City Living

The skyline.. 

Well not THE City, but Raleigh city.  We decided to explore options for living in downtown Raleigh to see if we could find something interesting.. The result is that there are choices. Some good, some not so good.  Location, as it is with all real estate is key.  The primary choices are: Glenwood South and actually downtown. The downtown locations are Fayetteville Street, and then peripheral areas, one of which is Moore Square, another is closer to Artspace.  Here are a couple of the choices...

West at North

West is in Glenwood South, with some views overlooking both the downtown area and the bustle-bustle area of Glenwood South with all of it's Saturday night hustle.  You can catch the R line here to anywhere downtown- it seems the R line is the transportation of choice.  It's free.  It's frequent. And it's safe. But Glenwood South is not actually in downtown Raleigh. By bus it's just a couple of minutes away.  The area seems to attract people from all over Raleigh.   Helios, the venerable Rockford, Armadillo Grill, the Hibernian, 42nd Street, Bogart's, Sullivans, and 518 are all within walking distance of North.  The largest unit is 3 bedrooms, with one of the bedrooms being a teeny interior, windowless room. The view from the 14th floor is great and the condos are flooded with light. Other Glenwood South choices are 510 Glenwood, 222 Glenwood, the Paramount, the Quorum, 

On Moore Square, a couple blocks east of Fayetteville Street, there are several living choices.. The Dawson, Park Devereaux, and Hue which is in trouble and appears to be changing hands to Trammel Crow. 

The Big Daddy of downtown living is RBC Plaza. It's a pretty tall building, right smack in the middle of towntown near the Progress Performing Arts Center (is it really called that- I hate that it's called that. I wish Progress Energy would have used their cash to reduce my utility bills), the Convention Center, and perhaps more importantly community gathering places like The Raleigh Times, Sitti, Oxford, and Busy Bee. And lots more of an ever-more-vibant selection of restaurants and music venues.  

Looks tempting, but the pool looks like a small duckpond. Don't think
 you can actually do laps in that unless you are a Barbie. 

Speaking of the restaurants, to me it's all about not so much the restaurants but the conviviality of their presence.  It means you walk outside and there are actual people-- not just the occasional speed walker- but lots and lots of milling, dining, coffee drinking, browsing people in infinite variety. Living in the 'burbs can be isolating, especially if you don't have kids around with their constant comings and goings and influx of friends and traumas and fun. 

So, we are going to tool around downtown and I just may post some photos of our discoveries later today. Live downtown? You like it? But how the heck do you bring in the groceries....