Pet Owners Take Note!

Staff posted: "A city parks committee is considering a ban on pets in certain areas of Raleigh parks after complaints about unleashed dogs roaming beyond owners' "sight and control." By city law, unleashed dogs are not allowed on public property except for in designate" New post on Raleigh Public Record Parks Committee Seeking Input on Possible Pet Ban in City Parks by Staff A city parks committee is considering a ban on pets in certain areas of Raleigh parks after complaints about unleashed dogs roaming beyond owners' "sight and control." By city law, unleashed dogs are not allowed on public property except for in designated dog parks. In addition, pet owners are required to remove and dispose of pet waste. According to a press release from the city, both the public and city staff have complained about pet waste on athletic fields. "Residents frequently unleash their dogs on open park grounds allowing them to roam beyond their sight and control, presenting the opportunity for pets to interact unrestricted with other park patrons," the release said. "Citizens also use fenced playgrounds, athletic fields and court areas as dog parks – allowing pets to run unleashed within the fenced area." The Greenways and Urban Tree Committee of the Parks, Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board is reviewing the issue and wants public input at its next meeting, at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Room 303 of the Avery C. Upchurch Government Complex at 222 W. Hargett Street. The committee will take that input and review the issue before making a recommendation to the full Board. Staff | May 16, 2013 at 11:21 am | Tags: parks, pets | Categories: News | URL: http://wp.me/poeYm-54C Comment    See all comments

Downtown Raleigh welcomes 13 new shops, restaurants

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Dathan Kazsuk

Downtown Raleigh welcomes 13 new shops, restaurants Enlarge Dathan Kazsuk Sponsored Links SurveyMonkey® Get feedback from your customers and vendors. Send a free survey. www.SurveyMonkey.com/Business Expanding or moving offices? Leave the PBX behind, and switch to RingCentral Office with voice, fax and text. www.ringcentral.com/office Get Listed Here Amanda Jones Hoyle Staff Writer- Triangle Business Journal Email  | Twitter Nine new restaurants, bars and clubs opened in the downtown Raleigh district during the first quarter of 2013, plus another four clothing, accessories and retail service businesses, according to a report from Downtown Raleigh Alliance. Unlike previous DRA quarterly reports, however, it did not record how many street-level businesses were closed during the first quarter. Street-level businesses that opened in the first quarter included: • Bad Daddy's Burger Bar and Kimbap in the 111 Seaboard building; • Coglin's Raleigh and NewBridge Bank (Nasdaq: NBBC) on Fayetteville Street; • Dos Taquitos Xoco, Myst and Cat Banjo on Glenwood Avenue; • Fiction Kitchen on South Dawson Street; • Fifteen on West Morgan Street; • Subway on South Salisbury Street; and • High Cotton and Nora and Nicky’s on West Hargett Street. Downtown development projects that started construction in the first quarter included the new $25 million Citrix (Nasdaq: CTXS) office facility in the Warehouse District and renovations to the 227 Fayetteville office building that has been vacant for several years. Downtown Raleigh projects that are slated to be completed in the second quarter include the N.C. State Bar building, the State Employees Credit Union tower and the Wake County Justice Center.
	Expanding or moving offices? Leave the PBX behind, and switch to RingCentral Office with voice, fax and text. www.ringcentral.com/office

Amanda Jones Hoyle

Staff Writer- Triangle Business Journal

Email  | Twitter

Nine new restaurants, bars and clubs opened in the downtown Raleigh district during the first quarter of 2013, plus another four clothing, accessories and retail service businesses, according to a report from Downtown Raleigh Alliance.
Unlike previous DRA quarterly reports, however, it did not record how many street-level businesses were closed during the first quarter.
Street-level businesses that opened in the first quarter included:
• Bad Daddy's Burger Bar and Kimbap in the 111 Seaboard building;
• Coglin's Raleigh and NewBridge Bank (Nasdaq: NBBC) on Fayetteville Street;
• Dos Taquitos Xoco, Myst and Cat Banjo on Glenwood Avenue;
• Fiction Kitchen on South Dawson Street;
• Fifteen on West Morgan Street;
• Subway on South Salisbury Street; and
• High Cotton and Nora and Nicky’s on West Hargett Street.
Downtown development projects that started construction in the first quarter included the new $25 million Citrix (Nasdaq: CTXS) office facility in the Warehouse District and renovations to the 227 Fayetteville office building that has been vacant for several years.
Downtown Raleigh projects that are slated to be completed in the second quarter include the N.C. State Bar building, the State Employees Credit Union tower and the Wake County Justice Center.

Time to move DOWNTOWN!

Downtown Raleigh welcomes 13 new shops, restaurants

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Sponsored Links
	SurveyMonkey® Get feedback from your customers and vendors. Send a free survey. www.SurveyMonkey.com/Business
	Expanding or moving offices? Leave the PBX behind, and switch to RingCentral Office with voice, fax and text. www.ringcentral.com/office
Get Listed Here

Amanda Jones Hoyle

Staff Writer- Triangle Business Journal

Email  | Twitter

Nine new restaurants, bars and clubs opened in the downtown Raleigh district during the first quarter of 2013, plus another four clothing, accessories and retail service businesses, according to a report from Downtown Raleigh Alliance.
Unlike previous DRA quarterly reports, however, it did not record how many street-level businesses were closed during the first quarter.
Street-level businesses that opened in the first quarter included:
• Bad Daddy's Burger Bar and Kimbap in the 111 Seaboard building;
• Coglin's Raleigh and NewBridge Bank (Nasdaq: NBBC) on Fayetteville Street;
• Dos Taquitos Xoco, Myst and Cat Banjo on Glenwood Avenue;
• Fiction Kitchen on South Dawson Street;
• Fifteen on West Morgan Street;
• Subway on South Salisbury Street; and
• High Cotton and Nora and Nicky’s on West Hargett Street.
Downtown development projects that started construction in the first quarter included the new $25 million Citrix (Nasdaq: CTXS) office facility in the Warehouse District and renovations to the 227 Fayetteville office building that has been vacant for several years.
Downtown Raleigh projects that are slated to be completed in the second quarter include the N.C. State Bar building, the State Employees Credit Union tower and the Wake County Justice Center.

New post on Raleigh Public Record Greenway Trails, Current and Future by Leo Suarez With around 100 miles of paved trails, the Capital Area Greenway system is a growing treasure to our city. The Raleigh Public Record invites you to get outside and explore this ever expanding trail system. Download the latest map of the full greenway network. [pdf] A Growing Network by JOHN DANCY-JONES Initiated in 1974, Raleigh’s greenway system began as small, isolated segments. But in the last 39 years it has grown to over 99 miles. Encompassing 3700 acres, the system has developed some connectivity, with several multi-mile stretches. The system is not only reaching areas throughout the city, but is preparing to link with other, larger trails. As a premier amenity and as a pioneering national model in urban landscapes, the greenway system provides Raleigh with a highly visible symbol of the city’s character. My favorite aspects remain the pure naturalism available to greenway users, and the strong contributions these green ribbons make to our unique relationship with the natural landscape in which our metropolis is ensconced. Part of the initial impetus for Raleigh’s greenway program was the “strategic use of part of the city’s floodplain for an open space corridor between adjoining land uses.” The quote is from Bill Flournoy, a landscape architect out of NCSU who is called the father of North Carolina’s greenway movement in the “Greenway History” by Charles A. Flink. Northwest Raleigh has generous stretches of greenway aligned with the flood control lakes – Lynn, Shelley and others – built to protect Crabtree Valley. Almost all of the greenways follow waterways – and thus many of them literally track the sewer systems as well. But the occasional outgassing pipe is well worth the rich array of birds, diverse plants, and the occasional mammal you will see. Preservation of significant, if narrow, strips of natural areas will be a legacy to future Raleigh citizens as well as a highly valuable amenity now. [from Raleigh’s Greenway Outlook] Follow The Greenway On Your Smartphone by LEO SUAREZ While driving a car around Raleigh, you’ve most likely been near a greenway without even knowing it. “Where are the greenways?” is a common question asked by Raleighites and a team of data fans built a service in hopes to answer that question. As part of CityCamp Raleigh, a team of citizens created RGreenway, a mobile application that helps users find and navigate the Raleigh greenways. In addition to a map browser, the application uses a smartphone’s GPS features to show you where the greenway continues at intersections and road crossings. The application comes with many other features as well. RGreenway has a social component with the ability to check-in to trails and share it on different social media sites. The popular SeeClickFix application is used also for easy reporting of issues such as trash or needed path maintenance. Fitness and weather information has also been added. The application is available for Android and iOS devices. More: RGreenway.com Leo Suarez | May 2, 2013 at 11:18 am | Categories: News | URL: http://wp.me/poeYm-4Zj Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://www.raleighpublicrecord.org/news/2013/05/02/greenway-trails-current-and-future/

Hmmmm!

New post on Raleigh Public Record

Chocolatier’s Growing Pains are Good for Business by Laura Baverman Raleigh certainly loves its chocolate. Especially when it is grinded, mixed, flavored and packaged locally by hand, with cacao beans sourced directly from farmers in Venezuela and Costa Rica. The city’s first bean-to-bar chocolatier, Escazu Artisan Chocolates of Mordecai, is reaping the benefits of a growing love affair—locally and nationally—with artisan food. Sales now top $500,000 annually, so much that chocolatiers Hallot Parson and Danielle Centeno are forced to turn business away. Danielle Centeno, Escazu co-owner, holds "push up pops" — ice cream made with their chocolate. Photo by Karen Tam. There’s simply not enough space at 936 N. Blount Street to produce any more chocolate. “If Whole Foods wanted us nationally instead of just in the Southeast, we couldn’t do that without increasing our production immensely,” said Centeno, a pastry chef who runs the confections and retail operations. “And we couldn’t do that here.” Too much business isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s helped Escazu hire nine workers, pay off its first business loan (secured when it moved from Glenwood Avenue in 2009) and operate profitably for the first time. It’s let Parson and Centeno master their current operation—winning 2012 and 2013 Good Food Awards and recognition in Southern Living and Wine Spectator magazines. Escazu now distributes its eight bars to specialty markets and retail stores nationwide. The retail shop, with a hot chocolate bar, hand-made decorative confections and ice cream each day, has become a neighborhood staple. “People are looking for quality and are willing to pay a little more for that,” said Parson, who made his first chocolate bar in 2005. The quality of Escazu and other bean-to-bar chocolate comes from a process 100 years old or more that starts with a farmer of cacao in some tropical climate. Parson built a relationship with a Costa Rican farmer (Escazu is named after a town there) and Centeno brought her ties to her native Venezuela. They now import three or four tons of beans at a time from those farms. The beans are sorted and roasted in an antique coffee roaster they bought and shipped from Spain. Hallot Parson, Escazu co-owner, checks the consistency of the chocolate as it is mixed in the 1930s machine he bought in Spain. Photo by Karen Tam. About 180 pounds of nibs are then ground into a liquid, and sugar (and sometimes cocoa butter) is added to meet a certain percentage of cacao. The chocolate is aged, and later, tempering machines heat and cool it to achieve the perfect appearance and texture. Ingredients such as pumpkin seeds and chipotle chili are added just before the chocolate goes into a mold. Sea salt is sprinkled after. Bars are then wrapped and labeled by hand, about 100 per hour. Escazu produces 200 to 400 bars on a slow day and 1,600 to 1,700 daily before holidays such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day. Centeno’s small team of chocolatiers produces about 87,000 truffles a year for the retail shop. Daily, they bake cookies and make ice cream and introduce specialty treats. “It’s frustrating,” Parson said. “We can see so many avenues for growth.” Escazu chocolate bars. Photo by Karen Tam. Bean-to-bar chocolatiers have grown in number since 2005, when a Colorado man named Steve DeVries opened the first shop in Denver. Escazu was among a dozen or so chocolatiers nationally when Parson opened the first retail shop in 2007. Today, bean-to-bar chocolate is one of eight categories included in the Good Food Awards, a three-year-old competition to recognize U.S. producers of craft food. For the 2013 awards, 67 chocolate makers entered. “Part of the popularity of these bean-to-bar manufacturers is that they are local, maybe the ‘new’ local chocolate shop,” said Susan Smith of the National Confectioners Association. “They bring with them a certain amount of hometown pride … since they sell the products they make in the back of the store right up front.” Escazu’s success has allowed it be picky about the future. The partners recently quashed plans to move alongside Market Restaurant and Yellow Dog Bakery in the Person Street retail center two blocks away. Developers failed to meet Escazu’s timeline. Now, they’ll wait until the right deal comes along. A lease was renewed for another year in March. They hope to self-finance the move when the right property becomes available. Parson and Centeno hope to double the existing 1,600 square feet. They’d like room to add more equipment sourced from overseas and a larger retail shop and hot chocolate bar to serve loyal customers and attract even more. The inside of Escazu, located on Blount Street. Photo by Karen Tam. They plan for more storage and prep space, and sophisticated and professional décor this time around. And perhaps someone besides Parson will operate the forklift required to move the roaster and grinder. “It will be a place that will allow us to make as much as we want to make and grow as much as we want to grow,” Centeno said. Laura Baverman | April 18, 2013 at 12:12 pm | Tags: chocolatier, Escazu | Categories: Business, News, The Latest | URL: http://wp.me/poeYm-4Yk Comment    See all comments

New post on Raleigh Public Record

Retail Becomes More Urban, Social by Leo Suarez During the past few decades, Raleigh, like the rest of the country, is shopping differently. Yes, online spending continues to grow, but spending “in real life,” or in shopping centers, is changing, too. Urban in style with a mix of uses is the new trend in retail development, and in Raleigh, a few locations offer shoppers goods, services, and a place to socialize. “I think it is the future of our cities,” said Bonner Gaylord, general manager of North Hills and a member of the City Council. North Hills is a growing area along the Beltline and Six Forks Road with a mix of residential condos, street-level shopping, entertainment, and office space. Paul Bronson of North Raleigh’s Lafayette Village agrees. Lafayette Village is a thematic retail and office development based on a European village feel with a diverse offering of shops and restaurants. “We’ve created an outdoor lifestyle center,” he said. “The enclosed mall model doesn’t work anymore.” Lafayette Village. Photo by Leo Suarez. With multiple examples around the country showing success, places like North Hills and Lafayette Village in Raleigh are complimenting Internet sales rather than competing. The keys to their success include a diverse mix of high-quality offerings and an equally important social component. Gaylord and his team at North Hills keep a close eye on the diversity of the shops that are opening up in the midtown development. “Diversity is very important to us,” he said. “We want to have a mix of goods and services.” Starting as early as the 1960s, automobile ownership grew at a much faster pace and allowed more people to move around a city to do their shopping. Enclosed malls and department stores offered the ability for one-stop shopping and quickly became popular. Today, shopping on the Internet is changing that dynamic. What the Internet can’t offer is the real life community aspect that makes people feel better connected. “We want shoppers to meet the owner, not the manager,” Bronson said about the shops in Lafayette Village. “We didn’t want a Starbucks.” Lafayette Village and North Hills take the experience one step further with little things, from hiring a sidewalk musician on Friday nights all the way to street festivals on major holidays. Events are an important part in bringing consumers back and creating community between shops and visitors. North Hills. Photo by Leo Suarez. While North Hills and Lafayette Village have been enjoying recent success, downtown Raleigh has always been the city’s main urban hub. During the course of Raleigh’s city history, the city center has enjoyed quite a bit of retail success and it’s possible that the rise in Internet shopping is helping bring that retail back to downtown. Downtown Raleigh has just as much urban-style development and is naturally built for a mix of uses. Paul Reimel, Economic Development Manager of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance (DRA), feels that it is a big advantage for downtown over other city retail areas. “Nowhere else can you find that diversity and product,” he said. Retailers look for all kinds of different spaces and this is where downtown may have an edge. "There are retailers that want new, others that want middle of the road, and others that want old. Downtown has all that." Behind the scenes, the retail recruitment efforts are different in downtown than they are at North Hills or Lafayette Village. The newer developments are controlled by a single property owner where downtown is a mix of several hundred private property owners and governments including the city, county, and state. Reimel and the DRA build relationships with property owners and outside retailers and attempt to match them up. With studies and reports, they try to encourage services or retail that is needed in downtown, but the ultimate decision lies with the property owner. A contrast to this method would be with what is taking place in Lafeyette Village. A very strict selection policy is used when choosing retailers. High quality, great service, and proven success is something that the owners of Lafayette Village seek. “We have not lost any tenants in the last two years.” Bronson said. At 93 percent capacity, it must be working. While different in operation, downtown Raleigh, North Hills, and Lafayette Village share the same social aspect that has been vital to their success. With an increase of uses, the days of shopping only at the mall may be numbered. Leo Suarez | April 4, 2013 at 8:40 am | Tags: Lafayette Village, North Hills | Categories: City Journal | URL: http://wp.me/poeYm-4W0 Comment    See all comments

Did you know!

English: Downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, 12 October 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here are some cool facts about Raleigh that you may or may not know???

Enrollment in a few of the 7 Universities/Colleges around the downtown area of Raleigh.

NC State: 31,802 peeps
Shaw University: 2,866 peeps
Saint Augustine's: 1281 peeps
William Peace University: 692 peeps
Brand New Campbell Laws School: 477 peeps

40% of Downtown Residence are18-34 of age!
30% are 45+ of age!

According to Raleigh Alliance there are 5 apartment complexes currently being built in the downtown Raleigh area with a total of 1184 new units.  Currently there are about 1100 units within 1.5 miles of Raleigh.

And the coolest fact you did not know!  According to Inman News, Feb 2012, The #1 Real Estate Market to Watch in 2012 -------- RALEIGH-CARY, NC!

Remember to call, Patrick Lawson with any of your Real Estate needs or concerns, 919-669-3937.