Raleigh needs improved transit center, downtown leader urges
Business NC | 08.27.2026
Downtown Raleigh is seeing the benefits of $3.7 billion in investment just since 2015, along with another $1.7 billion that’s under construction and a further $3.1 billion that’s in the pipeline.
Still, the work of bolstering the area is far from done, Downtown Raleigh Alliance CEO Bill King and other civic leaders say.
At the group’s annual “State of Downtown” presentation this week, King singled out the need to improve conditions at Moore Square transit center. The fixes required will mean “dealing directly with some of the most challenging issues we have,” namely mental illness, homelessness and crime, he said.
The facility needs a new design that can benefit both adjacent businesses and residences and bus system users, with the city needing partners on the plan, he said.
“It’s going to take a big lift,” King said after Wednesday’s confab. “It will take, obviously, the city and the county and the state. And I think it’s going to take private sector partners, too.”
WRAL reported last week that the city is about to fence a breezeway at the station to tamp down a loitering problem. The move coincided with an ALE/Raleigh Police operation nearby that targeted drug and alcohol complaints. It yielded dozens of arrests and more than 130 felony charges.
Another challenge, participants say, is the need for a good pedestrian connection between Raleigh’s downtown and Dix Park, the popular park created on the grounds of a former state hospital for those with mental health issues.
About three-fourths of a mile separates downtown and park, but a half-cloverleaf interchange at Western Boulevard and South McDowell and McDowell and Dawson street makes it a challenging walk.
The solution, Raleigh-based architect Robbie Ferris says, is developing an elevated, landscaped promenade called the Oakline. It is modeled on New York City’s High Line, a 1.45-mile walkway on top of old railroad trestles that connects Manhattan’s Hudson Yards and Greenwich Village.
Local officials are consulting the High Line’s managers as they work on the idea, says Charles Upchurch of FWV, a Raleigh marketing firm that works with the alliance.
Ferris is the managing partner of a group that’s developing City Gateway, a 1,400-unit mixed-use project that will abut the northeast corner of the Western/McDowell/Dawson interchange. City Gateway is part of about $2 billion in public and private investment that includes expansion of the Raleigh Convention Center.
Ferris’ project includes provisions for the Oakline, but for the promenade to happen, “we need to get moving now,” he says.
“Some of these developments are still not connected to each other, or the park or downtown, he says, adding that it’s important also to “get the public sector” involved as well.
At the event, King said downtown residential growth doubled over the past decade, including more than 5,000 new units since 2020. Continued gains are necessary to sustain the area’s momentum, he said.
The alliance’s report is linked here.