Village Tavern Coming to North Hills
The small, southern-based
Village Tavern
chain is showing a 2009 location at North Hills in Raleigh on their website. The restaurant serves American fare with a wide selection of choices. Entrees range from the low teens to steaks in the mid-twenties. See their website’s menu section for more details.
St. Albans Gets Funding
The St. Albans at North Hills recently secured about $100 million in construction loans financing. The 6-story building will contain 410 apartments, “several pools”, a 48K square foot Harris Teeter, and about 52K square feet of retail. According to TBJ the complex will have a parking deck and a separate elevator that will take tenants to and from Harris Teeter. The apartment rents will start at $925 per month.
The complex is in all likelihood the building at the bottom of the photo featuring the scaled down North Hills East project. (scaled down when compared to the renderings on this page ). The project was originally planned to be bigger, provided tax increment financing could be secured. (The TIF debate was a key topic with the Raleigh City Council last year, but ultimately did not receive support from many council members).
Renaissance Hotel Coming to North Hills
Currently under construction next to the Beltline at North Hills is the new Renaissance Hotel. The chain is a boutique line within the Marriott chain, and is a desperately needed addition to Raleigh’s underwhelming hotel portfolio. The hotel will likely open in early 2009, but already has two websites (
corporate
,
local
).
The rooms in the North Hills Renaissance will be outstanding. Each will have free wired and wireless high speed internet access, a 37″ high-def TV in the room (with jacks for accessory connectivity), a 15″ high def TV in the bathroom, refrigerator, safe, and 300 thread-count sheets. The hotel will have complimentary parking as well as 7,590 square feet of meeting space and a 5,430 square foot ballroom. Hotel guests will also have direct interior access to the adjacent Gold’s Gym Athletic Club, and to Natural Body Spa, a European-style day spa.
The exterior touches are coming together, and it appears that many of the Alexan’s features, such as window proportions, moldings, and colors, will be continued in the Renaissance. One welcome difference is the use of a textured, artificial stone. Hopefully the color selection and textures will prevent the complex from becoming a “beigemoth”. A material mockup of the exterior can be seen from the middle parking level of the old JCPenney deck.
Unconfirmed reports say that the penthouse level to this hotel will not only offer superior views of downtown, but will also feature short ceilings and countertops in an attempt to cater toward chic, wealthy dwarves. Word is that these rooms will actually carry no room charge, and will be referred to as the “Stayfree Mini-pads”.
Ramblewood Showhouse Opens Today
The 2008
ASID Designer Showhouse
opens today at 2611 and 2615 Rolston Drive. The show runs through June 1. Advance tickets are $15, Door $20, Run-of-Show $30. All proceeds go to Hospice of Wake County.
North Hills Beach Music Event Postponed
Presumably due to the weather, tonight’s beach music concert at North Hills will be rescheduled for a later date in the summer.
AT&T Store at North Hills Opens
The AT&T store in North Hills is now open in its new location, between the escalators and The Q Shack, near the theaters. The store was formerly next to ArtSource, facing Six Forks Road.
Summertime’s Calling North Hills
North Hills will usher in summer with a
Beach Music
concert series that will make a lot of people forget Alive After Five. On Thursdays at 6pm in the North Hills Commons, the following bands will be playing:
- April 17 – The Embers
- April 24 – The Castaways
- May 1 – The Catalinas
- May 8 – Black and Blue
- May 15 – Liquid Pleasure
- May 22 – The Embers
- May 29 – Billy Scott and the Party Prophets
It’s a great chance for true Carolina Girls to get down, and for all of you Northerners to go see what you’ve been missing!
Strut 08 Coming to North Hills
This spring, fashion comes to life as top designers display their work during
Strut ’08
, a fashion, music, and dance show being held at North Hills. The May 3, 9:00 pm event will feature seven nationally-recognized fashion designers, each with Raleigh roots and a personal or professional tie to the Triangle-area. Models wearing seasonal styles, prominent local talent, and several area boutiques will take to the runway for a televised show.
“Raleigh has never hosted a fashion event like Strut ’08,” says Brian Williams, creator/producer of the show and president of Brian Williams Television. “The time is right. The Triangle is home to a fashion-conscious, creative class who has a distinct taste for well-designed clothing.”
The fashion designers include:
- Amy Stephenson , who grew up in Johnston County and has a well known line of jeans
- Miranda Laughlin , a graduate of Cary’s Athens Drive High School, known for her Bleighm line of dresses, shirts and pants
- Jewelry Designer Elizabeth Yarborough grew up in Louisburg and still has family living in the area
- Holly Aiken , also a graduate of NCSU, designs handbags in her Raleigh studio called Stitch
- Chuck Stewart , owner of Tumbling Colors, designer of fabrics used worldwide in the fashion industry, will serve as a special consultant for the show
- Victor Lytvinenko, a graduate of the School of Design at North Carolina State University, uses rare, expensive denim spun in Greensboro, N.C., to make his distinct and successful line of Verses Jeans.
- Bruce Wilson, from his Meschantes Couture studio and gallery in Raleigh, resurrects the art of designing the classic, custom-fitted corset for both men and women.
Local clothiers and boutiques will also feature their designs in the show — NV Clothes for Men, Verses Jeans, Uniquities, Meschantes Couture, Kerry Catherine Jewelry, Scout and Molly’s, Phortiistorm, The Metallic Spiral, J & B Clothing, bebe and SoHo along with a special “Art to Wear” designer from NCSU.
Williams has partnered with Social the Magazine to produce the show that will be held in (most likely) North Hills’ former Storehouse location. The venue will feature a red-carpet entry, a 640-square-foot entertainment stage and a 40-foot fashion runway. Betzi Hekman is the fashion coordinator for the production and Samuel Cole Salon and Salon Moxie are providing all hair/makeup services for the 35 models specified by the designers.
A silent auction held online and auctioned off prior to the show will benefit Interact of Wake County and will feature items personally selected and donated by the designers as well as other items.
For more information visit www.Strut08.com . Online ticket sales will begin March 1 on this site. Ticket prices will range from $25 – $100.
North Hills Introduces the Saturday Farmers Market
On Saturday mornings thru October, the Commons area at North Hills will be transformed into a farmers’ market. The decision comes after numerous requests by regular visitors to have a producer-only market with fresh produce by local farmers.
During market hours of 8am to Noon, only vendors will be permitted to park in the Commons, so feel free to park in the middle level of the deck and ride the escalator straight into the market area.
Kitchen & Bath Galleries Coming to North Hills
Local kitchen and bathroom upfit specialists
Kitchen & Bath Galleries
will soon open a showroom in The Lassiter at North Hills, across from Tyler House.
Short Changed?
Over the past few years Raleigh residents have enjoyed the excitement of a new building rendering on several occasions. The dreams and hopes of our next generation of buildings is typically energizing and builds expectations of a better tomorrow. As Raleigh’s tallest building takes form, we can now look back at a couple of artist renderings and see how close they were.
For best results, open each photo in a new tab, then switch back and forth to compare.
The popular skyline rendering can be compared to the picture on the right, taken on February 29, 2008. The nearly topped-off RBC Plaza stands in the center while the convention center and Marriott have completed their massing. It appears that the RBC Plaza’s rendering was the most accurate. While the building is actually farther to the right and is wider than portrayed, the size is fairly close. The building’s 22nd floor (marked by the yellow horizontal band) steps back at almost the same point relative to Two Hannover Square, but the residential floors will not be quite as tall as the rendering shows (the buidling’s highest inhabitable floor has been poured). I added a black triangle to the photo to show where the spire will top out (based on proportional measurements of lower floors compared to the cutaway diagram). Because the spire itself reaches the same height but the residential section is indeed shorter, the spire will proportionally be slightly larger than shown in the rendering. The error is minor, however. The rendering’s portrayal of the building’s blue glass is somewhat overly saturated in color. On the other hand, the shadows in the glass are full of errors. Overall, though, the RBC Plaza rendering is an accurate portrayal of what is being built.
The second project, the convention center, is also well portrayed. The rendering’s structural details are impressive, especially the NW corner’s glass protrusion and the roof’s support features. The building did not end up being as tall as hoped, though. The resulting roofline is about 40 feet lower (as compared to the Sheraton’s windows) and is much flatter than portrayed. Overall this is a good rendering, though.
…And then there is the Marriott. When the rendering was published, it was met with a chorus of boos. The insipid design in a prominent location was criticized as a missed opportunity. Critics at least were optimistic about the building’s massing and future contribution to the skyline’s density. In reality the building is an enormous disappointment and shows the rendering’s wild inaccuracies. The Marriott is vastly shorter and farther to the right than anticipated. Its windows are proportionally much smaller, making the building more similar to the high-rise jail than a second rate hotel design. Finally, is it me or does the photo show the hotel leaning to the left, somewhat, compared to One Hannover Square (Bank of America)? While the actual placement of the Marriott’s tower is much farther east than anticipated, the Progress One building is still visible and gives the appearance of more density. Perhaps we are lucky that more buildings appear in the “money shot”. Overall, though, the Marriott rendering turned out to be a poor one.
Another anticipated area this decade has been North Hills. Shown here is the Alexan rendering and a photo taken on February 20, 2008. Like the convention center, is it impressive how many details were included from the streetlight design and Storehouse awnings, to the black oval Alexan sign straight ahead. The artist did not anticipate the site’s terrain, though. In actuality The Alexan sits much farther back from and higher than Lassiter Mill Road. The error is most evident in the stairway that had to be built in front of the Alexan’s first storefront. The rendering shows a quite walkable, seamless site whereas reality offers pedestrians a busy street plus a flight of stairs to continue their experience. This is not a bad rendering, but the terrain issues prevent this from being a great one.
One of Raleigh’s most anticipated projects was the Entertainment and Sports Arena (RBC Center). The 1990s rendering and final product turned out to be extremely similar. There are several fairly minor differences, though. The rendering shows the building’s ovoid shape continuing, unbroken, at the main entrance. Some design changes by The Carolina Hurricanes included a bumped out entrance which allowed space for a ticketing lobby, retail store, club restaurant, Hurricanes offices, and the VIP entrance. The roof ring level is also bumped out, and houses the CanesVision video production studios. Another difference is the green glass and the absence of red in the actual structure. This is the exterior’s big failure . The original plan called for a rose-based smoked glass. Unfortunately the wrong color, green, was ordered and the result is ugly. Finally, high resolution versions of this renderings show multicolored uplighting on the roof’s ring. In actuality this aluminum crown is uplit with disappointing white light. Festive colored lighting (as shown in the rendering) would improve the building’s nighttime appearance. Overall, though, the artist did an excellent job with proportion, scale, and terrain and produced and excellent rendering.
Ruth’s Chris Replacing JK’s in North Hills
TBJ reported today
that
JK’s steakhouse
in North Hills is being replaced with the area’s second
Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse
, opening April 1. Rumors have been floating about Ruth’s Chris coming to anchor the
Renaissance Hotel
(warning: music), but the formula didn’t seem right with JK’s just around the corner.
J.K.’s will close on February 23rd and will move to a new location in Raleigh later this year.
Midtown 115 Reopens
The former 115 Midtowne in The Lassiter reopened tonight as
Midtown Restaurant & Bar 115
…or is it Midtown & Bar 115…or is it Midtown Metropolitan Cuisine 115??? The restaurant shut down on New Year’s Day and has spent four weeks enshrouded in plywood. Voila!
The restaurant now sports a more open bistro look. It’s facade is largely glass and allows two large red light fixtures to accent the inviting new look. The themes of brown/mocha have been replaced with a somewhat grayer look with accent colors, yet the restaurant still has a warm feel. Upon entering one’s eyes are easily drawn the restaurant’s new stone-draped rear wall featuring various wines. The wall comes alive due to a new all-glass enclosure for the restaurant’s rear room. The room has a projector screen and seats around 24 people comfortably and can be reserved for special events.
While there have been no staff or ownership changes, the menu has been overhauled. The contemporary menu features 10 entrees including 4 seafood and 1 vegetarian entree. Chef Scott James has been with the restaurant since its inception, acting as sous chef for Scott Cole in 115’s first year.
Midtown is open for lunch but dinner , but also features box lunch and late plate menus (.pdf files).
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