Powerhouse Plaza Rendering Available
Jeffery Brubaker, of
The Raleigh Downtowner
, has a
nice article in the current edition
(.PDF) about downtown development. One feature in the article is the previously mentioned
Powerhouse Plaza
(across from 42nd Street Oyster Bar).
There is also a current rendering of the 10-story complex in the story. According to the rendering, the hotel portion will carry the Hyatt Place brand. The overall design is modern and uses much glass. Its decidedly modern look evokes visions of both the International styled 333 Fayetteville in its lower floors, and the Progress II building in its upper floors. The inconsistency of materials in the vertical elements and the setback for the hotel’s pool offer relief and give the impression that the building is more massive than it really is. On the street level, the building offers minimal setback, however restaurant facades could easily be inset to offer a cozy outdoor seating area.
The only flaw apparent at this point is the neighboring parking garage. According to the site plan (.PDF), the deck will extend fully to the sidewalks of Harrington and West streets, forever locking the Plaza as a pedestrian island. Had the parking been arranged to be totally internal, the possibility of future development continuing the pedestrian experience all the way to the railroad tracks could exist.
Functionally this project is a no-brainer. Downtown’s need for decent hotels is absurd, and the demand for office space in the Glenwood South area is not being met. While this is certainly not the final rendering, the building shows promise and hopes to finally give downtown some architectural variety.
9 Comments
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:17 am
It will be an exciting project, IMHO. The financing is secured, if my information is correct, therefore we shouldn’t run into troubles with yet-another stalled project. As you said, the demand for hotel space is there, and I surely hope more developers and hotel chains will realize that. The stalled Winston Tower should remain above 20 floors, but instead of condos the developers should double the amount of hotel rooms to over 400. It seems to me that the new Convention Center should have been built near the Warehouse District’s borders with Glenwood South :LOL:
June 11th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Agree with your conclusion of the parking deck. Again, what are they thinking?!!! Why not hide this beast and create retail on ALL streets (are these developers listening?). City council needs to push back (and push back hard), this needs to be redesigned (again, need development with VISION - who wants to walk a street and stare at a blank wall, we have enough of that in downtown Raleigh - example -that awful AT&T building).
June 11th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Mitch Silver (who I think is doing a great job) and city council need to get involved in this parkeing deck issue. This parking deck is not acceptable. Hide it and put retail all around the deck/streets. Seems the developers are not listening to the vision of downtown Raleigh. If this type of design continues with future new development, Raleigh will NOT be a walkable city (city council and downtown heads need to put their foot down and demand a re-design - noone seems to have a backbone to make a stand and push change in the right direction)
June 11th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Wow! A building in Raleigh that actually looks like it might be from the 21st century. How long will it take for the Raleigh cynics/critics to completely destroy this and instead, end up with a brick shoebox?
June 11th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I hadn’t really looked at the site plan for this. I can understand the parking deck to a degree, but they should have flipped it so the retail was along West and the entrance and valet is off Jones. Obviously I would prefer to not even see this, how much parking do we really need, but minimizing it is important. And what ever happened to putting parking underground? These guys could have built about twice the building on the same footprint.
Its a nice plan, but I can always want to have my cake and eat it too.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
The design is too progressive, can’t we get something downtown with a nice tan and brick facade.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Hey, I just saw this rendering of Powerhouse Plaza on News 14 Carolina crediting gogoraleigh.com with the picture. Did they get permission from you?
June 18th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Ari and whomever it may concern,
I obtained this image from the credited Raleigh Downtowner magazine piece after seeing it posted on the urbanplanet.org website. If this is not suitable, I’ll be happy to withdraw the image.
June 18th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
This would be a perfect building to have that Plensa project eminating out from the middle of it.