mad_park

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/09/20/4328960/small-merchants-lament-rising.html#.Ujz5g2TXhXc Sounds like the new owners are raising the rents (to market levels) - should see lots of turnover within the shopping center.

The Burger Co on Woodlawn has closed. Restaurant Traffic certainly raises a good point about it being a poor location choice...what in the world were they thinking... "Maybe trying to open a family friendly restaurant next to a strip club and adult novelty store is not a good business model?"

Looks like some new construction houses are going up on Cherry St and about to get underway on Waco St.

Interesting article in today's paper discussing higher density housing, tall buildings, and more nightlife in Southpark. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/06/11/4100082/imagining-southpark-areas-future.html Hopefully making the area more pedestrian friendly would be part of that effort.

Rendering of the Brawley's remodeling http://www.charlottebeer.com/2013/05/10/new-brawleys-beverage/

Al's Pizza in Park Towne Village is closing to be replaced by Libretto's. Tavern on Park previously was in this space. Hopefully someone can make things work here.

http://ww.charmeck.org/Planning/Land%20Use%20Planning/ParkWoodlawn/DRAFT_AreaPlan.pdf Some good info in the draft Park/Woodlawn area plan just published on Jan 15. Specifically mentions Montford as a "Main St" for the area...wider sidewalks, planting strips, better defined on-street parking, and additional connectivity to Abbey Pl and Park Towne VIllage among the proposals.

but wouldn't it make sense to run your long haul international flights from your largest hub? Assuming those flights are mostly made up of connecting passengers and not local passengers?

Hopefully this will spur HT to upgrade/expand more of their 'in town' stores.

Great...hope it gets approved.

Any idea if that would be for 'tasting room' purposes?

What will this sale mean for the few people who own units?

Yeah, that is extremely frustrating and it seems to happen all too often. Wish they had a way you could prepurchase a 10 ride ticket and then perhaps run it through a machine at the station which prints the date on it so the fare checkers know its valid. Once it has 10 dates then it has expired. The weekly/monthly passes don't save you any $ if you only ride 5 days a week. Work from home for a day or two and it is a money losing deal.

Not to mention all of the office break rooms that are within close proximity.

Suprised cleanliness is an issue w/ the bathroom attendants...CLT is the only airport where I've ever seen those.

Miami is WEST of 95% of the South American continent. Look on a map to see how far out of your way you'd be going if you flew from, say, Lima, Peru to Pittsburgh by way of DFW instead of MIA. It's even worse if it is a city on the east coast of S. America. Also, people don't want to have to change planes 2x on a trip. So you need to have direct domestic flights going in to/out of the Latin American gateways. Cleveland -> CLT -> Buenos Aires is much more palatable than Cleveland -> CLT -> MIA -> Buenos Aires. Delta does this with its Atlanta hub (new ATL international "Concourse F" opens in May) and folks will certainly choose fewer connections when booking their flights. I think this bodes well for CLT keeping its LATAM flights and perhaps adding more. MIA will always have some Latin American routes due to the strong local demand, but it makes more sense to run the majority out of your domestic hub b/c of all of the direct feeder flights - plus the costs are much cheaper in CLT.

Nice plug for a local beer shop in this scene from Homeland.

Will the Epicenter Gold's have only upper body weight equipment? Most of the inhabitants there have bar bodies. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bar+body

It would be interesting to see how that plays out. For a Latin American "gateway" to work, you need direct domestic flights in/out of the gateway - people only want to make 1 connection. So that would favor the domestic hub. However if they moved those flights from MIA to CLT then the Latin American carriers (LAN, Copa, Avianca) would grab the O&D traffic from MIA.

2012 Improv Everywhere "No Pants Subway Ride" is scheduled for Jan 8 2012. http://improveverywhere.com/2011/12/05/save-the-date-no-pants-subway-ride-2012/ Groups have staged the event on trolleys, light rails, and buses in the past, so don’t let a lack of subway system stop you! Would be great to see Charlotte on the list. Here are the cities that participated last year: - Adelaide - Amsterdam - Antwerp - Atlanta - Barcelona - Bergen - Boston - Brisbane - Brno - Buenos Aires - Calgary - Chicago - Dallas - Denver - Detroit - Edmonton - El Paso - Hamburg - Johannesburg - Las Vegas - Lima - Lisbon - London - Los Angeles - Madrid - Melbourne - Mexico City {sodEmoji.|} Mexico City 2 - Milan - Minneapolis - Montreal - New York - Newcastle - Orlando - Philadelphia - Phoenix - Portland - San Diego - San Francisco - São Paulo - Seattle - Seoul - Stockholm - Sydney - Toronto - Toulouse - Vancouver - Vienna - Washington, DC - Wellington - Zürich

Wouldn't that just cannibalize sales from the Southpark store?

A somewhat concerning article about youths 'cruising' at the Epicenter....sounds like a lot of these folks are just hanging out on the sidewalks and common areas...not necessarily patronizing the businesses there. Would hate to see this place go the way of Underground Atlanta... Most weekend nights, hundreds - sometimes thousands - of teens and young adults walk the stretch around the EpiCentre entertainment complex. Bus after bus at the Charlotte Transportation Center drops off more youths happy to join the party.<br style="margin-top: 0px; ">... "That's their country club," says Ray Wilson, a gang expert who works with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. "That's the only place they can go ... where you're going to see everyone you know. You can eat there, you can meet girls there. If you want to buy drugs, you can do it right there."<br style=margin-top: 0px; "><br style="margin-top: 0px; ">Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/07/03/2425560/police-to-focus-monday-on-cruising.html#ixzz1RAL066X3

I think that would be very aggressive at this point. Probably would increase the construction costs and potentially compromise the design - just for a 1-2 week time. I would think a hotel operator would be looking at the next 20 years - not just a convention next summer.

The Observer is reporting that a judge has ruled that the Vue can't force buyers to close, but it can keep their deposits. http://www.charlotte...out-of-vue.html 16 of 400+ units have closed so far. Won't this affect the HOA costs at some point? Or is the builder obligated to cover the costs until all of the units sell? (I guess it is in his best interest to do so)

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/12/03/1884303/couple-sues-to-get-out-of-vue.html A suit has been filed by a buyer wanting their deposit back. They mention "material changes to the unit" - this seems to validate above posts about downgraded materials & brands used in the actual construction. Anyone know why they are demanding a jury trial? Just posturing to make it seem like it will cost the sellers more to contest the suit?