Raleigh, N.C., Officials Have Differing Visions for New Convention Center

By J. Andrew Curliss, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

May 20–RALEIGH, N.C. — The main visions for a new convention center couldn’t be more different.

Two would sink the massive structure into the ground, half-burying the building as if it were dropped from the sky. Two others would prop the center up on Raleigh’s modest skyline, creating a new, taller structure at downtown’s southern gateway.

The basic choices — should the center sit up or lie down — have plenty of advocates.

The decision is up to Raleigh’s and Wake County’s elected leaders, who are scheduled to gather at 4 p.m. today in the existing civic center to begin debating which option they want.

They will look at updated cost figures, which officials have been scrambling to keep within the $180 million budget. They will listen to architects and designers. They will rely on their own impressions and feelings, some formed on tours of centers across the country in the past two years.

“This is a decision we have to live with for a lifetime,” council member James West said. “We’ve got to get it right.”

A straw poll last week showed elected officials to be divided.

But top city administrators are pushing them to sink the center, saying it is best for the downtown while leaving the most options for what to do around the site.

Some want an outdoor festival site on one of the blocks reserved for the center, for example, and that’s a viable option only if the center’s exhibit hall is buried.

But some want to see much of the building up in the air.

For starters, it’s cheaper. But it also would add a larger monument to the skyline, its proponents say, and allow for a more airy feeling inside the busiest room of the convention center.

Council member Thomas Crowder, an architect, heard that view last week while touring a new center in Washington, D.C., with business and civic leaders. The center there has both above- and below-ground exhibit halls.

Bob Cutlip, a vice president with Highwoods Properties, needled Crowder on the issue.

“Come on, Thomas,” Cutlip said, smiling. “Get some height in there. We’re counting on you.”

Just as quickly, Charlie Madison, a lawyer who leads the city’s Appearance Commission, was pressing for a burial. Such height in Raleigh, he said, “should be a last resort.”

In Washington, officials were quizzed on what potential customers think of the different schemes.

The center’s senior sales manager, Stacey Fleming, said the above-ground version is favored — mostly because of windows.

“I find that people like the natural light,” she said. “They like being above.”

Architects and convention center experts say the issue ultimately won’t play into the center’s success as a destination.

“It’s basically choosing between two different ways of skinning a cat,” said Andy McLean, a lead architect with TVS of Atlanta who is working on the Raleigh center.

Picking the exhibit hall location affects other choices. That’s because the decision comes down to how to arrange the three main economic drivers of a center: the exhibit hall, the grand ballroom and meeting rooms.

In some cases, for example, putting the exhibit hall at the top then requires the grand ballroom to be at ground level. The grand ballroom is a site for major presentations, wedding receptions, conference openings and the like.

But putting the hall up also creates a tunnel out of busy McDowell Street — something City Manager Russell Allen wants to avoid.

“If you do it above ground, you start to wonder just how linear that would be on our skyline,” the manager said. “Ours is a vertical skyline.”

Council member Neal Hunt and others have no trouble with that.

“I like the elevated hall,” Hunt said. “I just worry about the feeling inside the tunnel it would create.”

There are, of course, more mundane considerations. In an underground scheme, for example, loading docks could also be buried, keeping trucks out of view and their drivers and handlers out of the weather. But in an above-ground scheme, officials could fit new parking spaces more easily into part of the structure.

For now, architects aren’t trying to decide on the “icon” image of the center or exactly how its exterior will appear on the skyline. That work will come much later.

Still, choosing the basic layout will have major implications on the center’s look.

“The options are interesting for both, and we’ve sure got a choice to make here,” West said. “Whatever it is, we have to make sure it’s going to be a real asset to our community.”

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