science Parks conference.  It will coincide with Research Triangle Park’s 50th anniversary. 

The Convention Center will contain a 150,000 square foot exhibit hall, a 32,000 square foot  ballroom, 19 individual meeting rooms, a four-theatre performing arts venue and a 900 car parking garage.  There will also be an attached four star Marriott Hotel with 15,000 square feet of meeting space and two additional ballrooms.

Light emitting diode manufacturer Cree, Inc. gave $1 million to the center to fund a “shimmer wall” on the western side of the center.  It will be 9,284 squre feet in size and measure 211 feet by 44 feet.  It will have 79,464 4-inch aluminum pixels and 56 LED fixtures will backlight it.  As air moves across the shimmer wall the pixels will move and shimmer according to the center’s director Roger Krupa.  At night the wall will turn the colors of the lights and the pixels will look very liquid.  As Raleigh is known as “The City of Oaks” architects have decided to put an art work oak tree on the pixels. Under the shimmer wall will be a festival plaza for concerts and other outdoor events.  In front of the building there will be an interactive music-light water display, a fountain and an artistic tower.  There will be plenty of events to attend and things to see at the center whether you get inside or not.  Incidentally, it would appear that General Electric may acquire Cree so the shimmer wall might end up being called the “GE Shimmer Wall.”

The city has been casting about for an “identity” for Raleigh.  I get the feeling they would like to develop some civil war or plantation style feeling.  Local historians notwithstanding, it seems to me the city doesn’t really have that kind of history.  What it does have is a strong recent history of growth, core area revitalization, cutting edge technology, everything a truly modern city wants and strives for.  Furthermore, we are close to the ocean and close to the mountains.  It seems to me that’s the identity it should foster and what it is actually doing with all that is going on downtown and everywhere else in the area.  I think if it continues to build on those aspects it will become what it would like to be; a vital tech center, a great place to live and close to many things people to like do and visit.  That, in my opinion, is the image to work on.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: Marvmax@mindsping.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com