uptownliving

Yep Craighead is due to reopen in December.

At the Blue Line Update last night the Project Manager stated that Norfolk Southern has moved one freight rail line to the new tracks and that within the next 2 weeks they should complete the move of the 2nd track. That fact that NS is now finally doing this work removes the holdup on the rest of the work to be done at the 36th St Station and Craighead crossing.

6ish years for the short term plan. A couple things have to happen first before they can close the D gates: 1. Build the new parallel runway. 2. Shut down runway 5/23 3. Expand the apron around the C Councourse 4. Build the Concourse C hammerhead 5. Close 3 Concourse D gates. 20ish years for the long term plan of building the Satellite Concourse.

The shorter term plan is to close/remove 3 gates at the end of Concourse D which opens up taxi lanes to Concourse E. The longer term plan is that Concourse E will be replaced by a Satellite building roughly where runway 5/23 is today.

Yes, but that is 5 years down the road at least. The plan is after the 4th Parallel runway is built they will shut down the Diagonal runway which will open up land around the terminal and allow them to expand the apron around the terminal and make the aircraft lanes 2 ways. Regarding future international expansion American Executive Robert Isom said they would be to airports with connection opportunities..so that means an additional London flight and Madrid/Dublin year round. The other reality is that the International area would have to be expanded before they could add more than a few more flights. There are plans to do just that but that is 10 years from now. Lastly I'm so glad that Philly will be getting the 767s and not Charlotte. Having flown both the American 767 and A330 on long haul flights the A330 are FAR more customer friendly. The A330s have seatback video screens and overhead storage that you can actually fit a rollarboard luggage into.

Haha opps you are right...got my generic luxury apartment complexes confused. That explains why The Gibson has the music theme throughout the complex.

I wonder if any of the leasing agents at this new project will know that the lobby and offices for this apartment are on the spot where REM recorded a lot of their hit songs.

I was looking at the Monthly Activity Reports for CLT which go through May 2017 and the International Passenger Numbers took a big jump this year. They are up 25% over 2016....even in January the passenger numbers were up 33% over 2016. I know there really aren't that many new destinations compared with 2016 so I guess this is a result of larger planes being flown, and more flights being flown. Anywho it just caught me by surprise.

Came across this nice graphic depicting American's Charlotte hub used in a recent presentation to investors. However I got a laugh that they grouped the Non-Stop to Florence SC with all of the European flights.

The Concourse Renovation saga continues. City Council just approved a Contract Change with C-Design which basically doubles the value of the design contract for the A/B/C/D Concourse Renovation. Among the stated reasons for the contract change is that American Airlines is now requesting that the airport increase the gate hold rooms. For anyone that has used the airport in the past 10 years + it has been blatantly obvious the need for larger gate holding areas. I'm glad they will be doing something to finally expand the gate holding areas...but surprised it is being done as an add-on to the planned renovations.

WSOC and WBTV both reported it was the Element on fire while showing pictures of 300 S Tryon. Lol c'mon guys put your thinking caps on.

Levine has publically stated that he is "redesigning" the apartments that are supposed to wrap the parking deck. Considering that the utilities and foundation of the apartment have already been poured I'm not sure how much redesigning can actually be done unless he is going to rip out the existing foundation and start from scratch. I'm willing to bet that UNCC and the State of North Carolina have just about had it with Levine. They gave him millions of dollars for exclusive parking rights in the parking deck and here he has stopped construction for 3 months just so he can redo the apartments. I hope they have a good contract with him and will sue his ass for failure to deliver. This is our tax dollars going to fund this parking deck and I for one don't like how Levine is just dilly dallying and not respecting us the taxpayers.

I saw it this morning while biking and stopped to check it out. I like it, reminds me of the piece in front of the Trademark Condos.

Anyone notice the banner they put up? #uptownstunner Lol

The airport's bond rating was upgraded by Fitch which means they will save millions of dollars in interest. With all of the borrowing they are and will be doing for the billions in construction this upgrade is very timely. In other news I noticed that the terminal renovation project budget is now $70m. This is a doubling of the original budget and construction hasn't even started yet. I guess they kept on finding things to renovate. Would be interesting to find out the back story on that one.

Reminds me of Courtside from this angle

What does rooftop retail mean?

I like the colors and materials they chose for the renovation...but yeah the problems with A, B, and C is that they are too narrow and short. The new design will likely play with the mind to make the space feel larger...but the only time you see as few people in the airport as you do in those renderings is the overnight hours between last flight and first flight. I can only imagine what a clusterphuck its going to be during the renovation.

A North construction is moving along quickly, they are already installed the roof trusses.

The exterior of the apartments at Remount and South is almost done. Good thing they went with blue accents and not red, otherwise they could be confused with the Silos across the street.

It's actually quicker now than it used to be for sure. My most recent flights I've had to wait about 10 minutes for the bags to show up...whereas before it was common to wait 30 min plus.

Yeah that is the Concourse E expansion, the construction contract was approved by city council a few months ago. They are also in the planning stages of expanding the Maintenance Hanger at CLT. Just another sign that they will be closing the hub in about a year.

In President Trump's budget he cuts funding for New Starts and TIGER. For us that means there would be zero federal funds for all future rail lines. Add that to a current 10% cap on the State level and that would mean that our Local share would have to cover 90% of all future rail lines. The local share funded by the 1/2 Cent Sales Tax currently covers 25% of the cost. This would be devastating for transit not just here but all across the country. We have a big hill to climb to ensure transit funding for future projects...or a bleak future with no additional transit lines. http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/03/16/trumps-budget-takes-an-axe-to-transit/

I was there on Monday for lunch...it's still pretty sleepy....especially when you compare it to a weekend.

Good Ole Norfolk Southern....so shocked to hear that they are being slow and obstinate in relocating their tracks and being the main reason for the BLE delays. If anyone wants to see why the entire BLE project is being delayed just go take a look at 36th St Station where construction has been put on hold for good ole Norfolk Southern to complete their work.