But the Rooms to Go furniture store's urge to grow there, between a bustling thoroughfare and a quiet neighborhood, poses this question for city planners and policy makers: How much improvement should come with the redevelopment of troublesome places?

The current Rooms to Go site, as well as the former Rhodes furniture store next to it, dumps too much stormwater into the Brookhaven neighborhood behind them.

Now, Rooms to Go wants to demolish the old Rhodes store and build a somewhat smaller space there to more than double the size of Rooms to Go.

To get its room to grow, the store is offering the city a number of improvements to the site: a smaller replacement addition, fewer driveways off Glenwood, a new city bus stop and one medium-size sign instead of the two big ones there now.

It would also add a retention pond, which proponents say would reduce stormwater discharge from the site at least 25 percent.

City planners told Raleigh's Planning Commission this week that the proposal isn't perfect. They're pressing for one small roadside sign and only one driveway, instead of two.

That prompted Isabel Worthy Mattox, a lawyer for Rooms to Go, to highlight the gains.

"This site plan is a reduction in retail square footage -- a reduction," she emphasized. "Rooms to Go has offered to do so much to improve this area."

Brookhaven neighbor Shawn Hobbs, who lives behind the stores, complained about mosquitoes coming from the pond and furniture trucks that already barrel down his street.

"At all hours of the night, they're honking horns," he said. "I'm woken up by the trucks."

A city employee promised to sic police on errant trucks.

In the end, planning commissioners found no room for "No." They voted unanimously to recommend that the City Council approve the restoration.