Hillsborough Street Celebrates the Coming Transformation

Tomorrow Hillsborough Street celebrates 10 years of working toward a new vision. Since 1999 residents, business owners and politicians have been working to revitalize the street to something valuable, charming and successful. As construction continues and roundabouts are installed, we are in great anticipation.

Awards luncheon and community workshop celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the community workshops leading to the redevelopment of Hillsborough Street. Awards, music, good food and people interested in sharing their vision of Hillsborough Street. National walkability expert Dan Burden, will be the featured speaker.

In late October 1999, more than 500 community leaders, advocates and interested citizens came together for a series of workshops called “Creating a New Vision For Hillsborough Street” – led by nationally renowned walkability expert Dan Burden. The result of that effort is the redesign work underway on Hillsborough Street today. In the ten years that have passed, there have been many milestones. The first construction project – the roundabout at Pullen and Stinsen Rd. -was built and is widely used. The Hillsborough Street Partnership, a non profit dedicated to a safer, more beautiful and vibrant Hillsborough Street Community was established. A Business Improvement District was conceived and created – the second such district in the City of Raleigh. The Hillsborough Street Community Service Corporation (HSCSC) was established and will serve as the BID administrator. And of course, construction has begun on the first phase of the redevelopment plan for Hillsborough Street.

It happens at the NCSU Bell Tower, Hillsborough Street, followed by workshop across the street at the Hillsborough Street Community Center, 1 Maiden Lane.

Schedule:
Lunch: Noon to 1 pm
Workshop: 1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
The official program begins at 12:30 pm

Speakers Include:

Dan Burden: Walkable Communities Inc
Mitchell Silver: Raleigh Planning Director
Charles Leffler, NCSU Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business
Carl Dawson: Raleigh Public Works Director
Thomas Crowder: Raleigh City Council,VP of HSCSC
Russ Stephenson: Raleigh City Council
George Chapman: Hillsborough Street Partnership
Kevin Jennings: Urban Food Group & President, HSCSC
Dan Howe: Asst City Manager.

RG10/30 03:03 PM

YES! A walkability expert! Only one more year of construction! I love Crowder and his vision for Raleigh, almost as much so as the businesses in his district that have closed this year.

Anon10/30 04:05 PM

Awesome. It doesn’t appear as if there is one single speaker that owns a business on Hillsborough Street.

CW10/30 04:25 PM

To Anon-
(FYI - George Chapman owns a bed and breakfast a just off of Hillsborough. It also happens to be his home. Is that not good enough?) It seems to me like you don’t have to own a business there just to take interest in its revitalization.

Matt10/30 04:40 PM

Kevin Jennings owns two businesses on Hillsborough Street.

JeffS10/30 10:07 PM

Why don’t they gather after something’s been accomplished? Or are they worried that half of them would be dead by then?

Wanna take bets on how many people will drive from the belltower to the community center?

JRD10/31 03:30 AM

^Haha! Plenty of them, Im sure.

ct10/31 02:14 PM

Another charitable donation of city-wide tax dollars to inside-the-Beltline interests. Don’t think the north Raleigh voters aren’t watching.

Betsy10/31 06:09 PM

Actually, inside-the-Beltline Raleigh is a massive net donor of tax dollars to outside-the-beltline Raleigh. But we all live in Raleigh, so who’s counting.

Truth be Told10/31 08:33 PM

I love IBT as much as anyone, but that is an often told assertion that is never ever backed up by numbers to prove its accuracy. I doubt it is true, but I can’t claim that because I have never found the numbers.

Steve W11/01 05:06 PM

ct, the auto-centric sprawling land development in north Raleigh depends on infrastructure that is enormously expensive and is not paid for by property taxes or impact fees. You can’t see those hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure in north Raleigh like you can see the Convention Center downtown, but us downtowners are still subsidizing your lifestyle. That’s despite the fact it doesn’t benefit us at all, whereas the Convention Center and a lively downtown benefits all Raleigh residents by serving as an amenity and bringing in additional revenue from other states and countries.

Truth be Told11/01 05:46 PM

A bold statement, an interesting hypothesis that may be true. But as with every prior assertation of the same, not a bit of proof is offered.

Steve W11/01 07:36 PM

I forgot to mention the reason you can’t see the hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure that makes totally unsustainable living in north Raleigh possible in the short-term is because it is mostly underground and distributed throughout. The Convention Center downtown is an easy target for downtown-haters because it is focused in one place, but check your facts before getting too emotional.

smitty11/01 08:05 PM

Too bad the Convention Center doesn’t sell groceries, that would be nice.

Truth be Told11/01 11:08 PM

Not at all emotional about this, I’d just like to see some semblance of an actual accounting of costs, what you call “facts,” rather than the vague unsupported statements that you are making. You may be right, but you certainly haven’t offered any facts. Pointing that out does not make me or anyone else a “downtown hater,” and resorting to that kind of name-calling is a sign that perhaps you can’t defend your thesis with actual facts.

Steve W11/02 12:08 AM

Dear “Truth be Told,”

I’m sorry, I thought you were openly anti-downtown. I was just repeating what I have heard many times from the Raleigh City Planning department. If you think north Raleigh subsidizes downtown rather than vice versa, do you have any data to back that up? Or have you even heard that claim from anyone that is reputable?

Truth be Told11/02 07:45 AM

My opening line was that I love ITB as much as anyone, looking back I don’t see a hint of sarcasm there.

I too have heard many times from many mouths that downtown subsidizes the burbs, and less often but often enough that the burbs subsidize ITB. Never once has either of these assertations been supported by even back of the envelope calculations.

Just on the tax side, there are some of the highest property values in the city downtown, as well as some of the very lowest. And there is a large number of properties that are not taxed at all. The accounting is far from as simple as saying all the infrastructure is in place (if it was we wouldn’t be pursuing Dix for a park) and that the infrastructure outside the beltline is hidden (kinda hard to hide that outer loop).

Repeating things that others say, no matter how passionately or often they say them, simply does not make them true. Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, growth pays for itself, and Jesus saves. If our planning department has numbers, they should be easy to get. If they don’t, and they are actually claiming what you are merely repeating, then we as citizens are being very poorly served.

RaleighRob11/02 11:28 AM

ct- yeah just like the ITB voters were watching all thru the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s while Raleigh spent all its money expanding rampant suburban sprawl…all while totally neglecting it’s historic center & urban core, and letting them decay to their worst state since the founding of the city? Kinda like that, you mean?

Steve W11/02 12:00 PM

Isn’t it obvious that development downtown and in employment/lifestyle centers helps keep taxes stable? In other words, our residential property taxes don’t go up as much because there are projects that maximize the highest and best use of land without the need large public expenditures for infrastructure and community facilities such as schools.

ct11/02 12:39 PM

When rigidly adhered to, ideology blinds people to facts. Let’s set a few things straight.

1. Density in North Raleigh is no different from density of any ITB area developed after World War II. From the 7 o’clock position (Avent Ferry Rd) to the 2 o’clock position (Six Forks Rd), Raleigh ITB is just as sprawled as North Raleigh. There are places in North Raleigh like outer Glenwood, Lynn Rd, Six Forks, etc that are loaded with large apartment complexes; I’d argue that 95% of the apartments built in Raleigh over the last 20 years are OTB. Also, virtualy all of the public housing built in Raleigh over the last 20 years is OTB. And if you care to drive out to Brier Creek, you’ll see some surprisingly high residential density there too. There wouldn’t be the number of grocery stores per square mile in North Raleigh if the density were really as low as ITB advocates apparently believe.

2. Don’t overstate the downtown tax base. Reality is, a very large part of the ITB property base is government-owned (eg RBC Center) or non-profit-owned (eg WakeMed) and generates zero property tax income for the city. Most of the commercial Class A office space in the city limits is OTB. Some ITB areas like Capital Blvd and New Bern Ave don’t generate high property tax income because the properties have deteriorated.

3. When Mayor Meeker says that 80% of city tax dollars for construction are spent OTB, he conveniently forgets to mention that he includes water treatment and sewage treatment construction projects (like the new Dempsey Benton plant on Lake Benson) in that figure. Well, literally those projects are OTB—but that’s obfuscating. He also conveniently exludes projects like the Convention Center because literally, they weren’t city construction projects.

4. Raleigh CHOSE to annex all the area OTB in North Raleigh that was developed 1970-2009. The development would have happened where Raleigh annexed it or not (many examples in the rest of Wake County). Fact is, Raleigh annexed thse areas aggressively—and for the most part, AFTER the big bucks on infrastructure development had already been spent. Raleigh hasn’t quit annexing wherever it can, and I interpret that to confirm the profitability of annexation. Otherwise, Raleigh would simply quit annexing—and it hasn’t. The real problem is that Raleigh is running out of room to annex, and that’s why the city interests have become so pro-ITB. Of course, a pro-ITB policy helps to drive up property values for the old-Raleigh crowd that owns ITB property.

5. Infrastructure ITB costs Raleigh a fortune to maintain. Not only is it old and falling apart, but it’s also not designed to decent engineering standards. Raleigh hasn’t had to do anything to my 30 year-old neighborhood except pave the streets when they turned 25. By the way, NCDOT (not the city) paid for widening projects like Creedmoor Road and outer Glenwood.

6. Most of the city road expansion OTB is driven directly by bond issues that were overwhelmingly approved by city voters. In contrast, projects like traffic circles on Hillsborough St find their way into the city’s budget as wish-list items.

Truth be Told11/02 01:02 PM

No it is not the least bit obvious. Downtowns seldom develop or redevelop without “large public expenditures.” Ours in recent times has needed public funding for massive parking decks, at least one major hotel, and a reworking of the main drag to try to create a new community. Don’t need schools? Then why was Exploris middle school opened (circa 1997, and cheap for taxpayers), why did Museums Magnet middle school occupy an entire four acre block in the very heart of downtown just five years ago (a low-rise facility that was a major hit to taxpayers not to mention forgone opportunity for property tax collection from an entire downtown block)? You have to be in a bad state of denial to say that Raleigh hadn’t invested in its downtown in the 60s-90s. The late 70s saw Fayetteville Street converted into a pedestrian mall - yes all those auto-centric minds were thinking at least a little bit about walkers - and a brand new convention center. I don’t know why those and other large expenditures on downtown infrastructure didn’t transform downtown Raleigh into downtown Denver, but I do know that none of it came for free.

Clearly you are unable to provide any evidence for your assertion, so I will consider it an interesting but not answered question.

arthurb311/02 04:02 PM

Whew. You all are wearing me out! I think things have evened out with the last evaluation of real estate taxes.

Ken Metzger11/02 04:51 PM

ct, your entire argument is just cherry picking properties that support your argument. Yes, WakeMed is ITB, but what about Rex and Duke Hospitals? RBC Center is actually OTB.

ITB property is worth a whole lot more than you think. What is worth more: a run down used car lot and car wash on Capital (905 Capital) or Pleasant Valley (on Glenwood)? That’s right, the used car lot and car wash. $523,000 per acre compared to $425,000 per acre. OK, how about residential. Bragg St (one of the lower income neighborhoods) or Winthrop Dr (Brookhaven)? In this case the middle class neighborhood is about even compared to the lowest income in Raleigh: $240,000 per acre compared to $255,000 per acre.

Costs to maintain infrastructure cannot be as much as building the whole thing. Hillsborough St. is the only main road construction ITB (that I can think of), but is constant OTB even if one does not include 540.

ct11/02 06:11 PM

One man’s cherry picking is another man’s illustration! Pleasant Valley values per acre, like most other recently built shopping centers OTB, are low because the city code was changed in the 1980s to require an absurd number of parking spaces in newly built shopping centers. Pleasant Valley could (and should) have been built on a tract half its size. That decision has not only contributed to the perception of sprawl in North Raleigh, but it has also damaged the Neuse watershed—a momumentally stupid decision that the city still hasn’t corrected. This problem affects primarily OTB because the parking code wasn’t applied retroactively to ITB.

The office parks adjacent to Rex and Duke (f/k/a Raleigh Community) generate a lot of property tax revenue. It doesn’t work that way in the vicinity of WakeMed because the county and WakeMed itself own much of the surrounding real estate.

Not sure what you’re looking at when it comes to property values along Winthrop. Zillow reports the lowest home value is $308K on a fractional-acre lot. Nearly all developed residential tracts in North Raleigh are valued at about $1 million per acre, given that most of them were built to R-4 or R-6.

What constant construction OTB? Things are actually quiet these days, in terms of city-funded road projects. The next major city-funded project is Falls of Neuse across the river, but that was a quid pro quo for Raleigh’s annexing wealthy Wakefield. Raleigh could just have easily left it to the city of Wake Forest.

Ken Metzger11/03 09:58 AM

$1 million per acre? Where are you getting your numbers? I have gathered mine from tax values. If you look at White Oak it is $845,000 per acre while a new neighborhood off of Strickland (Devonshire with the notorious McMansions) is only $355,000 per acre.
The constant constuction OTB includes not just new roads, but all of the road widening projects, as well (Perry Creek and Strickland come to mind). It does appear to have slowed.

ct11/03 11:38 AM

Are we talking about prices for raw land or prices for houses on lots? Zillow says every house and lot on Winthrop (down the street from where I live) is in the $300-450K range. Since Winthrop is nearly all developed, any undeveloped parcel that remains is likely to be a problem parcel—eg, flood plain—with a reason for its low value.

Ken Metzger11/03 12:28 PM

Sorry, I think I have taken this thread a bit off topic, but I found the values interesting. I was looking strictly at land value not the houses or buildings.

ct11/03 12:47 PM

Yes, it has strayed off-topic—but I think it’s an important exchange of views. Be careful about values of undeveloped lots that are surrounded by developed lots. There is often a reason why a lot wasn’t developed to begin with. For example, some neighborhoods in North Raleigh were originally served by private wells and septic tanks because the city water and sewage lines didn’t go out that far. When the city got around to extending their pipes—sometimes long after the areas were annexed—the undeveloped land that had been set aside for wells or septic fields was put up for sale. I’m not saying that this is an explanation specifically for Winthrop, but it happens.

Ken Metzger11/03 02:08 PM

They are developed lots. In fact, one of them is my parents house.

winds are a changin11/12 11:02 PM

Unfortunately, Truth be Told, I can’t believe your statements in regards to the schools and downtown developments through the past 4 decades. This is due to the fact that I believe your information is pure conjecture pulled from the ether of your imagination during a meth infused bender where you found yourself to be living in a fourth dimension. Here the liberal Zaphod Beeblebrox was mayor of Raleigh and promised progressive development, but in all reality he was merely a puppet for the highly bureaucratic and sprawl loving Vogons who made life for all the citizens of Raleigh miserable while they planned to expand North Raleigh to the stars and the subsequent demolition of the ITB…since it happened to be in the way; and full of people who dared to challenge the status quo, criticize the obscenely rich pricks who live in North Raleigh, and believe the antiquated views of the closed minded haters of change would eventually die a quiet and lonely death.

I find it funny how Truth be Told posts constantly on this site for people to back up their assertions with facts and not just by what they’ve seen and heard. Then, true to hypocritic form, posts a refutation to another’s argument without any proof to back it up. Hmmm…do I smell douche? The odor is akin to a GQ magazine cologne sampler.

Quotes? Citations? References? Thesis statement? Common, give me something!!! I mean you really should back up what you’re saying with some “semblance of an actual accounting [...], what you call “facts,” rather than the vague unsupported statements that you are making.” Please reference: http://www.newraleigh.com/articles/archive/hillsborough-street-celebrates-the-coming-transformation/

ct11/12 11:19 PM

I’m not stepping into the previous post, but as to who’s rich and who’s not, here are median home prices by Raleigh zip codes in central and north Raleigh. 27608 (ITB) and 27614 (OTB) are higher than the others, but this data does not suggest all north Raleigh is rich. The high number of townhomes in north Raleigh, nearly all of which sell for less than $150K and many of which are owned by people with five-figure incomes, is a major factor in these numbers.

27607 Straddles $201K
27608 Inside $270K
27609 Straddles $161K
27612 Outside $196K
27613 Outside $196K
27614 Outside $280K
27615 Outside $203K
27616 Outside $130K

Truth be Told11/13 08:49 AM

Wow, ct, you were braver than I to be the first to respond to that previous post, most of which is unintelligilbe. I sense the poster harbors copious hate and disdain for anyone who doesn’t look or think exactly as he or she does, so I doubt your facts will be considered. I had no idea that ITB had been or is planned to be demolished - I learn something new every day.

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David Friday, October 30, 2009