Monday, January 2, 2017
The Development Beat is moving!
For nearly three years, The Development Beat has been happy to call the Raleigh Public Record home. That changes next week.
What began as a weekly column way back in March of 2014 eventually morphed into a daily roundup of all the Raleigh-related construction news that’s fit to print. I’ve had a lot of fun and made a lot of friends and great memories over the years while doing it, and I’m thrilled to say that will continue on into 2017, but with a few big changes.
First: The Development Beat will become a part of the ITBInsider news network founded by William N. Finley IV. I’ve been a fan of Finley’s before I even started writing this column, and I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to work with him moving forward.
The first time I encountered Finley was when he roasted my party mansion article
Second: The column will switch back to a weekly format. Putting out five issues a week has certainly given me the opportunity to cover a lot more ground and get a lot more in-depth on certain projects than I was able to before, but the Development Beat has always been a part-time gig, and it can be a real grind churning out 3,500+ words a week about new apartments and old building renovations when you’re also working a full-time job. That being said, if we get the chance to write about a particularly fun or interesting project: think H-Street Kitchen, or all that redevelopment on North West Street — we’ll just run it in a separate article.
Third: Despite only appearing once a week, the goal will be to provide more comprehensive coverage of construction & development-related news than we have in the past. Although our coverage has occasionally overlapped with that of the Triangle Business Journal or the News & Observer, I’ve never felt much of an obligation to cover a project if there’s already been three-four big articles written about it. No longer. If it’s construction or development related and it’s happening in Raleigh, you’ll be reading about in the Development Beat.
Fourth: On that same note, we’ll be bringing back coverage of the City’s Planning Commission and integrating it with coverage of other construction & development-related commissions, such as the Raleigh Historic Development Commission and the Appearance Commission. We’ll also be reporting on all City Council-related zoning/construction news, such as the approval of public construction contracts or the approval of rezoning cases and checking in on both residential and commercial real estate sales across the City.
Here’s what won’t change: despite working under the tutelage of the funniest man in Raleigh, don’t expect the humor in this column to improve in the slightest. It’ll still be full of the same stale pop-culture references, trivial complaints and wacky wordplay that’s come to define the Development Beat. Our friends over at Rufty-Peedin Design Builders have agreed to continue on as a supporter, although they will likely be joined by some new friends in this new year.
On a final note, some of you may be wondering what this means for the future of the Raleigh Public Record. Since August of this year, the Record has essentially become nothing more than a repository for the Development Beat, so when the column moves over to ITBInsider, what becomes of the Record?
For starters, we’re going to bring back City Council coverage, to a degree, starting later this month. We also hope to expand into a few new topics — such as transit, which, outside of a certain podcast (Inbound Raleigh, duh), doesn’t get nearly enough coverage as it should. We’ll also work to bring you more of the kind of articles that our namesake promises: analyses based on public records requests filed with the City of Raleigh. All of this will of course require your continued support — whether it be as a writer, photographer, donor or sponsor — so if you’re interested, go ahead and drop us a line at editor@raleighpublicrecord.org
