Downtown Raleigh plan aims to reinvigorate center city, create connections to Dix Park, NC State

A downtown Raleigh economic development strategy was announced on Wednesday at the annual State of Downtown conference.

Leaders talked about a 5-year plan that will cost billions and push Raleigh into the future.

There were proposals and ideas that could change the Raleigh skyline and create more public spaces around downtown. The plan highlighted a vision for creating gateways between different parts of the city and invigorating the downtown area over a five-year period.

The Downtown Raleigh Alliance and the City of Raleigh collaborated with Interface Studio, a city planning and urban design practice, for recommendations on creating a more thriving downtown landscape.

Some of the recommendations include:

• Creating a connection between downtown and the Dorothea Dix Park area that bolsters access for both areas.
• Making a new 'Innovation Triangle' to link downtown to NC State's main campus and Centennial Campus.
• Installing new branding for downtown to attract tenants in design, architecture, engineering, marketing and software development industries.
• Making downtown safer for pedestrians and bicyclists along Glenwood Avenue, Dawson Street and McDowell Street.
• Connecting downtown to the state government campus and Peace Street through a northern gateway.

“I’m thrilled to see these bold ideas that increase vitality in our downtown and stake Raleigh’s place as a world-class destination,” said Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin in a release. “Now comes the important and harder work of bringing this blueprint to life and building the downtown that we all envision.”

Crime and public safety are of course, top of mind with the project.

WRAL Data Trackers pulled Raleigh Police Crime stats around GoRaleigh’s downtown bus station for the last six years. And more crime has been reported here through the first seven months of this year compared to the rest of those years.

In order to achieve these lofty goals, crime needs to be taken care of.

"I think safety in downtown Raleigh is important," said Mike Smith with Kane Realty. "And perception of safety is more important. The more we can do to invest, more officers, pay for more officers, more amenities to have the right people working, encourage all of us to get behind that."

Bill King, president of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, told WRAL News everyone involved needs to band together and unite on the future of downtown so city leaders can work toward the best outcome for businesses and residents. King said the biggest takeaway from the state of downtown report is the explosion of people moving downtown. Suiting the needs of downtown residents and visitors are each paramount.

"If you think about our plazas and our parks and our sidewalks downtown, there's a lot of opportunity to invest in those, to make those a lot more dynamic and interesting," King said. "With better public spaces and better connections, I think there's a lot of opportunity there."

"I think it leans into the things that we're good at," King said of the plans. "For example, it it really pulls out that we should be celebrating and embracing being the state capital. That's something that all those other cities can't say. So we should be a celebration of the best of North Carolina, the best art, the best restaurants. And you walk around and you feel the history and the energy of North Carolina here. So that is pretty different. I think it does lean into Raleigh's strength in green space and greenways. If we connect us out to Dix Park, or we connect our parks and our green spaces better, that's leaning into an advantage that we have. I think there's a lot of opportunities there that some of those are similar to other cities. But you think about Raleigh's advantages as the capital and in sort of our livability, in our green space and all, that's what we're trying to lean into."