The planned 43-story Soleil Center is going back to the drawing board, according to the N&O’s Jack Hagel . Due to the current lending market and sluggish sales in high-end condos, the project will be built in two phases. The sorely-needed 300-room, 14-16 story Westin hotel portion will be built first. In the future, should the condo market the return, the project could be topped with 25 more stories of condos.

What happens now, architecturally speaking? The project will hopefully be a graceful structure in its interim. If it is a obviously truncated design, then what happens if the high-end condo market doesn’t return? Is Raleigh stuck with yet another ugly high-rise?

Some critics will celebrate in victory as they feel this is an admission that the Soleil concept was flawed. However one cannot say that we should extend the city’s agreements for people like Greg Hatem and for the Reynolds (who were not able to sell condo portions of their projects downtown) due to the “rough economy”, while also saying that Soleil isn’t being built as-planned because it is a flawed concept. The economy is the overriding factor with all of today’s incomplete projects.

Hopefully all of these projects’ complete build-outs will see the light of day. It would be nice for people to have as many housing choices as possible in this market.