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Published: The News & Observer, October 30, 2004
Author: Susan Houston
Staff Writer
Edition: Final
Section: Editorial/Opinion
Page: Page: A22
Designs on Downtown
There's a lot of good news in downtown Raleigh these days, and
to the mix add this big story: The N.C. State University College
of Design is opening an urban design studio in downtown come February.
Developer Greg Hatem is subsidizing rent on a building he owns on
South Wilmington Street, the university is paying a share for the
space, and Raleigh will be all the better.
Better still is the fact that these students, enrolled in one of
the nation's top design schools, can offer their own ideas about
how to spruce up downtown through imaginative designs or even through
ideas that don't have anything to do with design, ideas that come
upon them just from being in the area. There should be, as a result
of the studio (the idea also was pushed by new Chancellor James
Oblinger), an opportunity for students to be an active part of a
living, working downtown all around the clock. As one NCSU official
noted, students work at all hours; the studio could enhance efforts
to make the downtown itself a sort of 'round-the-clock place.
What with Progress Energy proceeding with its mixed-use project,
with the plan to reconfigure Fayetteville Street and with a new
convention center in the works, the downtown is taking some big
steps. That NCSU is participating in the revitalization is another
long stride.
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