Peace Street Corridor Visioning Study and RCAC Neighborhood Recognition Award

Post date: Nov 3, 2011 4:26:02 PM

The Peace Street Corridor Visioning Study

The following report on the Peace Street Corridor Visioning Study was submitted by Naudain Machen who attended the meeting on behalf of the Person Street Partnership. Naudain is a Partnership laizon with the Society for the Preservation of Historic Oakwood. Thank you for providing this detailed report:

The Raleigh Planning Department hosted an Open House that began at 6:00 p.m. on October 26 at the Tucker House, 418 N. Person Street, to provide information and seek public comment on the visioning study that focuses on Peace Street from West Street to Person Street. The study identifies and proposes potential improvements to enhance the corridor’s capacity for pedestrian, bicycle and vehicular traffic; and support private redevelopment efforts. Larry Zucchino of JDavis Architects worked with the City of Raleigh to develop the Peace Street Corridor Visioning Study as a pro bono project. The study was presented to the City Council in May and in September, Council members voted unanimously to authorize City staff to proceed with a public involvement process. The Open House was well attended with over 30 residents and business owners on hand for presentations led by Ken Bowers, deputy planning director, and Larry Zucchino.

Key recommendations in the Peace Street Corridor Visioning Study are:

·       Redesign the Capital Boulevard/Peace Street interchange to improve traffic flow and enhance and promote safe pedestrian and cycling traffic in the Peace Street Corridor.

·       Improve pedestrian and bicycle accommodations.

·       Encourage Triangle Transit to locate a Downtown transit station on or in close proximity to the CSX rail bridge over Peace Street.

·       Explore the potential for a mid-block urban greenway with direct access from Peace Street, extending from the Seaboard commercial area south into Downtown at Harrington Street.

·       Explore roadway improvements at the intersection of Peace Street with Wilmington, Salisbury and Halifax streets, including a roundabout.

·       Reduce Peace Street to three lanes between Wilmington Street and Person Street.

With the NC DOT’s project to replace the Capital Boulevard bridge over Peace Street within the next five years, the visioning study was a timely source of additional ideas that could result in improvement of the entire Peace Street corridor rather than simply the replacement of an aging bridge as the NC DOT originally planned. The City’s Planning Department is coordinating efforts with the NC DOT. More information on the NC DOT project can be found at http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/CapitalBlvdBridges/. Another impetus to redevelopment of the area could result from the transformation of the current city sanitation truck facility to a city park and accompanying restoration of Pigeon House Creek.

After the presentation, attendees at the Open House were invited to comment in person or via comment cards provided.  Oral comments included: a recommendation to re-open/re-configure Salisbury Street at the State Government complex, concerns about the potential impact on property owners near the Peace Street/Capital Boulevard interchange and concerns about the Peace Street corridor losing its distinctiveness with redevelopment. The Planning Department is seeking additional comment from the public. For more information, contact Ken Bowers, deputy planning director, at 919-516-2626.

The RCAC Neighborhood Recognition Award

Philip Bernard was nominated for the Raleigh Citizens Advisory Council's Neighborhood Recognition Award by the Mordecai CAC for his help in organizing the Person Street Partnership. At the award ceremony held at the McKimmon Center in October, Philip accepted the award on behalf of the Partnership and commented that the Partnership is the collective work of a group of dedicated neighbors, businesses, and stakeholders in the Person Street Area and that he was happy that all those in attendance could hear firsthand of our shared goals and dreams. Here is Philip's acceptance speech:

Thank you for recognizing the work that we have done to create the Person Street Partnership by giving me this award. I accept it on behalf of the Partnership as it helps to further the momentum that is building on Person Street at this very moment as you hear firsthand about our dreams and goals.

I could not have done this without the CAC platform that the City and Community Services Department so wisely established to give citizens like myself the proper framework in which to meet, organize, and accomplish the goals necessary to see that all parts of Raleigh continue to grow and prosper.

I wish to especially thank my CAC the Mordecai CAC who takes the idea of Citizens Advisory Council to new heights as it continues to creatively tackle the challenges that are particular to our own part of downtown.

I wish to thank our current Co-chairs Reid Serozi and Rebekah Weber for supporting the Partnership and for acting as liazons to the Partnership from the Mordecai CAC.

I want to thank Mayor Meeker and City Council and our District C council member Eugene Weeks for their support. I wish to especially thank Council Member at large Russ Stephenson who suggested the idea of the partnership as a way to bring together the business and property owners, neighborhoods and stakeholders surrounding the Person Street corridor. In many council meetings, Russ has acted as spokesman for the Partnership by securing priority status and funding for the Person/Blount Street and Wake Forest Road corridor study. 

I wish to thank City staff in the Planning and Public Works department and especially Trisha Hasch in the Urban Design Center who helped us to organize the partnership, acted as a sounding board for new ideas, and freely offered the Urban Design Center as a place to meet.

I want to thank David Diaz and Paul Reimel with the Downtown Raleigh Alliance who have provided invaluable support and important information to the Partnership.

I wish to also thank Sarah Roholt from Mordecai and Naudain Machen from Oakwood who’ve helped to organize the partnership and plan and run the meetings.

And lastly, I thank the members of the Person Street Partnership itself who attend the meetings, offer suggestions, and continue working to support our shared vision. Or as an NC State senior architecture student eloquently said in a recent design studio focusing on Person Street, working to become a better Person!