Apr

Charter Square Enters New Chapter with Announcement

Today city officials and developers joined together to announce the new plan for Charter Square. The 11-story project will contain 225,000 square feet of commercial space in a single glass tower. Currently 35,000 of the space is committed. Some of that space will be another ground floor restaurant by Echelon Hospitality. Construction is set to begin this fall, with a 1-year construction window.

The newest chapter in Charter Square is led by developer Dominion Realty Partners and architect JDavis. The site occupies the east half of the footprint of the former Raleigh Civic Center and was once referred to as “Site One ”. The project vision was for a two-tower mixed use development with one tower containing residential and the other commercial. As part of the development of the Convention Center and Marriott hotel, the City of Raleigh moved forward with the underground parking garage construction for the Charter Square plan.

Then 2009 happened, and the economy hit developers in every city hard. The new project will still be built on top of that investment. Thankfully the climate is such that progress on this site can move forward once and for all.

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Ernest

Sorry, but this is a disgrace Sadly, some people will cheer about it. Let’s keep wasting prime real estate and 10-15 years down the road we will begin tearing down nicer buildings that provided an identity to our downtown for decades. This is a pathetic attempt to salvage a project that scaled down to almost 50%, by removing the residential portion, in a market that apartments are easier to build. I am sorry, but this project needs to be rejected. If Dominion Realty Partners joins the group of developers, they should be able to add at least another 10 floors of residences (rentals, of course). Come on people, let’s get serious
Thanks for reporting this, though. I was anxious to see what’s coming out of TBJ’s and N&O’s recent announcements, but I was disappointed, I must admit.
Ernest

Sorry, but this is a disgrace Sadly, some people will cheer about it. Let’s keep wasting prime real estate and 10-15 years down the road we will begin tearing down nicer buildings that provided an identity to our downtown for decades. This is a pathetic attempt to salvage a project that scaled down to almost 50%, by removing the residential portion, in a market that apartments are easier to build. I am sorry, but this project needs to be rejected. If Dominion Realty Partners joins the group of developers, they should be able to add at least another 10 floors of residences (rentals, of course). Come on people, let’s get serious
Thanks for reporting this, though. I was anxious to see what’s coming out of TBJ’s and N&O’s recent announcements, but I was disappointed, I must admit.
Sam

Am I to assume this is the first, smaller tower, or has that concept been trashed?
- http://twitter.com/gogoraleigh gogoraleigh
  
  That’s a good question. I’ll say that there is nothing in the press releases that hints at a residential component or a future phase. Furthermore, with that 225K number and 11 stories, each office floor will be roughly 20K sq ft, which is not that much smaller than the footprint. The Bank of America building next door has around 23K sq ft per floor, so I think this building will stand as a glassier, punier sibling in form to the BOA building. Which leads us perfectly to Ernest’s point…
  - Sam
    
    Saw a reply from TBJ — complex is still a two tower project. The second tower is still a proposal for down the road, aka, probably not gonna happen, but we’ll see.
    - http://twitter.com/gogoraleigh gogoraleigh
      
      Thank you, Sam
Ernest

I guess I was a bit unfair in my first post I thought that the developers would stick with the original plan to build the North Tower first. If this 11-story building replaces the 15-story residential – it will be slightly taller than the original 15-story residential – then I am o.k. with it. Kudos to the developers for building speculative space in this economy. I do hope that the North Tower will be at least 25 stories tall and over 300ft. I am just sick and tired of seeing ugly buildings dominating the skyline on that end.

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Charter Square Enters New Chapter with Announcement

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