queensguy06

Using annual revenues of any business as a litmus for what a company pays out of PROFITS is incredibly misleading. It's a great sound bite and used in media quite a bit, but not a realistic metric by any means. Revenue is all money received by a company through transactions over a given period. That dollar amount doesn't account for annual expenses (i.e. overhead, salaries, taxes, etc., etc.). So if a company makes $1,000,000,000 in revenue, but their operating expenses are $999,999,999 then the company only profited $1. I don't know what the combined profit for these companies is, but I'd imagine it is less than 25% (and probably less than 10% realistically) of total revenue. I know it's not apple to apples, but State Farm, the largest single auto/home insurer in the country with roughly 1/5 of the market operates at a 10% profit margin, if I remember correctly.

Well, we can agree to disagree . I just don't see the metrics working. And I can assure you that no MLB owner would use this site for a new/expanded stadium for their team, regardless if you could somehow create a completely vertical stadium. It's a great idea - don't get me wrong! I would just put the odds of it ever happening at roughly 0.00001%.

Any stadium on this site would require to build completely vertical - no stadium is built like that for a multiple of reasons including what @CTiger mentioned. Also in order to build vertical you need viaducts for fans to get to those levels - think like the Panthers stadium. The reason the field was sunk below grade at Knights stadium is because there wasn't enough room to build ramps to get to multiple levels. There is an enormous amount of space required for vending, pedestrian walks, bathrooms, and all the service areas required to back these. There just isn't enough room from street level to home plate to fit all of these necessities of an MLB stadium.

My understanding is that this site was never large enough for an MLB stadium. There were questions posed about potential expansion of the stadium to fit an MLB team before/during construction, and there was a very emphatic no do to size constraints of the current site. Just google any major league ball park - they would require roughly twice as much space as is currently occupied by the Knights. The current site was never intended, nor could ever hold, a full size MLB stadium. EDIT: Quick comparison - the new Braves stadium sits on 15 acres; Knights stadium sits on 8 acres.

This Bloomberg article from today makes it clear that Wells isn't even close to finding a new CEO at this point. "No formal talks with possible successors have begun and a recruiting firm had yet to be selected as of late Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter said. The San Francisco-based bank declined to comment on the process. One tally of supposed candidates lists more than two dozen men and women."

I think he's referring to this:

In terms of the exterior facade? Or might we still be closer to 20 stories instead of 15?

Here is an interesting note I missed, per Duke's tower announcement on their site: I know this is pretty common with large chain retailers like grocery stores for accounting purposes when it comes to physical assets on your books, but is this common in the high rise office space?

And passenger vehicles only make up about 34% of total transportation emissions in the U.S. Again, which will only decline to almost zero as an all electric fleet rolls out within two decades; roughly the same amount of time it would take for this project to remove the freeway to be implemented. I just don't see this argument around carbon emissions as a driver to remove the freeway more than a red herring. How about the land "above" Belk? Isn't that the same land? And by that measure that means any freeway running through/near an urban core in any major city is not a valid use of that land. On contrary, I think the need for proper connectivity to the core and Independence Blvd. via freeway is an appropriate management of assets. Also, if we're to make this argument of land management, there's still swaths of undeveloped or redevelopment land within 277 that I think takes much more precedence than the land currently used by the freeway. First Ward/North Tryon in particular.

Well I do think any community over reliant on the automobile is a major problem for urban environments. For one, it fosters suburban sprawl. And an auto-centric environment has more negatives than positives when it comes to urban development, to me at least. My ideal utopia would be a highly dense urban core that relies on people movers and mass transit with no personal vehicles allowed within that core. But I'm also a realist. The auto industry - through slightly nefarious means such as purchasing streetcar companies/grids solely to close them for the benefit of auto sales - has changed the landscape of how our current urban model works. And that's not going to change any time soon. So, in my eyes, it's how do we incorporate those two models of urban living (car-centric vs. mass transit) to make a cohesive environment that benefits both the economic sector that is the driving force behind dense urban cores and the need for sustainable residential/public spaces.

This is also VERY short sighted in how the auto manufacturing industry is moving - all electric. Within 15-20 years the vast majority of commercial and personal vehicles will be all electric, with hybrids accounting for another portion of the remaining "older models." That will have more of an impact on vehicle carbon emissions than removal of freeways/push towards mass transit. Don't get me wrong, I am all for mass transit and better urban connectivity for non-vehicle modes of transportation. But the car is not going away any time in our lifetimes. I think there are certainly options that keep the freeway intact and still provide the ancillary need for connectivity, i.e. a freeway cap. But to use automotive carbon emissions, which have actually been in a decline in the U.S. since 2005 due to better fuel economy, as a major sticking point to remove freeways is not a valid argument. Another point is that if you removed a freeway and say a half of all those cars disappeared, by moving the other half to a grid system you would either be at a net zero difference in emissions or possibly increase that amount due to the inefficiency of city stop and go traffic. There's a reason why the average car gets around 8-10 mpg better fuel economy on the freeway vs. city driving.

My guess is 630'-640'. I'm assuming that is standard signage, but how cool would it be if they could project the logo from behind onto the glass facade?? That would be awesome.

Everyone keeps mentioning Seattle removing the double decker viaduct as an example. The traffic is not simply going away - and Seattle knows that. That is why it is being replaced with the VIADUCT TUNNEL which is a double decker tunnel to replace the existing above ground freeway. We can argue the merits of whether the John Belk is a necessary freeway in Charlotte, but to use Seattle as an example as a "removal only" solution is not accurate by any means, and certainly not an apples to apples comparison. With Independence becoming a freeway itself, I personally think having that continuous connectivity from 77 is rather important for vehicle flow. As Charlotte continues to grow I think this will only become a more needed artery. There are several alternatives to look at that I think are much more useful to both car-centric traffic and land use needs/ability. The restructure of I-70 in Denver is a great example and very similar to how the Brookshire is built. Part of CDOT's $1.2 billion plan includes burying a section of I-70 and capping with a park. With John Belk, the freeway is already below grade; Denver is removing the elevated freeway and then digging a tunnel essentially to make it below grade. And that's still only a small fraction of the full $1.2 billion widening/rebuilding of I-70. EDIT: I want to clarify that I do think that the Brookshire is unnecessary as a freeway. The John Belk serves the function as a connector to Independence. Removing the Brookshire and capping John Belk would be my ideal scenario.

I'd almost prefer that this does happen and hope that whomever buys the land does something more appealing than what is currently planned.

Whaaaaaaaaa??? Are there rumors swirling around movement on these companies?

The cynic in me says the part they are going to incorporate is only that little cut out that had the year of the building on it LOL....I hope it's more than just that. I really love the brick work right underneath that top section.

I know we're veering off topic, but I did want to comment on this, as I've had the same issue with NC/SC here in Denver. For the most part, the younger, more mobile demographics moving to Denver are familiar with Charlotte, especially those moving from the East Coast. The people I find that are more unaware of Charlotte and whether it's in North or South Carolina tend to be people who have lived here most of their lives (typically aged 40+), and really anyone from the West Coast. For them, the East Coast is well out of their sphere of influence, so outside of the major cities (NY, Boston, DC, Atlanta, Miami) there really is a geographic disconnect of where cities and even STATES are located on a map. And this makes sense to me - as when I moved here to Denver (which mind you is still 1,200 miles to the CA coast) I couldn't tell you where any cities in California were outside of San Diego, LA, SanFran, and Sacramento. People thought I was rather ignorant for not knowing the major beaches of CA and where they are LOL. A lot of people know there is a North and South Carolina, but just lump them in together kinda like I do with the Dakotas. I think part of that can be attributed to one of their main associations being the Carolina Panthers. This lack of knowledge tends to drop as you move up in education level and salary - both of which I think are indicative of more business travel/connections to the East Coast, among other things. And to be fair - Charlotte IS on the state line; the MSA includes several major suburbs I lived in (Rock Hill, Fort Mill, Tega Cay) all in SC.

I hope you can see how your comments could be misconstrued We can certainly agree on the undertaking that this particular project has needed - "moving mountains" is quite appropriate in this instance. Some of that though, I feel can be attributed to mismanagement by the foundation(s) that have been overseeing the renovation going back two decades. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't this project change hands at least one or two times by different non-profits? I might be mistaken in that. My point is, while we don't have many apples to apples comparisons in Charlotte, I think this project has been plagued by several issues that have only exacerbated its delay/uncertainty and that I don't necessarily agree that given the same opportunity with an identical project it would be nearly as necessary to move said mountains. This is an outlier rather than par for the course, if that makes any sort of sense.

In all fairness, the fortunes of Rockefeller and his fellow robber barons were built on the suffering of tens of thousands of employees - child labor, horrendous and extremely unsafe working conditions, low wages, etc. If that is a fair trade off to build shiny theaters and art galleries - ones that none of his employees could ever afford to attend - then I think you're extremely misguided.

Maybe I am missing some of the details in how this was organized, but from my understanding 2/3 of the entire "Wachovia Cultural Campus" (Gant, Betchler, Mint) was funded by corporate entities. Additionally, Hugh McColl has certainly had philanthropic influences on the Charlotte Metro and beyond. Besides being the main driving force of revitalizing center city Charlotte in the 90s (a place you didn't want to be after 5pm), he's recognized for the following: So to say there is no philanthropy in Charlotte is disingenuous at best. And I am sure there is plenty more, those are just the things I found in a 3 min. Google search.

Was it confirmed that tvsdesign is the architect for the new Duke tower as well?

This may be a stupid question, so pardon the ignorance. Looking at the Legacy Union plan for an 800 room hotel on their site, what effect, if any, does that have on a future 1000 room hotel partially funded with city money?

I could see Trade becoming something similar to the 16th Street Mall in Denver with streetcar instead of the free mall ride (buses) that are used in Denver. Denver had Cobb & Associates as architects to redesign the street to include retail along the way - this is what Charlotte would require. Bring in an architect to design a walkable retail corridor that could be done in sections. It still provides cross traffic for all streets over trade, just no through traffic down Trade itself. I'd imagine it could be done in phases, too. First phase would be from the transportation center/light rail/arena through Church Street. Then as Gateway Station is built you could add Church to the new train station. Eventually, you could extend it the other direction from CTC to McDowell. Additionally, for existing hotel shuttles/utility vehicles they would have access to the streetcar dedicated right of way much in the way the free mall shuttle operates in Denver. Pipe dreams, I know - but it certainly is feasible and would bring a lot of pedestrian traffic/tourist traffic to center city much in the way of Denver.

This is purely a move on Tepper's part for the incentives involved. First, as a favor to help anchor the Lincoln Harris project at the former Knight's Stadium site. I am sure the Harris' are giving nice kick-backs/monetary incentives to help build up their 'master plan' for that large site. Second, have we heard anything on what tax breaks/incentives Fort Mill/SC are giving for this move across the border? From a purely business perspective, this makes too much sense not to move. Also, this is very similar to Denver's setup - stadium downtown Denver; their practice facilities are a major development in Englewood, CO some 17 miles from the stadium and consists of indoor practice field, 3 outdoor fields, conditioning center, team HQ, and administrative buildings all situated on 13.5 acres.

Yeah...I'm still trying to figure this one out LOL. If it's a blue line extension, there are only two feasible routes - both of which are 8 miles long. You either go through downtown Pineville and then out past the flea market OR you run adjacent to the interstate (485 to 77 South). Neither of these seem like economically sound decisions and would surely meet heavy public resistance as a waste of taxpayer dollars. I just don't see this ever happening.