The City of Raleigh, North Carolina has retained Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), one of the world’s leading architecture and urban planning firms, to provide master planning leadership for a multi-building, mixed-use civic campus that will house core functions of City government downtown. The centralized campus will consolidate approximately 1,200 employees of the City’s workforce, increase workplace efficiency, enhance customer service, and support economic development. The 4-acre site located on the block north of Nash Square currently accommodates the Raleigh Municipal Building, the vacant Police Headquarters Building, and a multistory parking deck.
“We are thrilled to be working with the City of Raleigh to shape a powerful vision for a new City Hall and urban neighborhood at the heart of this flourishing capital city,” said Kristopher Takács, AIA, Director of SOM’s Washington, D.C. office. “This project is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to imagine a thriving urban redevelopment anchored by a 21st-century government hub that represents the values of Raleigh.”
The repositioned Civic Campus will be a transformational investment in one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities. SOM will collaborate with civic leaders to build a consensus vision on the near- and long-term needs of the City administration and alternative development strategies to activate the downtown block through potential introduction of retail, residential, commercial, and open space. The project will showcase the City’s commitment to transparency, inclusive stakeholder engagement, catalytic placemaking, and design excellence.
“We couldn’t be more excited about the transformational potential this project presents for downtown,” said Roger Weber, AICP, SOM’s Senior Planner. “Raleigh is one of America’s most dynamic cities. We look forward to harnessing that energy to create a stunning new government center and gathering place for residents that enlivens the whole city.”
SOM was selected from a field of candidates who presented initial proposals to the City in September 2016. The firm will lead the overall project and will oversee the creation of an urban design vision and implementation roadmap for the new campus, which is projected to be completed within the next five to seven years. Supporting SOM on the project are local architects from Raleigh-based HH Architecture, stakeholder outreach specialists from Raleigh-based Planning Communities, real estate economists from the Bethesda, Maryland office of RCLCO, mobility consultants from the Raleigh office of Davenport Engineering, and cost estimating advisors from the Durham office of Cumming Construction Management.
About Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) is one of the leading architecture, interior design, engineering, and urban planning firms in the world. Since its founding more than 80 years ago, SOM has earned a reputation for design excellence with a portfolio that includes some of the most important architectural accomplishments of the 20th and 21st centuries, and has been a leader in the research and development of specialized technologies, new processes and innovative ideas, many of which have had a palpable and lasting impact on the design profession and the physical environment. The firm’s longstanding leadership in design and building technology has been honored with nearly 2,000 awards for quality, innovation, and management. The American Institute of Architects has recognized SOM twice with its highest honor, the Architecture Firm Award—in 1962 and again in 1996. The firm maintains offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Abu Dhabi.