Raleigh, North Carolina.  The Full Damage Report From Hannah, Ike, Freddie And Fannie Will Take A Long Time To Tabulate.  A busy week-end to say the least.  In Raleigh tropical storm Hannah came and went.  Fortunately we got a lot of much needed rain but not much in the way of damaging winds.  The new Civic Center opened in downtown Raleigh.  The storm left and the sun reappeared just in time to let most of the hoopla attendant to the Civic Center’s opening go forward as planned.  Ike looks like it will do its dismal worst someplace other than North Carolina but that’s of little solace to whatever area bears its brunt.  The most severe storms by far, those of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, came upon us in relative silence and without much of the breast beating the media feed upon.  They will, however, rachet up the rhetoric as the national and international importance of the government takeover gets digested.  At stake is $5.3 TRILLION in mortgages that Freddie and Fannie back and that the government backs behind them as the “source of last resort”.  This debt is funded by foreign investors all over the globe and they all have some strange notion that their loans should be repaid.  I say again that anything and everything on any agenda, local or national, takes second place to dealing with this nation’s credit problems.  This is NO time to be adding any programs that will pile more debt on top of it.  As Walter Cronkite used to say, “What kind of day (week-end if you will) was it?  A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times.  And you were (are) there.”

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

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.  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 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