RALEIGH -- As the home of a sports arena, an art museum, state fairgrounds, a hospital and a university research campus, Blue Ridge Road should be one of the city's showplace corridors.
But the street suffers from an outdated, car-centric layout that looks like something from the 1970s - an affront to Raleigh's quest for walkable, transit-friendly districts.
Now, a group of public institutions and companies with headquarters on Blue Ridge Road have come together to revive a years-long effort to modernize the corridor.
The vision: Add sidewalks and other amenities for pedestrians and transit riders, ease traffic congestion and attract a new generation of urban-oriented development to West Raleigh.
In many ways, the boulevard embodies the area's still-unfolding shift from cow pasture to business and cultural hub. An oft-cited joke is that you can raise a Stanley Cup on one end (inside the RBC Center) and raise cattle and horses on the other (at the N.C. State University College of Veterinary Medicine).
At a kickoff gathering earlier this month, Stuart Levin read from a 1999 story in The News & Observer around the time the RBC Center was built.
Developers were quoted laying out bold expectations, saying the RBC Center would spur a wave of town-center-style shops, restaurants and residences.
That grand vision for the area has not taken hold, said Levin, a doctor at Wake Internal Medicine who leads the Blue Ridge stakeholders group.
"We don't want to have, 10 or 15 years from now, another (planning) document sitting in my attic," Levin told an audience of 100 planners, architects and government officials.
Last year, the city received a $40,000 grant from the N.C. Sustainable Communities Task Force to pay for part of the corridor study, which involves help from a team of urban planning consultants. The state Department of Transportation has also pledged up to $50,000.
A group of core stakeholders - including Rex Hospital and the Centennial Authority, which manages the RBC Center - have been meeting for three years and have together contributed $68,000 toward the effort.
Future transit corridor
The redesign is intended, in part, to prepare for the arrival of Triangle light rail. West Raleigh would be home to two of the 16 stations proposed along a future 35-mile route. Plans call for dense urban villages around most of the stations, based on the idea that people will ride the train if they can live, work and eat within walking distance of a station.
Blue Ridge Road must be prepared for the transition, city officials say.
The state has talked for years about moving some of its unsightly facilities away from Blue Ridge Road, including a 10-acre maintenance yard used by the state Department of Transportation.
"Twenty years ago, that's a great place for a maintenance yard," said Joey Hopkins, a district supervisor for DOT. "Probably not so great today."
The N.C. Museum of Art has sought to turn its campus into a recreational venue with gardens and links to local and regional greenways.
The RBC Center is interested in development on portions of its expansive parking lots, said Jessie Taliaferro, who now serves on the Centennial Authority.
"This clearly is one of the emerging corridors in our city," said Raleigh Planning Director Mitch Silver.
