I get that, but it doesn’t necessarily work in Durham’s favor here. Something like 75% of the population in the Triangle lies in Wake and Johnston County, including the eastern and southern suburbs which are blowing up. People aren’t going to want to go from Fuquay or Knightdale to downtown Durham on any kind of regular basis. Given the everyday attendance demands of MLB, I don’t think it’s feasible to put the team so far west from the center of gravity, which is roughly where PNC Arena is.
All true. One thing that's missing though is with 540 opening up and likely completed before anything like a MLB team happens, the travel to any stadium near Durham won't be much different than travel to many of the other MLB stadiums around the league.
Heck, I lived near Holly Springs and had DPAC season tickets years back. It was only a 30-35 min drive then and 540 wasn't opened. It sometimes sucked driving there if there was an accident on the way there, but 90% of the time it was a non-issue. Getting home was even quicker.
I don’t think anyone’s suggesting downtown Raleigh, which is completely unsuitable in terms of infrastructure.
What about that area south of Raleigh where they are putting in the soccer complex. Is there any synergy that could be gained from that? That's easy access from Garner/Fuquay/Clayton as well as Cary/Apex/Morrisville/Durham because it's right off of 40.
There are tons of places between Raleigh and Durham which could have direct freeway access. To keep it in Durham for the sake of the Bulls, I would look toward the Brier Creek/Airport area where you have 40 running east-west and 540 running north-south.
They'd better act quickly on that though. That area is already becoming a mess and development is occurring at a pace that is easily outstripping the infrastructure. I know first hand as that's where I now live. There's gotta be 10+ housing developments going in within 5 miles of my neighborhood, not to mention all the commercial stuff going up and the airport expansion plans.
Again that sounds great from the standpoint of preserving the Bulls as they are now, but with an upgraded building and profile. But it doesn’t resolve the issue of making it tough to keep enough fans in the stands. MLB-level attendance is going to require Wake County to turn out and support the team day in and day out, long term. I don’t see that happening if it means going all the way to downtown Durham and back, especially at rush hour.
Going all the way to Durham from Garner/Clayton/Fuquay is almost no different than going to Brier Creek, particularly with the completion of 540. I'm not saying a stadium in Durham is the right solution, but if getting southern wake county folks to attend is key, then Brier Creek isn't much better than downtown Durham.
And the optics of demolishing housing for poor people and seniors is pretty bad. If you want angry protesters organizing against the project, that’s a good way to make it happen.
True. In these situations it all depends on what's created to relocate those. As part of the development, if nicer housing is created for those displaced, it can be viewed positively. If it's "Throw them out and let them fend for themselves", clearly that will be bad optics. I've seen it done both ways, but you are right, the optics could be very bad on this right now.
