Carolina RailHawks to Rebrand, Announce Bid for MLS (Raleigh, Durham: school, closing)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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My real concern is they put it out at the soccer park off Durant or try to go to North Hills off St Albans, which was also flying around last week. Durant is terrible for location and North Hills has plenty of other issues like congestion that dumping 20k plus people into and out of a stadium is going to be awful. Now that never stopped anyone before, but I also think the land at N Hills is worth too much to put a stadium that gets limited use compared to office and apartments anyway.
Oh gosh I really hope they don't put a soccer park out on Durant (with weekday 6 PM game times )
We have to consider that the last 4 spots into MLS will be VERY contested by major metro areas. Malik and his team will be taking into account what MLS wants and the brand MLS has been creating for years, meaning concrete examples of what has already worked in landing a team. This is my opinion, but we'd have no chance to land a spot with a WakeMed retro fit. That venue is bad for a lot of reasons, including access and traffic flow, and structural setup.
MLS has been pushing for franchises that make major commitments ($$$) and a lot of times they have favored proposals where they used private $. They are also going hard after certain demographics, which tend to be more urban based. 2 very stereotypical examples of these are Latin youth and Millennials. They have been preferring downtown or urban stadiums which coincide with these target audiences.
Malik is not naive in this whole thing. He knows what needs to be done, but he also knows it still won't be easy. This will be interesting to follow how it plays out.
You totally get it. Teams in poor locations have suffered (Chivas USA, Chicago Fire come to mind). There are many cities maneuvering for a franchise right now. I actually thought they were about to cap the # of teams but hopefully that is not the case and we can still get in. He needs to prove this team will thrive in part due to the location of the stadium and it has to be a new shiny stadium or forget about it.
A WakeMed retro-fit won't work because the location is inconvenient. I've had CASL games scheduled there and it's a drag to get to from points North and East of Cary. A downtown Raleigh location would allow access from 440, Capital and many other secondary routes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by K4GPB
Cary location stinks, so long as access is via a single two-lane road!
Good concerns with the current access to Wakemed.... less than ideal even for the current uses. Chatham St is two lane with no I40 exit so in no way would it support traffic for an MLS team. In a way, yes, it stinks -unless you live in Cary. However, check these plans out that TOC already has in the pipeline for that entire area. Part of the office park and mixed use "master plan" called the "Eastern Gateway"'; if you've heard about it it is probably because that is where Wegmans announced their first store location.
They are redeveloping it MLS or not. Part of this will have to be, as proposed in the PDF, much better access to and around WakeMed. The big connector will be extending/finishing Trinity Rd, which is already started with a "spur" off of Cary Towne Blvd, north from Cary Towne Blvd (4 lane with I40 access) through WakeMed to Chapel Hill/Hwy 54 (4 lane with I40 access). Note that Trinity is planned to be 4 lane as well. Just take a look at this PDF (page 8/20 of PDF = page 122 of document)... does more justice than me trying to explain it. As you can see, it is set up to collect/funnel traffic into WakeMed from the the north and west (Chapel Hill Rd I40 exit) as well as from the south and east (Cary Towne Blvd exit).
We have to consider that the last 4 spots into MLS will be VERY contested by major metro areas. Malik and his team will be taking into account what MLS wants and the brand MLS has been creating for years, meaning concrete examples of what has already worked in landing a team. This is my opinion, but we'd have no chance to land a spot with a WakeMed retro fit. That venue is bad for a lot of reasons, including access and traffic flow, and structural setup.
MLS has been pushing for franchises that make major commitments ($$$) and a lot of times they have favored proposals where they used private $. They are also going hard after certain demographics, which tend to be more urban based. 2 very stereotypical examples of these are Latin youth and Millennials. They have been preferring downtown or urban stadiums which coincide with these target audiences.
Malik is not naive in this whole thing. He knows what needs to be done, but he also knows it still won't be easy. This will be interesting to follow how it plays out.
I address the town's traffic flow solution in my previous post.
That area/quadrant of Cary (Northeast) is the non-wealthy part and actually has a very large minority population with many Latinos. My kid's school is 40% Hispanic.
It definitely should be near a railroad, for potential future mass-transit opportunities. And maybe built to support outdoor concerts or other festivals.
Not a fan of the name though - North Carolina FC......really?
I like unique names, when they fit culturally. Tar Heels make sense. Hurricanes. The Railhawk was some random bird on the railroad. I would be cool with this name. It would be the first team to solely claim North Carolina. Then have a cool/unique mascot that ties in with the state.
Yes, but that's probably not going to happen. A new 10-story Exploris school, office building, and parking deck has been proposed for 120 Kindley Street recently. (The area bounded by the railroad and McDowell Street onramp.) It's currently in site review.
The Exploris School, a charter school in downtown Raleigh, has acquired 5.5 acres near the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts.
The property at 120 Kindley St. is home to a former Duke Energy data center that Exploris plans to renovate. The $20 million project is to be financed by bonds and a capital campaign.
Exploris paid $4.4 million to acquire the property from Duke Energy.
Yes, but that's probably not going to happen. A new 10-story Exploris school, office building, and parking deck has been proposed for 120 Kindley Street recently. (The area bounded by the railroad and McDowell Street onramp.) It's currently in site review.
Oh wow, I didn't realize they'd purchased that land. And certainly expanded on their initial vision of just reusing a portion of the existing building. Guess somebody with some $$$ convinced them there was a bigger development opportunity there that they could be part of.
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