One of the tallest buildings in Manhattan’s Lower East Side is the 687-foot-tall 55 Water Street. It was built in 1974. Featuring an almost identical facade, Raleigh’s One Progress Plaza was completed in 1977 and has 21 floors (~280 feet).
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).
Time Warner Cable subscribers have a real treat this week. The NHL Center Ice package is available for free (to digital subscribers) through Sunday night. This gives us a chance to see some of the teams Versus won’t typically show. It also is a rare chance to follow some former Canes such as: Kevyn and Craig Adams (Blackhawks), Sandis Ozolinsh (Sharks), Kevin Weekes (Devils), Jack Johnson (Kings), Martin Gelinas (Predators), Sean Hill (IR - Wild), Josef Vasicek (Islanders), and Byron Ritchie (Canucks). The schedule of games is available on the TWC site.
Check out the Dominion Tower in Norfolk, VA completed in 1987. Standing at 340 feet tall, there are 26 floors. Raleigh’s Wachovia Capitol Center was completed in 1991 and is 400 feet tall with 30 floors.
Raleigh’s Strickland-Ferris house, perched above Crabtree Creek, is featured in the January 2008 issue of Architectural Record. Designed by architect Frank Harmon, the 1,800 square foot "floating" house" sits on nine wood trusses sitting on concrete columns among a dense forest of trees.
The street side appears to be almost windowless, but the northern, forest facade is a wall of steel and glass giving the residents a feeling that they are floating among the trees.
The N&O has a feature in the Life section today about long time classic-rock fixture Bob The Blade’s return to Raleigh. The Blade was a staple in the drive time hours at WRDU, but when the station turned country, Bob couldn’t take it and went to WSFL near New Bern.
Bob’s maintained a fun website so he could be enjoyed from afar, but finally, the Madison, WI native will return to his true home, the Triangle. Check him out on 96 Rock from 2-6pm beginning Monday.
Part one of this series introduced a simple plan to solve the RBC Center’s West side ingress problems. Each lot on the arena’s West side would have a dedicated lane and would, therefore, have uninterrupted traffic flow.
The RBC Center’s East parking lots are accessed by the three-lane Westchase Blvd. Because one of those lanes has to be designated for egress during ingress events, the traffic flow on the East side of the RBC Center has major inefficiencies. While there would not be a bottleneck, it would be impossible to dedicate a lane for each East side lot, Lots 1, 2 and 3, using the existing lane configurations. With a simple redesign of about 500 feet of curb on the arena’s West side, all lots could have a dedicated ingress road.
Part I advised dedicating a lane for Lots 4, 5, and 6. Lot 3 traffic must use the East side. By expanding capacity on the West side, however, Lot 3 traffic could use Edwards Mill Road and leave Westchase Blvd’s two ingress lanes for Lots 1 and 2.
In this plan, read more…
Walnut Creek Amphitheater announced a slew of concerts today including many country acts, R.E.M., and two nights of Widespread Panic:
The Cary location of the Chipotle chain is now open in the former Blockbuster location (map it). For those who haven’t been to Chipotle, it is a fast-mexican restaurant which features "fresh" food (ie. stuff hasn’t been sitting there long, salsas are made daily, etc). Pick from one of four meats arranged in one of four styles…you know the deal. Most of what I’ve had there was very comparable to Q’doba.
Now that the lazy people are out of the way, here is the secret: Chipotle’s Carnitas on 4 crunchy tacos. This is one of the most delicious lunches you can have, anywhere. My personal favorite is to get each of the four with a different one of their four salsas. That way the lunch keeps evolving as I eat it. Probably the corn salsa is the best with the Carnitas.
I kid you not, though. This is a seriously awesome meal (many people have heard/read my previous diatribes, gone to Chipotle and deviated from my suggestion, and been disappointed and won’t go back. Don’t be another one!) I’ve also had a crunchy taco with Barbacoa, and it is excellent as well, but not dream-worthy. Additionally, Chipotle’s guacamole is excellent, though some of the chips have tough, not crunchy regions. The guacamole isn’t overloaded with citrus juices; an ingredient that doesn’t appear in real guacamole (Rosa Mexicano’s recipe).
This is Chipotle’s fifth area location.
Kiplinger magazine’s February 2008 issue features a story on the best values in public colleges and UNC Chapel Hill tops the list. They credit the $2.3 billion fund-raising campaign as a key to reducing the tuition burden on students. Other state schools making the list are NCSU at #13, Appalachian State at #27, UNC-Wilmington at #36, UNC-Asheville at #40, and UNC-Greensboro at #68
Remember the days back in 2001 when the utilities commission was planning 10-digit dialing and an overlay area code for the Triangle? Well, it’s back. The growth of cell phones, OnStar, security systems, and other objects demanding more cell network numbers is gobbling up all of the available 919 numbers. TBJ has a good story covering this and explains why the issued died for a period.
With 2 goals and 1 assist, the Carolina Hurricanes’ Eric Staal was named the MVP of the NHL All-Star Game tonight. Staal is in his 4th season with Canes and currently ranks 9th in goals and 25th in points in the NHL. Congrats to Staal!
Staal was the only All Star from the Canes squad, however. We saw Rod Brind’Amour in Milton’s Pizza & Pasta tonight during the game and it almost made me sick thinking of what little respect he gets around the league.
A new professional women’s soccer league, the WPS, will begin play in 2009. Cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, St. Louis, Washington, Boston, New York, and Chicago have been named, but the league wants to add one more team. So far Cary leads in voting with 18%, and your vote can take the area one step toward joining this league. (The poll is halfway down the page in a cell). Thanks so Trisoccerfan for the heads up.
The preliminary site plan (.pdf file) for a new 10-story highrise in downtown has just been submitted to the City of Raleigh. Williams Realty and Building plans a mixed use building at West and Jones Streets, across from 42nd St. Oyster Bar (map it), that will house 4 stories of office space and a 134-room hotel on 5 stories. The structure will have an internal 397-space parking deck, an indoor pool, 7,684 square feet of ground-level retail, and a 4,969 square foot rooftop restaurant.
That giant crashing sound you heard was the dam breaking. Both Bob Winston and the Williams are now interested in the redeveloping areas of downtown. For years now semilocal money has led the way in downtown’s redevelopment, but now we are seeing long-time natives getting in the game!
Note: The site plan portrays the building with East, not North, at the top of the page. The bottom of the page is bordered by 42nd Street, so the buildings across from the restaurant will be razed.
One of Raleigh’s newest traditions, the Krispy Kreme Challenge (ie. Insanathon), will begin tomorrow at 9:00am. The event benefiting the N.C. Children’s Hospital involves running two miles from the N.C. State Belltower to Krispy Kreme on Peace Street. Participants will then eat one dozen donuts, and run back to the Belltower; all in under an hour. Last year’s winner, Auburn Staples, finished in 24:32.
The real winner is the hospital because the event raised $10,300 last year. The race has 2,704 entrants so far, and registration will close at 3,000. Registration will be open from 5:00 to 8:00 tonight at Krispy Kreme.
Construction has officially begun on the 17-story mixed use tower in North Hills East known as the CAPTRUST tower. A joint venture between Duke Realty and Kane Realty, the tower will feature retail and restaurants on its first floor and will contain parking internally. A “high-end, national white tablecloth restaurant” is planned as well.
The tower is the centerpiece of the new eastside development of the 100-acre North Hills complex. North Hills East plans include a high-density retirement community, residential tower, retail, and a full-size, two-story Harris Teeter supermarket.
CAPTRUST Financial Advisors will be the building’s major tenants, however according to CNNmoney.com, other tenants of the 274,000 square foot building include Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak, & Stewart, PC, and CD Richard Ellis. The building will be completed in 2009.
The RBC Center’s Barry Manilow concert that was postponed due to inclement weather has been rescheduled for March 27. Tickets for the January 20 show will be honored for the new date.
The first Walnut Creek announcement is out and it’s a good one! On July 12, 2008 Steve Winwood and Tom Petty will be coming. No word on ticket info yet, but the amphitheater’s terrible website should have info as soon as the formal announcement is made.
Ever since the RBC Center’s opening in 1999 the traffic scheme in and out of the parking lots has been an enigma. Each year the traffic plan is changed, but a true solution is never found. While the plan for egress and ingress are different, hard game times make the ingress plan more important to the experience of the RBC Center’s customers.
I’m not sure if the traffic plan is different for NCSU games than it is for Carolina Hurricanes games, but the parking designation for the events is definitely different. The Hurricanes largely sell the lot spaces as day-of-event general admission while the basketball games get reserved section parking.
The arena has six paved lots surrounding its North, West, and South sides and has two small VIP lots outside its main entrance. The west side of the arena is served largely by access from the variable direction, five-lane Edwards Mill Road while the east side is served from a three-lane Westchase Blvd. All perimeter roads around the arena on the property have three lanes.
There are a few caveats to planning traffic ingress. There must be a lane reserved on each road for emergency vehicle egress. Thus, the 3-lane roads can only use two lanes in any particular direction. Additionally, it seems that the City of Raleigh insists that at least one lane on Edwards Mill Road be marked for upstream traffic.
Regardless, there are two easy answers for creating smooth ingress for events. Using the existing roads, simple lane assignments should solve all problems. Because there are three parking lots on the building’s West side (Lots 4, 5, and 6), one lane should be designated for each lot from Wade Avenue inward. The illustration above show the first solution, and is a detail view of this area. read more…
The USPTA this week named North Hills Club’s C.W. Cook as their North Carolina Manager of the Year. Cook has overseen a complete transformation of the club in the last two years and seems to have the place on track. Perhaps his most difficult task has been determining the true demand for the club’s full dining room capabilities while requiring no food minimum of its members. The offerings from the start have ran the gamut for periods lasting a few weeks, but have settled into meeting the club’s demands.
Congrats to CW!
