^^ I hear ya.

Maybe someone can convince the guy that owns all those restaurants downtown (The Pit, Raleigh Times, etc) to put something in that spot. He seems to know what he's doing.

2/5/2010 10:44:59 PM

Quote :

"saw my first roundabout accident yesterday"

I cannot fathom how some of these people have a license. I go thru the new roundabout on average a couple times a day, and I have almost been hit several times. People already on Hillsborough street seem to think that they have the right-of-way regardless of who is already in the circle. It's really only a matter of time before someone hits me or pulls out in front of me


on another note I think one of the biggest issues hurting the street's success (aside from appearance) is the giant gap in between stores. There are several areas on the street that have nothing of value to someone going to find food to eat, a bar to drink at, etc. There seem to be clusters of places with stuff like the buildling the university owns, etc in the middle.

2/6/2010 8:52:59 AM

Hillsborough Street needs more places that sell chicken wings.

2/6/2010 9:14:24 AM

Quote :

"People already on Hillsborough street seem to think that they have the right-of-way regardless of who is already in the circle."

that happens on pullen too

somehow the YIELD signs need to be emphasized

2/6/2010 11:00:13 AM

Perhaps they should add a set of rumble strips right before you get to the circle to slow people down:

2/6/2010 1:25:26 PM

laying the brick sidewalk in front of Breuggers and Planet Smoothie today!

looks much wider than before

2/16/2010 6:08:10 PM

Quote :

"on another note I think one of the biggest issues hurting the street's success (aside from appearance) is the giant gap in between stores. There are several areas on the street that have nothing of value to someone going to find food to eat, a bar to drink at, etc. There seem to be clusters of places with stuff like the buildling the university owns, etc in the middle."

While it would be nice to have more consistent eatery/retail presence, this alone shouldn't be a deal-breaker. Look at Franklin Street--there are the "east" and "west" areas that are full of venues, but there's a huge gap in between where you have Granville, a church, a university building, an office building, parking lots, etc, and it doesn't seem to make a huge difference. What Hillsborough needs is higher quality and better variety in the "zones" that already exist, i.e. the area near East Village/Cup-A-Joe, from Electric Company Mall down to Bruegger's, and Sadlack's to the Oberlin corner.

Plus, of course, construction concluding, but at least it's on schedule.

Quote :

"Maybe someone can convince the guy that owns all those restaurants downtown (The Pit, Raleigh Times, etc) to put something in that spot. He seems to know what he's doing."

You're thinking of Empire Eats, the entertainment arm of Empire Properties, Greg Hatem's operation. He is a fantastic businessman and has been a great force in downtown, both in terms of development and also (incidentally) as a great force in historic preservation/adaptive reuse. So far AFAIK his work has been pretty exclusively in downtown proper, and the recession has slowed EP down just like most other developers, but perhaps it'd be something he would be interested in. It would be pretty great if so.

[Edited on February 17, 2010 at 9:57 AM. Reason : .]

2/17/2010 9:54:05 AM

What do we think of the new stoplight poles? They are obviously an upgrade over the hanging power line stoplights, but they are almost more noticeable.

2/17/2010 10:57:31 AM

The three main problems with Hillsborough St. are; appearance (being updated now), parking, and the drinking age being 21. The only way Hillsborough St. gets back to its hay day (70-80's) is if they lower the drinking age to 18 again.

At least for now the City of Raleigh is doing it's part to make it a welcoming place for college students and residents to go.

Alcohol sales, being a large part of restaurants sales; no restaurant will be profitable on Hillsborough St. unless adequate parking is available for the 21 + crowd (ie Glenwood/Warehouse District/Cameron Village).


[Edited on February 17, 2010 at 11:23 AM. Reason : ...]

2/17/2010 10:59:37 AM

^^ i like em

i don't like the sidewalk lighting so much, there are a ton of them and they're not attractive, and therefore kind of defeat the aesthetic purpose of burying the power lines

2/17/2010 11:25:38 AM

^I agree about the sidewalk lighting.

2/17/2010 11:34:23 AM

Quote :

"Perhaps they should add a set of rumble strips right before you get to the circle to slow people down:"

You want rumble strips to slow people down from the 25mph that they should be traveling at? (isn't the redone street gonna have a 25mph speed limit?) Not to mention you plow that road once and those strips are toast. People shoudl just use their brain instead and obey the signs they learned about at the DMV.

2/17/2010 12:01:14 PM

last time i got my license renewed i incorrectly identified a "no passing" sign as a "wrong way" sign.

I knew they are both placed facing the reverse of traffic in their lanes and had a brain fart.

[Edited on February 17, 2010 at 12:33 PM. Reason : ]

2/17/2010 12:33:20 PM

Quote :

"no restaurant will be profitable on Hillsborough St. unless adequate parking is available for the 21 + crowd"

this is the lamest excuse ever. i have never EVER had difficulty finding parking at night. during the day sure. but saying that there isn't adequate parking is BS.

2/17/2010 6:57:41 PM

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/7208768/


Hillsborough Street could get mixed-use development

Posted: 21 minutes ago
Updated: 5 minutes ago

A Charlotte developer wants to redevelop nearly seven acres of industrial space off Hillsborough Street in what would be the first major project in the area in at least a decade.

The $40 million plan would include a 240-unit apartment building, more than 30 townhouses and 10,000 square feet of retail and office space between North Carolina State University and downtown Raleigh.

FMW Real Estate filed a rezoning request with the city this month to change the area where West Morgan and Hillsborough streets cross into a residential and retail area.

A public hearing on the application is set for July, and the request could be approved by the fall. Construction could begin as early as next spring.

The street is already undergoing a $9 million makeover with road crews installing several roundabouts between Oberlin Road and Gardner Street to make the road more pedestrian-friendly and to help revitalize the area for business.

It's expected to be completed in September.

3/10/2010 6:03:58 PM

Is that the area where Jackpot and Ihop are?

http://tinyurl.com/y94m7z6

[Edited on March 10, 2010 at 6:08 PM. Reason : .]

3/10/2010 6:05:27 PM

I had a dream last night Hillsborough had light rail going down it. It was a pretty awesome dream until I woke up and realized that's never happening

3/10/2010 6:40:29 PM

It did happen. 100 years ago lol.

3/10/2010 6:42:01 PM

Yeah reading about the streetcars the other day is probably what prompted my dream lol.

3/10/2010 6:44:54 PM

via JT3bucky

Hillsborough tract to get $40M remake
http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2010/03/08/daily23.html

3/10/2010 10:25:56 PM

Zanoni says the first phase of development for Hillsborough & Morgan will focus on the properties east of Ashe Avenue and FMW’s properties along West Morgan Street, Tryon Hill Drive and Wakefield Avenue. The second phase of development is expected to incorporate the IHop restaurant, he says, but plans for phase 2 will wait until plans are more finalized for phase 1.

“We are working through the financing right now,” Zanoni says.

3/10/2010 10:32:53 PM

Whoa hang on now wait a minute. That article isn't clear, but it makes it sound like they've acquired *everything* between Bolton and IHOP? Do they have the derelict bakery as well? Does that mean that charming brick apartment block will be demolished, the one with the tattoo parlor and bike shop in the street-level storefronts on the corner of Hillsborough and Ashe? That building has some amazing details. To say nothing of the "jackpot house" which Preservation NC is already trying to have moved to save it from demolition.

And all this will be replaced by a condo project similar to 712 Tucker...hmmm. While I'm not necessarily against that in all cases (712 Tucker is a nice property, I considered renting there for a minute) I have mixed emotions about a big modern condo block in that particular location, especially if it means the 1920's building has to come down.

3/10/2010 11:37:44 PM

I dug around last week and it looks like someone is building apartments on the SW corner of Chamberlain and Clark. Hopefully they'll be nicer than the other apartments on the SE corner.

3/10/2010 11:56:40 PM

The ones on the NW corner are a cool building though I have no idea what they're like inside, and the two small buildings on the NE corner look to have been nicely renovated compared to what they were like 10 years ago. You're right though, those two buildings on the SE corner look like they could fall down at any time now.

Not a lot of space there though, unless they're planning on taking down more than one house on Chamberlain? Horse Track Alley (yes that's its name if you read the sign) is in the way of building very far west.

3/11/2010 12:07:16 AM

They took down the two on the corner, one of which is a larger lot. As far as I can tell those two lots will be the extent of the build.

3/11/2010 12:33:37 AM

haha, those are Schrader Properties. What a useless slumlord who does nothing for the betterment of society.

3/11/2010 1:22:10 AM

For the curious minds, here's everything FMW currently owns:

3/11/2010 8:23:44 AM

Quote :

"Zanoni says the Raleigh project will most resemble Crosland’s 712 Tucker apartment project that opened in 2009. Crosland executive David Ravin says the apartment complex has maintained an occupancy level of between 95 and 99 percent since opening. “I think the success of that development is due to its walking distance to Glenwood South,” Ravin says. “I think Raleigh needs more of that.”"

yes. soooo what is the draw near this proposed location? walking distance to the hamburger hut?

3/11/2010 10:06:03 AM

well, at least they haven't acquired the property at the corner of ashe and wakefield (yet)...i used to live in that house

i wonder if they will try to do something about the ghetto lofts down ashe near the railroad tracks. surely a place like that won't be good for this new development.

it's nice that something is being done to develop the area, but at the same time it is sad to see the area change (spent many late nights at ihop)

3/11/2010 10:14:54 AM

Thanks DPK for that very illustrative map.

Kind of a disjointed bunch of parcels--I wonder why they don't own the property immediately behind the Green House on Ashe, or the one just up Park from FarmHouse (which is where it seems to stop). Owners refusing to sell? They're going to be islands in the middle of a big-ass condo development unless they do though, it sounds like.

I'm glad to see that they don't have the three immediately along Hillsborough between Ashe and Morgan, or at least not yet--that old brick aparmtent building (and the tattoo place and George and his pipes) may be safe, at least for now.

3/11/2010 12:15:41 PM

The one on Park is a individual/family onwed house that looks like they;ve owned for a while.

The place on Ashe is owned by an LLC and it's been property of banks and real estate companies for a while.

I'd guess is half not wanting to sell, and half haggling over the $$$.

3/11/2010 2:45:41 PM

Here's an updated version which highlights various properties of interest around the FMW sites. There's about five groups of people that FMW would have to contend with that would help them unify their project. What's interesting is that 1215 Hillsborough LLC (orange on map) has 4 properties (there's a sliver along the north of one of their sites by St. Mary's School) and of those 4, only 1 has any development on it (at Ashe and Hillsborough). The other 3 are portions of parking lots.

3/11/2010 3:12:00 PM

I was under the impression that FMW was just a group trying to make some money by assembling the property and had no intention of actually developing it.

3/11/2010 5:25:12 PM

^^Well as 1215 LLC owns the apartment building I was talking about earlier, I think the parcel across Ashe (behind the green house) is parking for that building. I wasn't aware they owned the large lot next to New City Design, though.

[Edited on March 12, 2010 at 2:27 AM. Reason : vv]

3/12/2010 2:26:41 AM

wow. they got a lot accomplished over Spring Break

every power line on both sides of the street is underground. they took out all of the poles. they're paving around the roundabout. looks like they'll be paving the road very soon.

i can't get over how good it looks around Mitch's without the obstruction of poles/wires.

3/23/2010 6:31:19 PM

can anyone get some photos for us out-of-towners?

3/23/2010 8:29:29 PM

If I can remember I'll try and get some next time I walk down. It does look a lot better though. Anyone know what is going to take Red Hot and Blue's spot?

3/23/2010 10:22:20 PM

Can't wait to see pics

3/23/2010 10:29:44 PM

Quote :

"Anyone know what is going to take Red Hot and Blue's spot?"

Don't think anything's officially been announced yet.

3/23/2010 10:30:50 PM

^Dunkin Donuts

3/23/2010 10:51:20 PM

^

3/23/2010 11:33:23 PM

much better than those KK things you can't even pick up intact.

3/24/2010 12:10:58 AM

nah, i can't let that go. KK is far superior.


I knew a girl once who, if she got a hot dozen KK doughnuts, would PUT THEM IN THE REFRIGERATOR before she ate them.
Girl was clearly unbalanced.

[Edited on March 24, 2010 at 12:48 AM. Reason : ]

3/24/2010 12:48:04 AM

i LOL'd^

3/24/2010 1:11:58 AM

^^ That should be a crime.

3/24/2010 3:29:13 AM

it looked especially good last night when I was driving back from my night lab. those new street lamps look great, IMO

3/24/2010 7:50:45 AM

Quote :

"can anyone get some photos for us out-of-towners?"

They're from the first of this month, but I've got a bunch going east and then onto Oberlin in my gallery.

3/24/2010 9:25:57 AM

RH&B is gone? For how long? I always figured it would have survived.

I can't wait to see these pics too!

3/24/2010 9:52:42 AM

renovation has come a long way since those pictures. i, too, will try to take some pics this week. the area around Mitch's is amazing.

3/24/2010 10:19:02 AM

the term "amazing" is overused... it looks good, but it's still a big construction zone clusterfuck. I wouldn't call that "amazing" quite yet.

3/24/2010 10:24:34 AM