raleighing archive

2006 Top 50 For Raleigh

2006 was another phenomenal year for our city. We had the most intense focus on Fayetteville Street ever, unpredictable sports stories, numerous honors for the area, great new restaurants, and plans for even greater things ahead. We started with a list of almost 150 stories and had to whittle it down quite a bit. So here goes. The top 50 stories that changed living in Raleigh for 2006:

50. Southend Brewery Closes
49. Storehouse Closing All Locations
48. Jibarra Brings Chic Mexican to North Raleigh
47. Professional Soccer Returns, Meet Your New Pro Team 
46. North Raleigh Lucky 32 Closes
45. RBC Center to Get $25 Million Renovation
44. Trader Joe’s Opens: Cary Grocery Options Improve
43. Fetzer Stephens Saves Domicile Building
42. N.C. State Hires New Football and Basketball Coaches: Goodbye Mr. Sendek, Amato Out
41. WRAL Holds 70's News Reunion
40. Oberlin Road YWCA To Close
39. Creedmoor Tower Design Online
38. Broughton Girls Soccer Finishes #1 in USA
37. Jillian's Closes After 9 Years
36. Carl Pettersson Makes U.S. Open Golf Field
35. Mr. Dunderbak's Closes in Crabtree
34. NC Lottery Opens: Bad Gambling Set to Begin Today
33. 630 North Promises 10-stories on Boylan
32. The Umstead Announces Phil Evans as Chef for Herons
31. City Council Approves North Hills East
30. Seaboard Station Opens including: Capital City Grocery Now Open, J. Betski's Now Open, 18 Seaboard Opens
29. Jimmy V Classic Moving to Pinehurst
28. Campbell School of Law Contemplates Downtown Move
27. West at North Condo Plans Announced: Sandreuter Plans More Condos for Glenwood South
26. SparkCon a Big Success: Designbox to Introduce Spark Con at First Friday
25. The Paramount Opens: The Paramount Sets New Standard in Comfort
24. Marriott Renderings Met With Thumbs Down, Marriott Design Approved
23. Raleigh Area Earns Multiple Honors: Fearrington Earns 5-Star Status, Wake Co. School System Ranks #1, Raleigh-Durham Named #6 for Singles, Triangle Ranks #1 for Women Entrepreneurs, Triangle Ranks Sixth for Relocating Singles, Raleigh Scores #4 Best "Big City" By Money, Forbes Names Raleigh #2 City For Business, We Is #3!, Raleigh 16th in National Ranking, Raleigh Makes Top 10 Walking List, Triangle named "Geek Mecca" by Wired
22. Costco Opens Raleigh Store
21. Soleil Plans 18-Story Office Building at Crabtree
20. City Council Rejects Chandeliers
19. "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" Features Raleigh Home
18. Angus Barn's Walter Royal Wins on Iron Chef
17. Jim Rutherford Named NHL's Executive of the Year
16. Lafayette Plans to Bring Style To Skyline
15. Site 1 Moves Forward
14. Clear Channel Shifts Radio Formats: Sunny 93.9 Reaches Dusk, 100.7 Changes Format, WRDU Goes Country
13. NC Museum of Art Unveils New Renderings
12. Reynolds Tower Announced, Reynolds Tower Tweaked
11. RBC Plaza Launches Construction, Website
10. Monet In Normandy Opens at NCMA
9. Hudson Belk Men to Fill Crabtree's Vacant Lord & Taylor Space
8. Council Approves Kidd's Hill Plan, Crabtree Village Reaching Retailers
7. The Nash Proposed
6. Former Crabtree Sheraton Hotel Imploded, Soleil Center Site Adds Features
5. TTA Loses Bid For Federal Funding: Flying Past Congested Cities
4. Civic Center Imploded: Civic Center: RIP
3. Goodmon Ends City’s Perversion of Plensa, Plensa Unveils "City Square" Concept
2. Fayetteville Street Reopens: Raleigh Wide Open, WTVD Posts 1977 Fayetteville Street Video, Restaurants open: Riviera Opens in Downtown Raleigh, Big Easy Has Big Tastes, Raleigh Times Bar Opens, Yancy's Opens, Lunch Buffet Begins Today
1. Carolina Hurricanes Win Stanley Cup: As Good As It Gets, Hurdles Can't Stop Canes

Triangle Earns "Geek Mecca" Honors

Word is that Wired Magazine has named the Triangle as one of the Top Ten Tech Towns in its January issue. The story will be online on Friday, but we'll go ahead and spill that others named in the issue are:

• Austin
• Boston
• Los Angeles
• New York City
• Orlando
• Pittsburgh
• San Francisco (Bay Area)
• Seattle
• Washington, DC.

Scope Shop Out of This World

We love finding local stores catering to niches. That's why it was so interesting to run across the Big Bang Astronomy Shop on Duraleigh Road (Next to Salsa Fresh). The store caters to astronomy clubs as well as beginners. They stock a lot of scopes, especially by Meade, and various accessories.

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The Circus is Coming!

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus hits the RBC Center from February 7-11 for a 10-show stint. (Last year there were 9 shows). Tickets go on sale January 5 at 10:00am through Ticketmaster. This show marks only the second time each year that the RBC Center thaws its hockey ice as the circus needs to access floor anchors.

Cam Ward To Appear on The Pulse

Saturday's episode of ESPNEWS' The Pulse will feature Hurricane netminder Cam Ward among others. The show airs from 1-4pm today on ESPNEWS (TWC channel 142). You can send in a question via this espn.com page.

European Village Coming To North Raleigh

Another North Hills-ish shopping center is in the works, this time in North Raleigh on Falls of the Neuse Road at Honeycutt.  As you know, we here at Raleighing are certainly excited about smart development in Raleigh and on some level are proponents of the success of capitalism in our area. 

So, let me first say that I like the design of Lafayette Village.  The drawings certainly give the impression of a quaintness which has not been achieved by North Hills.  And, it appears the designers have taken a cue from North Hills by putting a majority of the parking underneath the shopping center, out of the view of drivers-by.  Concept alone, I like it.

But, I have a hard time believing that a boutique-focused center will work at that location.  Even the highly-lauded North Hills still has many spaces left empty.  Obviously, Lafayette Village will have much lower lease rates, but the area around that location has not proven to be ridiculously successful for that format.  Scout and Mollys and Cravings have both experienced much more success after moving out of Falls Village and into North Hills.  Just up the road in Falls Pointe Shopping Center, boutiques like Tres Belle seemed to have a nice run, but just couldn't quite pull it off.  Remove any sort of anchor (like North Hills' Target and the movie theatre) and I wonder if a boutique-only center can survive in that area.

Hopefully, it will be a successful venture.  There is certainly enough disposable income in that area.  But, what will be interesting to see is if folks in that area will be willing to spend their big money in a center in that location or if they will continue to drive to North Hills, Cameron Village, Saks (not the rest of TTC though!), and Southpoint due to the validation factor...

Hrmmmm, who knows?  I wouldn't put my own money into Lafayette Village, but then again I am not sure I'd bet against it either.  Either way, go ahead and chalk up another loss for the trees of North Raleigh.  They seem to lose no matter what... 

The developers tell us they are expecting a late 2007 early 2008 completion date.  Now, if recent development in Raleigh is used as a gauge, I'd bet no earlier than late 2008... if then....

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Sunny 93.9 Reaches Dusk

Radio station Sunny 93.9 (WRSN) is the latest of the ClearChannel brand to change its format. The station we all know for Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, and other soft hits has exclusively been playing Christmas music for several weeks. On December 26, however, the station will begin its new Dance format.

Commercials on the station promise a format that will "make you feel good" and tease listeners with the sounds of Christina Aguilera, Michael Jackson, Lipps Inc., Kool and the Gang, Paula Abdul, C&C Music Factory, and others. Other promotions are for the Whoopi Goldberg morning show, "Wake Up With Whoopi", from 5am to 9am.

Crabtree Village Reaching Retailers

Crabtree Village developers recently sent materials out to would-be store owners. The four page flier lists some demographics and contains three nice looking renderings. As we reported previously, the terraced retail section makes good use of the two levels available. It appears that the eastern corner (in the left portion of the rendering) is the area where trees will be preserved. However given the counterintuitive terrain, the rest of the property will have to be scalped in order to create a natural descent into the valley.

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New Jack Swing Reunion Tour Coming to RBC Center

The New Jack Swing Reunion Tour is coming to the RBC Center on February 2 at 8pm. The show includes musicians of the 1990's music genre the new jack swing.  This revival of the new jack swing features performers like Guy, BLACKstreet, Tony! Toni! Tone! and After 7. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster outlets.

Hudson Belk Men to Fill Lord & Taylor Space

A long-time employee of Hudson Belk just assured me that our earlier story is, indeed, a "done deal". Hudson Belk's men's department will be filling both levels of the former Lord & Taylor space in February of 2007. If anyone from Crabtree Valley Mall would like to refute this information, please feel free to join with the on-top-of-it Coyote Ugly people and set us straight! Here's the story we ran last week concerning this topic:

Ever since Lord & Taylor pulled out of the South, and thus Crabtree, many theories have swirled about how Crabtree will fill the two-story anchor space. We've reported the rumor of Bloomingdale's possibly filling the space, and discussed plans to change the space into additional ordinary mall space. Renderings of that plan are still online.

One of our readers, however, insists that Hudson Belk is going to move their Men's Department to at least some of the old L&T space. While this is a sad scenario, it is plausible. The space is a relatively small space for a major anchor, however the entire ground floor is slightly larger than the collective men's departments at Hudson Belk. Given the bludgeoning that brick-and-mortar retailing is receiving from internet competition, it wouldn't be surprising to see Crabtree have/choose to stick with one of their tried and true, original tenants. The second story could be developed into more mall space, a new food court, or whatever.