First National Bank Announces New Downtown Raleigh Building

First National Bank has announced plans to build a 22-story building in downtown Raleigh. The building will include residential and commercial space, and will be on Fayetteville Street in Raleigh's City Plaza.  The area is still growing quickly, and needs more mixed-use developments, according to Bill King, director of planning and development for the nonprofit group Downtown Raleigh Alliance.
 
“It's an awful lot of space right on City Plaza, which is a great space, but often becomes quiet later at night,” King said. “I think that adding a mixed-use development of this size will only help increase activity on an important public space for Raleigh.”
 
First National Bank says it intends to break ground on the project later this year, and finish by 2019.  It will cost an estimated $110 million, which the bank is also financing.  
 
“Your office space brings you daytime users who fill the restaurants and the stores,” Kind said. “The residential space brings you your nighttime and weekend users who keep those businesses going during those times, and then the retail space helps provide more space for businesses.”
 
Meanwhile, the Greensboro Grasshoppers also announced Wednesday they're partnering to build a nine-story office building outside their stadium in downtown Greensboro.