Six years ago downtown Raleigh’s leader in development, Greg Hatem, started a project called the “L” building next to Poole’s Diner. The project was to have a parking garage flanked on two sides by an L-shaped office building. It was Hatem’s Empire Properties’ first from-scratch development, and its planning came at a time when downtown Raleigh development was on fire. Unfortunately was was beginning to burn down was the U.S. economy. By the time the project reached financing and leasing stages, the parking deck portion was built, but proceeding with the L section was impossible.

Since that period market forces have changed, and the demand for apartments downtown, especially south of Hillsborough Street, has never been higher. The new L building went before the appearance commission, and its site plan reveals a rendering of the updated project.

Ground Floor

The L portion will have a first level containing an egress for cars, a separate egress near the elevator/stair core for pedestrians, a residential lobby, an office lobby, and just under 11,000 square feet of retail/restaurant space. Its functional impact on pedestrians will be, thankfully, quite similar to the Hue. Given that Empire Properties is leasing the space, it will likely be filled with more interesting tenants.

Floor 2

Floor 2 will contain office space, but will only exist on the McDowell side of the building due to the upward slope on Davie Street. There is only about 6500 square feet of office space, and it is essentially one hallway flanked by offices and conference rooms, so it will contain space for precisely one business. This is where mixed use gets tricky, because this minimal commitment to office space is taking about 400 square feet from the street level retail space, and adding the cost of an elevator to the project.

Floors 3-6

There are roughly 19 apartments of varying sizes on floors 3-6, and from the renderings, it appears none of them has a balcony. This is a problem, as smoking tenants and guests will have to hang out the window to keep from violating the building’s rules. Additionally residents just like having a little getaway space from their interiors.

Floor 7

This floor only exists on the Davie Street side of the building, and contains 6 apartments, a fitness room, and a terrace. On this floor one will presumably be able to hold an event for guests, however it will likely become a smoking terrace most of the time, which is ironically next door to the fitness room.

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Aesthetically the building is pretty forgettable. The palette of beige and gray isn’t particularly pretty, and most of the windows in the beige portion constitute a hideous square knock out. Still, this project doesn’t look particularly worse than the other rental offerings coming online in the Glenwood South portion of downtown, so it will be competitive, for sure.

More importantly I think that residents need more options for getting outside. As mentioned, each unit should have a small balcony, but there is another opportunity for some fantastic outdoor space. That exists on the roof of the McDowell Street portion of the L. This would be a terrific setting for a rooftop garden. Residents could basically co-op the space and plant small urban gardens of their choosing. If not, at least make it a much larger terrace. For this reason, it might make more sense to move the current design for the terrace/social room down to space adjacent to this rooftop area. The garden could become a focal point of the social space. Such an arrangement would give this project a big competitive advantage over the other apartment offerings in downtown.

I’m glad to see this project getting off the ground. Empire Properties did a wonderful job of cloaking the hideous parking garage with art, but the long term asset of more residents in the Warehouse area will be good for downtown. I’m sure that Empire’s financial team will be happy to see this project completed, and the bank note starting to move, too! With downtown seeming to get some forward momentum again, it seems the project wont be too far off now.