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Wow, thanks for pointing out that article. It was a good read. Link is below for others https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/cleveland-downtown-empty-offices-transform/?itid=hp_mv-top-stories_opinions_p003_f001

What’s crazy? Even its neighbor to the north (Northern Virginia) has more than eight 8 (20-40) floor towers U/C, 5 towers over 20 floors complete in 2023 (and you should see what NYC has built; they are throwing up 1000 ft towers left and right, yeesh.) I think it’s crazy how derailed this topic got. It’s a development people had some criticisms over. And it somehow led to resumes of Charlotte, thankfulness, calls for being humble and not getting to “big for the britches”.

How so? (I’m not as familiar with the metro as much as specifically DC. I just know they’re building a lot of skyscrapers & keep trying to steal our goodies) We, DC, had the 5th most amount of units added between 2020-2022 by city limits (in 61 sq. Miles) Metro wise, 9th in 2023. DC also had The top two zip codes for new apartment units https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/top-zip-codes-apartment-construction/ Not to mention most of our units are urban. And we’re the ones who lost population & have hundreds of square miles less than other booming cities yet DC still added more? we’ll see what2024 holds. I’m not pessimistic given the last decade and the last 3 years. Im going to put my money on another fabulous year (relative to the overall market), I’m just glad there’s demand in our dying city lol. We’re still net negative as a metro since 2020, still down in the city. Which is why I make it a point to mention… what kind of growth do you want? Giant population booms don’t translate to urbanity. Showing the graph below mostly because of NYC and how despite population losses still has a ton of development despite its reputation for population loss.

Seems like You’re looking at it from a functional perspective. It definitely serves its function. Just to preface, I don’t disagree with anything at all in your post & I don’t think this 1 development is overall that big of a deal. I think uptown development, particularly legacy Union, missed the mark and I think it does and has added up for uptown but I don’t think this project changes the calculus other than “please don’t let this become more common.” The pushback for me, or the harping, is when my point of view is dismissed and policed when I do come at it from a different angle or do have different priorities or just opinions, and it’s met with “omg, your complaining, the rate of return for investors, be glad charlottes booming” (because again, I think Charlotte will boom either way). Maybe that makes me a sensitive man-baby. I think the biggest point where people have a disconnect is from what perspective one is looking at (civic vs. developer) To use an extreme answer - imagine a homeless shelter going in here or bordering Romare Park or something (noting that not all shelters can come with certain challenges, not all have the same homeless populations and some homeless shelters like in my neighborhood are pleasant and nice additions). A homeless shelter to replace the current facility. I imagine there would be opposition from the business community, from developers, from nearby property owners etc (whether right or wrong) and I imagine they’d be worried about how that impacts their land value, they’d be worried less tenants would be interested or less people would patronize retail spaces, etc. All of a sudden, developers and stakeholders would treat it like nuclear fallout. These developments don’t happen in a vacuum. The homeless shelter is extreme (and not really my favorite example given my personal views) and I think some people look at it from a broader perspective and some people look at it from a developer perspective, some people are afraid Charlotte’s economy will grind to a halt (“it’s better than a parking lot” sentiment). Lets just give each other the respect of having an opinion and contributing rather than expecting everyone to cling from their seats at KJ’s lovely pictures (which I’m sure we all appreciate) [on a side note, I’ve been thinking about the 70’s & 80’s era of development and all over the US (and the world?) it’s just bad. In Charlotte, Dallas, DC, every city, all around I just think man. What dogs they built and to this day, lots of them are so dead. It’s like those era of developments repel any signs of life or activity outside of work. I always think “why did they ever think this style was a good idea” and it makes me wonder… what don’t I have hindsight to see that future generations will say “why in the world did they ever build like this?” ]

This post made me randomly nostalgic as a young 20 year old getting lit af at epicenter xD Good timesss. But that was the past and I do think culturally there has been a shift in Charlotte as mentioned further above. But Charlotte’s brewery scene is hardcore and it’s becoming engrained in the culture of the city IMO. I thought everywhere was like that in the US but the more I travel domestically within the US, the more Charlotte has giant one as almost part of its culture. It’d be so awesome to have a couple large scale breweries, Movies back and a live music place. And I wish they’d use more earthy tones. Picnic tables and such at the main floor. It’d be cool to cement Charlotte as a craft beer city.

Nice. I’m a sucker for Pottery Barn. Would be nice to see 1st Ward become a residential/retail district like that or many others (all which seem to have the same tenants. Pottery Barn, Apple, Sephora, etc)

How is Epicenter isn’t badly designed vs. any other retail center? I think you’re dismissing the area around CTC & towards 1st Ward in general is languishing. If there were truly interest from Apple or H&M as you’ve been suggesting for 10 years, this is prime real estate. If there was demand in the area for anything, there would be more tenants and it would be successful. But the area is languishing and the city needs to step up. From Marshall Park, to government buildings. Pump in millions. The city needs to invest in this area the same way people want them to invest in an entertainment district for a new NFL stadium. The city / government has a role here to turn it around here and in 1st Ward.

Something no one has really delved into. Epicenter has crashed, burned and failed knocked far from its hey days. It slid into decline and is an apocalyptic, 2020 Covid-era version of itself. How / why did the epicenter fail? Obviously there’s renovations in process but so far, it doesn’t seem promising from the current owners. Should the city step in and offer up millions of $$$ to kick start a revitalization of this area, pump money into it with the hopes of a multiplier effect on surrounding properties & business? Otherwise, I sort of fear it won’t get out of a death spiral when there’s so many reasons this should be succeeding (again) and if it gets to a certain point, it may never succeed again? Theres no need to wait for a new NFL stadium to pump public funds into an “entertainment district” from scratch when this infrastructure already exist next to a stadium, connected to rail transit, etc.

Lmao. Which herein lies the problem. You mentioned Chicago - a city that triggers people. That is one of the cities we aren’t supposed to mention. Do we really want to talk about Chicago development? No. Just because multiple people share an opinion that happens to be similar doesn’t mean any one person is over sharing… I have opinions about the Duke Energy tower. Every single time I see pictures, it looks soul crushing at the base. But it’s overall nice looking. It’s not offensive. It’s not terrible and it’s probably more so the location than the actual development itself. So it’s hard for me to criticize it too much because I’m not even sure how many changes could be made to make it less sterile. It’s moreso a symptom of the location. This project, it’s self-inflicted. And from what CLTDev said, it was purely about the bottom line and delivering for investors (none of which are North/South Carolina based). If Legacy Union was developed differently at the base, I imagine things on South Tryon would look very different and surrounding developments would have stronger leasing opportunities for retail & restaurants. I dunno the exact org structure of the property, but one of the entities for example… The financials become different if the regulations require certain things. Literally, the people working on it are probably suburbanites somewhere in a different region working on 10 properties on one specific piece of it and just want to close as fast as possible. Why add extra complexity? None of them are incentivized for a random project on paper in a random area. If there was a requirement, legal counsel would say “oh, local laws require xyz” and they’d adjust their numbers accordingly… Will it always pencil out? No. And that’s not a bad thing. Bad projects have ripple effects. Not saying this is bad, but it’s not really positive. It also makes the appraisals harder to justify certain cost in the future when the competitors took shortcuts and Lenders typically rely heavily on market comps from existing competitors. Which again. There’s the lense through the developers eyes and goals & then there’s the civic side whose goal is to make our neighborhoods stronger & better. It seems trivial but look at epicenter. It’s a beacon of failure associated with a hands-off, low regulation government. And its policies based on developers that killed Epicenter.

I didn’t mean the size of Houston, I meant in general low taxes leading to high growth model. We can leave this alone though. My main point was, let people post about whatever they want. I find cheerleader boosterism to be excessive and sometimes cringe but I go about my day, don’t respond & silence, so. At this point, some people want the following rules: Don’t criticize anything too much (as a collective), don’t mention any other city/region (unless it’s a negative about the other place or a list saying Charlotte is high ranking), don’t correct factually wrong things stated that are easily verifiable (light rail ridership, uptown population, etc. like the post below) https://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/topic/43281-charlottes-light-rail-lynx-blue-line/page/264/

So basically, like Houston. Who cares If they don’t build that in Charlotte? Maybe Queens Bridge wouldn’t have shrunk in size without the competition? If less people build, rents go up, then someone else wants to build. We’re talking about skyscrapers. The Charlotte economy isn’t built around skyscrapers so it’s not like the economy would go south… It’s not going to affect the growth of Charlotte one way or another whether Charlotte tries to push development to conform a certain way or not. If this were something like Jacking up cost per passenger at CLT airport to make it look better, American could leave because that fundamentally changes what makes the airport successful (low cost). The Charlotte economy isn’t built around skyscraper construction. It’s not that Uptown had the giant legacy Union buildings. They look sad at the ground. New Duke tower? Sad. Development is shifting to SouthEnd. I don’t think it’s a net positive to always focus on a project in a vacuum. Better projects means more people want to build there too… Honeywell, Truist, Lending Tree, etc would’ve came to Charlotte because of the talent, business climate, etc. Extra cost in the building is not going to dissuade the economic activity. Speaking of which… SouthEnd getting more action these days… The developments matter. Somebody… would build for a Fortune 500…

I, personally, will post whatever I like until banned. I don’t think I’ve complained much about the parking deck (I’ve never seen a rendering look almost exactly like it does in real life). It is what it is & totally expected. I’m not too worried about it given it’s not the trend & most of SouthEnd has had pretty good development so. It’s a missed opportunity but it is what it is. But if people complain about it, let them complain. It’s no different than people who are overly rosy about everything. If people wanna posT complaints, cool. If they wanna be rosy, cool. I rather have discussion than people monitoring comments trying to limit discussion. I will say, however, if the city refused to let them build it without spending the additional $10MM to look better…. It might make more financial sense for them to spend the $10MM. What does a developer do if they don’t develop because they don’t like certain regulations? I’m not the biggest fan of only seeing things from the perspective of a developer and their financials.

When this tops out, does that leave Moxy as the only high rise U/C uptown or am I forgetting other towers? SouthEnd seems to be soaking up the high rises.

More lies unravel: (credit of photo to Megan Farmer in the article below of a Starbucks in Seattle.) Regulators (The National Labor Relations Board) seeks the reopening of 23 Starbucks are going to be as they were seemingly shut down due to Unionizing efforts. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/nlrb-seeks-to-reopen-23-starbucks-stores-including-8-in-seattle-area/ These were mostly the Starbucks that too made national headlines for weeks due to “crime” (even though it made no sense given the location, Starbucks in higher crime areas and opening newer locations in more dangerous parts of the cities since)

To add to it. That H&M that opened across the street is just a temporary one while they take over another space on the same block along G Street lol. Which IMO is an upgrade in space. This will be there new space (which if I remember correctly it’s 3 floors. A basement floor and 2 floors above ground) This is the same H&M that made national headlines for weeks for “closing” xD Literally…. smh

My post specifically in mentioning the Cincinnati Union Terminal was about adaptive reuse. Uptown in my opinion would be better (and more vibrant like south end) if it didn’t tear down buildings even to this day (and more painful than ever) that are quite historical or old and the new that replaces it in uptown tends to be dull or sterile. Although a new development might produce more revenue than saving a historical building and encouraging retail or civic spaces etc, it could lead to a more vibrant neighborhood that encourages more development and attract more residents. That’s on topic to this thread…. If we were to be strictly on topic… there wouldn’t be any replies for weeks for most of these topics…

I don’t have a problem with the stuff you post that always drifts off topic, I don’t have a problem when I find post to be delusional and I certainly don’t have a problem with people discussing the little building by Skye / Hyatt House becoming a retail space similar to a Walgreens in Atlanta. It’s not triggering for me & I don’t feel the need to shut down conversation over it so. You do, that’s cool, but I was just wondering if you were aware this isn’t a blog & I guess you are. I never whined about your profane tirades in the past & I certainly am not going to whine over a passive aggressive KFC post.

Im just pointing out, this isn’t a blog. It’s a discussion board. Do you prefer no one to reply until there’s a new salient, specific update?

Inside too & there’s other examples where it’s like. Opulent and looks like train stations of the wealthiest country in the world. Sad but at least they live on. Specifically as it relates to Charlotte, the reason I absolutely don’t like structures being torn down Willy-nilly (even if replaced by another structure), I just think it would be positive to be able to retain at least facades to start building on the culture. It’s actually a little disappointing the last 3 years seems to have been worse for tearing things down (including Polk Park at trade / Tryon) given a lot of stakeholders and stuff have spent years lamenting how much has been torn down and wanting to save our structures and they’re coming down as fast as ever.

I think it’s quite common (and I mean outside of the typical suspects on the west coast, Chicago, Bos-Wash) with examples all over the heartland, Midwest, Great Plains, etc. From small cities having targets in historic downtown buildings, etc. to the larger ones. You know what’s really stunning is what the Midwest/heartland have done with their historic rail stations (Ohio, Missouri and others). It’s mostly civic-y uses for those amazing train stations like museums but still. The below is Cincinatti (and if anyone wants to geek out or be depressed. Go look at all these train stations that are among the most beautiful in the world yet sadly most don’t even see a single train or useful service). Charlotte does have a couple crown jewel of historic buildings too for similar things posted above that would be nice to have some chains take over.

ha. Nope. But is a coal plant better than a parking lot? I think so. Would reinvigorate the economy & CLT could become Dubai but with coal money.

Since some of you have mentioned an Amtrak airport route… The new proposed Detroit - Toledo - Cleveland Amtrak roite will have 2 entirely new stations. Detroit (DTW) airport and Cleveland Hopkins airport. There are 3 proposes round trips and even more frequency as Chicago’s network bulks up even further. https://www.crainsdetroit.com/transportation/amtrak-proposal-would-link-detroit-dtw-toledo-cleveland

A parking lot is a pretty low bar, lol.

The National Retail Federation made a giant retraction of its stats on retail theft. It pretty much amounted to a lie. https://wgntv.com/news/retail-group-retracts-claim-that-half-of-losses-were-from-theft/amp/ It was all a lie and retail theft isn’t any worse now in some of the major cities than it was in 2019. But the damage has been done, it won’t get widely reported (even though it has been mentioned dailyyyyy by media, etc.). And it’s Not like this wasn’t known, but broader America took a lie of a stat, a MAGA talking point to dehumanize certain areas. And I’m sure there will be no slow down in the looting rioting burning narrative. How lovely.