North Carolina development thread. (Charlotte, Greensboro: damaged, where is, to stay)
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I grew up in the South Bay, and want to talk a bit out density. San Francisco & Oakland aside, the Bay Area is mostly filled with with dense suburban development. This is even true for its largest city: San Jose. At over a million people in about 180 square miles, San Jose represents the typical development patterns of most of the Bay area: cookie cutter tract homes on very tiny lots. This resulted in San Jose having a density metric that's nearly 5800 ppl/m2. None of North Carolina's cities were developed this way, and none will reach San Jose's density metric in any of our lifetimes, or for that matter, ever. North Carolina cities' suburban single family home development patterns over the years are just way too gracious to ever reach a density metric that's nearly double of what they are today. Simply put, there's just so much low density SFH development in our cities' boundaries today, that all the development and redevelopment in our cores and key nodes can't make up that difference.
However, what our cities can do is blow away San Jose's downtown. Being in the final approach flight path of SJC airport, the tallest building in SJ is just 286 feet tall, or just a bit more than half the height of Raleigh's current tallest building. Flying over downtown San Jose feels like flying over just another dense node in a number of suburban areas around greater Los Angeles, and not the core of the Bay Area's most populated city.
All of the cores of NC's 5 largest cities have more potential than downtown San Jose; it's just a matter of demand and desire. NC's cities also have more possibility to build more dense nodes like North Hills because there's just more land area available, though the Bay Area is doing a fine job of densifying in nodes as well. What NC's cities can't do is densify their existing single family burbs like the Bay Area.
I dunno. It’s very hard to see similarities between the two. Have you been to the Bay Area? I never mentioned NYC but there comes a point when certain areas are just so much larger the comparisons become irrelevant. It would be like saying NY is a perfect example of being similar to Charlotte. Metro dominated by a single anchor city, financial hubs.
My comments were based on comparing industries, universities, etc. Yes, I've been to the Bay Area, and San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities anywhere - and most certainly nothing like Raleigh. However, there are many similarities between the RTP area and Silicon Valley in terms of both extending over large areas with anchor cities and research universities; big on tech and life sciences industries. I am not saying that RTP is equal to that area, but it is one that has many similarities. This is not a city vs. city comparison, but more of a region vs. region discussion. I am sure that you know these things, amiright ?
I generally disagree with most of what you have written. Nothing wrong with height, even if land costs in the Southeast are relatively cheaper than other parts of the country. Even RTP has recently modified its master plan to include high rise, denser development; whoever would have thought that you would see that in RTP ? This change is not due to lack of space but more to changing tastes in work-live-play demands.
I believe that density / infill development is more important than height, but both are great. Manhattan doesn't necessarily need "pencil towers" but the market is driving that trend. Also, developers (and architects) generally have big egos and want trophy buildings.
Since you mentioned LA as a reference, it still has a very small skyline relative to its metro population. Only in recent years did the DT area start expanding its height.
In Raleigh, or anywhere else, I say build as high as you want , and as densely as possible. Even places like North Hills are changing with the times.
I didn't say anything was wrong with going tall.
I was reminding people that that type of building form is necessitated only in very landlocked locations, aside from that much of it is up to people's choices.
I have driven through Charlotte's core many times in the last few years, and there's plenty of room between the buildings.
I remember being in Charlotte in 1989 and seeing the front page of the Charlotte Observer: "Tower Wars".
It was referring to one of the bank's (First Union?) plans to build a new HQ after hearing of Bank of America's plans (probably Nations Bank).
I just wanted people to look at it objectively and not claim that the towers have to be very tall to all fit in the city center. The land would be astronomically expense if that were the case.
RTP rightly needs to reinvent its image to appeal to the next generation of employees. They want that lively, mixed use and walkable environment, and the 1950's-esque office park paradigm is the opposite of that.
I hope RTP does create a little center core, at least one hub of activity. The companies will decide how they want to evolve over the next decades, that's not RTP's duty.
The pencil towers in Manhattan are neat from an engineering point of view, but are almost entirely the result of developers trying to get the best views of the park to justify the tens of millions that each unit costs. Largely empty, they are merely foreign money parked in the US.
To get around restrictions on the number of floors that are allowed, they have been making the mechanical rooms/floors have 160' high ceilings. All so they can be taller with panoramic views. People are crazy to want to live up there so isolated from everything,
Last edited by architect77; 02-29-2020 at 01:24 PM..
I agree that in many cases, going tall is not required, but it may be desired for many other reasons. Developers have enormous egos, and in places like NYC, they always seem to be in competition with each other. This is nothing new, and competiton occurred with the building of the Woolworth building, the Chrysler building, Empire State Building and even the Twin Towers (which were built super tall by the Port Authority in order to make a statement). Same with residential real estate; people don't "need" 12,000 sq ft homes but they want them.
Regarding RTP, the easiest thing would be for them to do nothing, but they have recognized that the "one size fits all" model doesn't work for everyone, as tastes change. The new RTP-HUB development will offer a different product for those that want it, and it will be visible from I-40 instead of being hidden on some leafy campus.
Last edited by Mr. Raleigh; 02-29-2020 at 02:16 PM..
Regarding RTP, the easiest thing would be for them to do nothing, but they have recognized that the "one size fits all" model doesn't work for everyone, as tastes change. The new RTP-HUB development will offer a different product for those that want it, and it will be visible from I-40 instead of being hidden on some leafy campus.
The good thing is that it's relatively easy to retrofit spacious suburban office and research parks into mixed-use campuses and districts. They won't ever truly be urban, but becoming mixed-use and New Urbanist-ish is still an improvement.
The good thing is that it's relatively easy to retrofit spacious suburban office and research parks into mixed-use campuses and districts. They won't ever truly be urban, but becoming mixed-use and New Urbanist-ish is still an improvement.
The reality is that most suburban low rise office park development, along with suburban low rise apartments and strip shopping center development is ripe for redevelopment. IMO, anything built in in 1970s is fair game, and can probably be easily financially modeled for redevelopment in a fast growing city/metro.
Progress for Smokey Hollow.
Big credit to oakcitydylan for the great picture.
The west side of downtown Raleigh is really cranking, and there's much more to come.
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