Rooms without a view: Planned downtown Raleigh high-rise reveals city’s growing pains
Raleigh leaders approved a rezoning this week for an up-to 40-story building next to five-story condos built in downtown’s Warehouse District over a decade ago.
It’s the latest growing pain for a city that is adding thousands of new apartments and condos downtown, as the Raleigh City Council champions taller buildings to house them.
“This site is at the epicenter, where the city has been working over many years to encourage more development,” said Mack Paul, the attorney for New York-based developer Wilmorite Construction. “It’s in the core transit area. Walkable to Raleigh Union Station. It scores off the charts with the walk, transit and bike scores. And it’s within walking distance of Weaver Street [Market].”
“However, we also recognize we had very little residential in downtown Raleigh 20 years ago, and it is finally starting to fill in,” he said. “We’re in situations where development is coming where there is [already] development.”
Living in downtown Raleigh
Downtown Raleigh wasn’t always such a hot spot.
Since 2015 nearly 8,500 apartments and condos have been built, are under construction or are being planned, according to the Downtown Raleigh Alliance.
But go back to the early 2000s, the housing options in the downtown core were limited, with The Dawson one of the early choices.
The five-story building, at South Dawson and West Morgan streets, was built in 2005 and houses more than 60 condos.
The Dawson is in a unique spot because of its low building height and high-density location, Chris Moutos said during the rezoning public hearing Tuesday night.
“There was never going to be a complete win for The Dawson,” said Moutos, a restaurant owner according to his LinkedIn profile who previously served on The Dawson’s homeowners association. “Am I happy to lose my sunlight and views? No. Am I happy that I will be surrounded by parking garages? No. Did I know these are possibilities moving downtown? Yes.”
The new development, likely to be 20 to 30 stories tall, will include several stories of parking, apartments and restaurants or retail on the first floor. The developers agreed to build at least 15 feet from their property line, but that will still mean the people living on the west side of The Dawson will look out into a parking garage.
“It’s different than Fayetteville Street where you have buildings up against each other, but there are no windows between them,” said Council member David Cox, who voted against the rezoning.
“Here we have windows and, I guess, the big question is, going forward, are we going to just have this expectation that people are going to be able to look out on their windows and look directly in the windows and in the buildings adjacent to them?” he asked.
Resident seeks protections
Wendy Oppenheimer, who lives at The Dawson and spoke against the rezoning, asked the council to require the future building be set back farther from the property line and to prohibit dumpsters, HVAC and other related items being placed on the side facing The Dawson.
“They’ve been very difficult to work with and dismissive of the residents, at least at The Dawson in Raleigh,” she said. “Perhaps they can treat neighbors badly in rezoning cases in New York. But as a guest in our city, I would expect better of them.”
She also accused her own homeowners association of conflicts of interest and not fighting for residents.
“I would feel like residents of the building should not be penalized because of the dysfunction of our internal HOA politics,” she said.
It’s insulting to The Dawson homeowners to suggest they were unable to speak to the Raleigh City Council or Raleigh Planning Commission about this rezoning, Moutos said.
Council member Stormie Forte said she regretted the tension but said tall, dense development makes sense for downtown.
“I hate to see the level of emotions that are being expressed by the parties,” Forte said. “In this case, I understand, the sensitivity about homeownership and development and all those things. But the other thing that I will say is we’ve got a number of buildings that have been rezoned downtown for 40 stories. When we talk about the appropriate place for density, this appears to be the appropriate place for it.”
This story was originally published February 16, 2022 at 11:35 AM.
