By Tim Burrell. Downtown Raleigh real estate is going through a great transformation. A new Convention Center is under construction, along with a major Marriott hotel across the street to provide rooms for visitors to the conventions. This will provide business and visitors for downtown. But, this is not the most important change, which is the new style of living downtown.
By October of 2008, there will be 3,000 new condominiums completed or under construction in or near downtown. For example, the RBC Plaza is a 33 story mixed use building on Fayetteville Street where the first floor is retail commercial, the next 7 floors are parking, floors 9 through 22 are parking, and floors 23 to 33 provide 173 condominiums. These properties command premium prices from the high $200,000's to $760,000 for a top floor corner three bedroom condo with about 2,000 square feet. They have a great website at http://www.rbcplazacondos.com . Another example is West at North, as the name implies located on the corner or North and West Streets. It is a 17 story building that provides 170 condominiums, with one and two bedrooms. Some of the two bedrooms have a den with a closet, so they could be three bedrooms. For more information, visit http://www.westatnorth.com/
This type of skyscraper condominums is new to Raleigh, so you may wonder if there is a big demand for them. The RBC Plaza has every unit reserved with back up reservations, so they expect them all to be sold when they start taking non-refundable deposits in the next few weeks. West at North is just barely past the foundation stages, and they have already sold 60 units, so they are about to increase the sales prices. One of the completed projexts, the Hudson located on Fayetteville, has 64 units and only 9 remain for sale. The Hudson has 1 and 2 bedroom units, with one parking space per unit. To give you an idea of how different this product is, the price per square foot ranges from around $200 to $450. By comparison, the average price for single family homes selling in Raleigh is $112 per square foot.
Who is buying these properties? The majority are singles, with ages between 30 and 40. Many of them come from other big cities, like New York, Boston and Miami. Another large group of buyers is from Eastern North Carolina, with ties to various places downtonwn, like NC State or that appreciate the arts, museums and other downtown activities. They are buying these properties for a home base, and a place to entertain, when they are in town.
Downtown Raleigh will become an even more vibrant place to visit, and a place live for many of those who like Urban Living. For more detail on what is happening downtown, visit http://www.DowntownRaleigh.com