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Axios
30-04-2025
- Business
- Axios
Raleigh's massive Gipson Play Plaza will open in June
Across the Triangle, cities are pouring tens of millions of dollars into building new public gathering spaces for residents hungry to take advantage of new amenities in their fast-growing communities. Why it matters: Since it opened in late 2023, Downtown Cary Park has been a catalyst for downtown Cary's resurgence from an afterthought destination to one that attracts individuals and families from across the region. The $68 million park — featuring large play areas, common spaces and even a bar — has attracted new development and new businesses around the edges of the park. Driving the news: In June, Raleigh hopes to capture a similar energy when it opens Gipson Play Plaza in Dix Park. Gipson Play Plaza is a $69 million interactive area that leaders hope will serve as the new entrance to Dix Park and attract tens of thousands of visitors. A large portion of the plaza's funding comes from a $275 million parks bond Raleigh voters approved in 2022. It's one of the first phases of Raleigh's long-term plans to turn Dix Park into one of the leading urban parks in the country. Between the lines: Mitchell Silver, a Raleigh City Council member and former New York City parks commissioner, told Axios that cities risk falling behind if they're not investing in gathering spaces. "If we want to build a great city you have to have amazing public spaces," he said while on a trip with the council to Kansas City, where he learned about that city's park efforts. "We don't have many of those [great gathering spaces] in Southern cities," he added. "It's important to make [Dix Park] that social gathering place." Zoom in: The 18.5-acre Play Plaza will feature several playgrounds and gathering spaces, including a waterfall wall, picnic grove, food vendors and skywalks. State of play: The success of Downtown Cary Park comes up frequently at gatherings across the Triangle, with residents wishing something similar existed near them or as a source of comparison to existing parks. That was true in Durham last week, when its city council gathered to discuss making improvements to Durham Central Park and studied a presentation that featured images from parks across the country, including Downtown Cary's. A great city is "deserving of a great space like this," Durham City Council Member Nate Baker said at the meeting. He noted that he and his colleagues "look around to our neighbors in Cary and Raleigh and Dix Park and all of the work that is going into great parks." What's next: The Durham City Council will discuss making more improvements to Durham Central Park later this spring, and it's also studying the future of the historic Durham Athletic Park as another potential gathering space. Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams told Axios that improving those downtown spaces is a "high priority," but the price of those changes will need to be studied carefully, with many residents feeling the sting of large property value increases. Silver, for his part, hopes Raleigh uses the momentum of Gipson to invest more in its downtown spaces — specifically making Nash Square more active and bridging the roughly 1.5-mile gap between Dix Park and downtown.
Axios
26-02-2025
- Axios
Homicides in the Triangle fall, after an uptick during the pandemic
After spiking after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, homicides are declining in the Triangle's two biggest cities. Why it matters: The trend appears to match a decline in violent crime, especially homicides, across the country after a sudden increase after 2020. An Axios analysis of the preliminary crime data for 2024 from 69 self-reporting large police departments in the U.S. found that violent crimes decreased overall by 6%, Axios' Russell Contreras writes. By the numbers: In Raleigh and Durham, homicides increased in the years following 2020, but those numbers have been dropping over the past two years. Raleigh's homicides peaked in 2022 with 49 — including five associated with the Hedingham shooting — but were down to 27 last year, a 44.9% decline. In Durham, post-pandemic homicides peaked in 2021 at 49. The number was down 20.4% from that high to 39 last year. In addition to a drop in homicides, Durham saw a 24% decrease in shooting incidents from 2023 to 2024 — though the number of people shot increased 6.8%, according to Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews. "What that tells us is that in any one of these shootings, we generally have more than one person shot," Andrews told the Durham City Council this month. "I think we're averaging just over 1.14 people shot during" an incident when someone is struck by gunfire. Zoom in: A report in December found that the homicide surge of 2020 was primarily driven by men and teen boys who were laid off or saw their schools close during pandemic shutdowns, Russell wrote. That pattern has been seen in Durham, where crimes by teenagers have increased and the number of children being killed from gunfire more than doubled between 2018 and 2022, according to WRAL. State of play: The declines come as both Durham and Raleigh's police departments deal with officer shortages. Both cities have increased pay for their officers, in an attempt to boost staffing. So far, those efforts have worked, according to each city department. Raleigh Police said earlier this month that it has 51 vacancies, though it expects to fill all of those positions by this summer, outgoing Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson told Axios. Patterson, however, says she is pushing the Raleigh City Council to budget even more positions to match Raleigh's population growth. In Durham, the police department had 149 vacancies at the end of 2024, Andrews told the Durham City Council. Andrews said that staffing has held steady since salaries were increased, with fewer officers leaving for other cities. She added that Durham's police academies are growing and applications are up. What's next: The Raleigh Police Department will soon have a new chief, with Patterson expected to depart next month. The city is currently interviewing three finalist candidates for the job, including Rico Boyce, Raleigh's current deputy chief; Sonia Russell, the Detroit Police Department's commander of crime control strategies; and Joshua Wallace, the Chicago Police Department's commander of the criminal network group.
