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Blue Ridge Reimagined

Blue Ridge Reimagined

by | Jun 29, 2023 | Buzz, July/August 2023

Long underdeveloped section of Raleigh is primed for total transformation.

Take everything you thought you knew about West Raleigh and forget it. Set to be Raleigh’s next destination district, enter the Blue Ridge Corridor. An urban hotbed comprising the triangle from Blue Ridge to Western to Edwards Mill, “the area is emerging as the next second-tier urban center—like North Hills,” says Jeff Murison, executive director of the Blue Ridge Corridor Alliance (BRCA). 

Already playing host to incredible assets via high-value, attracting destinations—a stadium and arena, a nationally recognized art museum, multiple parks and greenways, the NC State Fairgrounds, a world-renowned hospital, a Drive Shack, an arboretum, etc.—the region has so far lacked a “coherent sense of place, shared vision and community identity,” says Murison. 

But all of that is being masterfully reenvisioned by an elite group of stakeholders that comprise the BRCA who worked in partnership with the City of Raleigh to commission a Blue Ridge Corridor study in 2012 (updated in 2017), aiming to create branded districts, mixed-use developments, green infrastructure and public transit based around existing community assets to ignite the region. 

Championing urban redevelopment, existing and proposed projects have built a development pipeline with $1 billion+ in transit investments, plus a plethora of players investing an equal amount or more in public and private sector redevelopment to form a vibrant region. Think transformative projects like PNC Arena (see here); Highwoods Properties, with whom we confirmed is developing DHHS Phase II/III in a public/private partnership with the city; not to mention Bandwidth’s highly anticipated HQ and  the Triangle Bikeway connecting NCMA to Chapel Hill, among a dozen others.

“We’re focused on the in-fill—making these high-value venues and destinations all work together seamlessly, be more user-friendly and add value to each other,” says Murison. In essence, creating the BRC as a place people want to live, work and play. 

With the potential to divide the corridor into distinctly viable and identifiable districts—wellness, research, arts and entertainment—the BRC is serving up what is arguably the biggest destination reconfiguration since Midtown. But the project has, so far, flown largely under the radar—despite the billions of dollars of investment pumping into the area.

That lack of conspicuity is ironically likely a result of its sheer grandeur. A spread out area—you don’t see six cranes in close proximity like you did in North Hills—it doesn’t have the concentration that Downtown and Midtown do “to get that same sort of tipping point feel like where you say, ‘Oh, my goodness—what’s going on here?’” says Murison. “It has 10 big gorillas, not one enormous gorilla in terms of super dominant players. And that just makes it different.” 

Its simple location also makes it stand out—a veritable gold mine. Beyond its many key attractors, the area is also well-positioned just minutes from DTR near NC State, Meredith College and Umstead State Park, and in a way that you can get almost anywhere quickly—from RTP and RDU International Airport to North Raleigh, Midtown and Cary (especially Fenton).

While the work and live components have long been strong—the area houses ~9,500 residents and ~30,000 employed professionals who are naturally drawn to the area for its convenience alone—the wide swath of Raleigh has long lacked the “live” aspect. Read: Lunch, happy hour and quick-stop retail are very limited. And people have craved the vibrancy.

These projects come together to craft a complete community where you can experience that sought-after 15-minute radius lifestyle. “Within a 15-minute bubble,” says Murison, “you can work, shop, live, exercise, have fun—with everything you need at your fingertips. …  As we advocate for continued investment, we want to see thoughtful additions that are designed to integrate into the community and add value to the existing stakeholders, so, in the end, it’s all a more attractive place to be and to visit than in the past.”

Now, with ~six projects currently under construction and over a dozen in the planning stages, the future of Raleigh’s next “it” district is well underway. “This is a very robust, healthy pipeline of development projects that add to the energy of the corridor,” says Murison. “There’s a lot of opportunity for this to be a high-achieving area.” 

10 Things To Know About DHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen

10 Things To Know About DHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen

by | Apr 29, 2020 | Buzz, May 2020

Secretary Mandy Cohen, an internal medicine physician and head of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, has been the face of the state government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic—you’ve likely found her a composed, reassuring presence during televised COVID-19 updates alongside Gov. Roy Cooper. But far beyond the scope of her job, where she oversees a department of 16,000 employees with an annual budget of about $20 billion, Cohen has been working since January of 2017 to make the state a nationally recognized leader in innovative healthcare. Here are some things to know about Cohen. 

1. A graduate of Cornell and Yale Medical School, Cohen also holds a master’s degree in public health from Harvard. She had no ties to North Carolina and was living in Washington, D.C. before Cooper appointed her to lead DHHS.

2. Cohen served as the chief operating officer and chief of staff at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Obama administration. She helped implement policies for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program as well as the Federal Health Insurance Marketplace under the Affordable Care Act. 

3. Cohen is well-respected on both sides of the aisle, navigating a rocky divide between Democratic Cooper, who wants to expand Medicaid under the ACA, and the Republican-majority state legislature, which does not. Cohen has helped guide the state through a transition from fee-for-service Medicaid to a managed care model by which the state contracts with insurance companies that are paid pre-determined rates to provide healthcare services (currently, the Medicaid Managed Care has been suspended and NC Medicaid continues to operate under the DHHS-administered, fee-for-service model). The plan has been nationally recognized for its innovative approach to managed care.

4. Cohen spearheaded a pilot initiative, Healthy Opportunities, to test the impact of providing high-need Medicaid enrollees with housing, food, transportation and interpersonal safety interventions with the goal of improving health and reducing costs. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services authorized $650 million in state and federal Medicaid funding for the initiative. 

5. Cohen implemented an Opioid Action Plan with more than $45.5 million in grant funding dedicated to fighting opioid misuse. The plan also updated the Controlled Substance Reporting System to help doctors identify patients at risk of misusing opioids. Overdose deaths declined, since the plan launched, for the first time in over a decade.

6. With partners and stakeholders across the state, Cohen led an Early Childhood Action Plan with an ambitious vision for better outcomes for North Carolina’s children from birth through age 8. 

7. Cohen stands up for what she believes in. She made the case to include maternity coverage in the ACA before former NC Rep. Mark Meadows and congressional leaders in 2014, while eight months pregnant. And she publicly criticized the state House’s proposed budget for 2019-2021 last fall, arguing it harms the people of North Carolina by making “massive cuts to DHHS that will potentially impact everything from health inspections of restaurants to the safety of drinking water to child protective services.” The General Assembly adjourned this year without passing a budget. 

8. Cohen says her mother, a nurse practitioner, inspired her to study medicine. 

9. Healthcare business, news, research and opinion publication Modern Healthcare named Cohen to its 2019 list of Top 25 Women Leaders. 

10. Cohen, a self-described music lover, lives in Raleigh with with her husband Sam, who is a health care regulatory lawyer, and their two young daughters. Follow her on Twitter @SecMandyCohen.