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City Council Wrapped

City Council Wrapped

by | Jul 7, 2025 | Buzz, July/August 2025

Here are the highlights of City Council’s last meeting for over a month. 

Raleigh’s City Council needs an occasional break too—but before they were able to get away, they had a hefty agenda stacked for July 1, the last session until Aug. 19… and a lot went down. Here are some of the biggest highlights. 

Six Forks Road Improvement Project Update

With no ability to overcome the huge budget deficit the project faced, City Council canceled the Six Forks Road Improvement Project. The initial plans included a six-lane road with a median and bike and pedestrian paths with a budget of $60.1M. 

After the cost escalated to $93.5M, Council found no feasible way to move forward. Opting to keep the money in the district, the project’s budget will now go toward closing the sidewalk gap in front of Carroll Middle School and funding design of the Midtown multi-modal bridge, followed by completing the Lake Wheeler Road and Barbell Road projects, and lastly, improving Old Wake Forest Road. $9.3M had already been spent on over a decade of work surrounding Six Forks.  

Fire Master Plan Updates

RFD revealed only 54% of units made the first due NFPA target time—or arrived within 240 seconds to 90% of incidents—in 2024. Performance was highest in DTR (81%) and lowest near Station 23 in Northwest Raleigh (31%). To combat this low stat, station replacements and relocations were recommended to City Council, plus four new stations, more ladder trucks and strong recruiting strategies. 

RFD station replacement
Newsworthy Notes

Red Hat Amphitheater is working toward a final design with utility work already underway, with the aim for a 2027 opening. 

The Convention Center expansion is in the design phase with an anticipated 2029 opening. 

Updated terms surrounding the Convention Center Hotel (Omni Hotel & Resorts) include additional rooms, a room block agreement of 50 years, a projection completion guarantee, and a land sale to yield property tax. 

The new City Hall is 25% complete at Floor 8, with a final completion aimed for March 2027.

Fire Station No.1 is in its concept design phase with an amendment forthcoming for a safety-themed playground. 

The Chavis-Dix Strollway honoring and uplifting the Fourth Ward is in the final design process with a detailed project design expected summer 2026. 

Design is underway for pedestrian safety improvements for Downtown and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Extinguishing Risk

Extinguishing Risk

by | Apr 30, 2024 | April 2024, Buzz

RFD taking measures to keep our growing city safe

This spring, seven years after a five-alarm fire burned at the site of the Metropolitan Apartments Downtown, Raleigh Magazine explored the question of whether Raleigh will be ready if and when the next large fire ignites. Fast-forward to now, and City Council’s April 16 meeting led to a unanimous vote to approve a $340,000 contract between the Raleigh Fire Department and Darkhorse Emergency, an emergency solutions analysis brand. 

Through this contract, Darkhouse will conduct an analysis of the current state of the fire department, as well as develop a master plan to improve apparatus and response times, with the goal to forecast trends as the city expands—not only in terms of boundaries, but as the population density in certain areas increases.

“We want to have a third party come in and evaluate the fire department as it stands right now,” emphasizes RFD Division Chief Patrick Marks. “We want to make sure we are exercising the best practice on our deployment model—[with the] right fire stations and apparatus in the right places to do the best we can with what we have.”

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Visualizing the fire safety situation, the city developed maps using analysis software to highlight areas on par with the minimum qualifications met in green, and areas lacking in apparatus and staffing marked in orange and red. (Note: Every district has at least one red area needing attention—namely Six Forks Road, along with Northwest and Southeast Raleigh).  

Analysis is slated to wrap up within at least a year in hopes of having City Council approve the report before next year’s city budget is finalized to then implement those recommendations.