Silicon Dogwoods

AvidXchange is much worse. It reeks of beige no matter where it's sited.

I like the design. Just not in South End. It is somewhat odd that DFA made much of wanting to be in the urban core, then presented a building design not in keeping with its surroundings. Regardless, let's not run off the excellent jobs to other Carolina. This is a big win for Charlotte. This is a new regional headquarters. These 300+ jobs pay an average annual comp in excess of 100k and are squarely within Charlotte's signature industry, finance. These are Charlotte jobs, not Ft. Mill jobs. The salaries and tax monies they will eventually generate (well, the portion that Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow does not siphon off down east) are an important source of funding for other things we want Charlotte to accomplish. Welcome, DFA! Really like your building! (cough not in South End, cough)

From the CBJ: It's time to talk about airline megahubs.OAG, formerly Official Airline Guide, has just concluded an exhaustive study of the major hubs that airlines have established around the world, and Charlotte Douglas International Airport ranked No. 4. Illinois-based OAG also included Charlotte Douglas at No. 10 on a chart of the 10 fastest-growing megahubs in the world, referring to airports with both a large number of inbound and outbound flights coupled with well-timed airline schedule http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2015/10/06/oag-charts-dramatic-rise-of-the-airline-megahub.html (you may need a subscription to read all of it)

Yes. Hugh McColl had a long range plan, even then. The other key date-as I recall, oddly the same year, 1982-was the then-NCNB's first out-of-state acquisition, in Florida.

Yes, I did! Thanks for the write-so many people know nothing of Charlotte's history, let alone how we got a big hub airport. Old native that I am, I could have written it for you of course.

There is no Charlotte today without CLT. The key year is 1982, when the current terminal opened and the Piedmont hub that launched around that same time. From that flowed everything else: banks, NBA, NFL, everything. The NBA would never have looked at us without excellent airlinks to other key markets. Having those airlinks meant that Charlotte would boom-and we did. Hugh McColl and Eddie Crutchfield could not have bought all those banks without CLT in place. For that, we can thank John Belk. He went out shaking the civic pom poms not once but twice in the late 1970s to get voters to approve the bonds to build the 1982 terminal. Young'uns look at Charlotte and have no knowledge of earlier leaders like Stan Brookshire who kept a cool head and was Charlotte's mayor when other southern cities were exploding in racial animus or Slug Claiborne, who devised a clever way to desegregate Charlotte's restaurants in one fell swoop. LJ, 'Zo and Muggsy could be here because of who and what came before.

"lack of cohesive design integration into surrounding properties" That must mean the offending developer will not be using paste-on pediments.

There's no anchor tenant yet announced. I thought with the release of JDIG funds (at last) that an announcement might be imminent but so far, nothing.

Bless their hearts.

This is the reason we need to remove redistricting from the politicians' hands. Otherwise, we just have cabals beholden to very few people. We had a cabal in the Marc Basnight era and now we have a cabal in the Phil Berger era. At least Basnight didn't try to gut UNC, but still...

He did. But as Governor, he's a political eunuch. The General Assembly barely acknowledges his existence. He was forced to sign off on the budget because Charlotte and Raleigh need the JDIG money. Had he vetoed the budget over the loss of light rail funds, the JDIG money and the tax deal for the loser counties would have been in jeopardy. The light rail poison pill was probably inserted by someone who wanted to extract revenge for not getting the Harry Brown soak-the-rich-counties-for-the-loser-counties sales tax plan passed into law. I don't like McCrory but if you want to be mad at someone, he's not the right target. I'd check Stam, Brown (he's the head budget writer on the Senate side), Rabon, Bob Rucho, the usual scum.

Basically they've told the Triangle if they want light rail, they will have to finance it through the property tax. Raleigh's tax rate is so low compared to Charlotte's-.92 v 1.29 or so-that they could certainly afford to do it that way. And just yesterday, Raleigh city council voted to require rail in all transit plans for their city. I don't know what property tax rates are in Durham and Orange counties. But raising property tax rates is a very hard sell, especially for a contentious issue like this. Raleigh skates by with low property taxes because the state (all taxpayers in North Carolina) pays for so many of Raleigh's amenities. It will be interesting to find out how badly they really want some sort of rail transit.

They are, indeed. Looks like anything you'd see along I-77 North to Huntersville and Cornelius.

'Twould be lovely in the Queen City.

Because, like Bissell in Ballantyne, they add space a drib and a drab at a time as demand indicates need. If they built a skyscraper, much space might go unused/unleased for quite a while. You can't build a skyscraper 6 stories at a time. salesforce.com became the anchor tenant for the Transbay Tower in San Francisco which will be the tallest building on the West Coast when completed. By signing up for so many floors, they got naming rights. But they're planning to lease only about half of it, IIRC. That tower was already underway, so salesforce and the developer had much less risk. I love skyscrapers-well-designed skyscrapers. But they're risky without a big commitment upfront before groundbreaking. I would guess that's what's holding up Tryon Place-no major tenant.

You're right, it isn't. A California-based colleague asked me about the pinata shootings last week. But so far, no inquiries about this.

I don't think this has much to do with CMPD. CMPD can only do so much as the information that they gather from the community. If all witnesses believe that snitches get stitches, then the police won't have much to work with. The 3 who are charged are all apparently convicted teenage felons. So I'd like to know how convicted teenage felons got guns. Were they on parole/probation? Were they being supervised? That's a question for our beleaguered and woefully underfunded court system. How/from whom/where/when did convicted teenage felons get guns? The shootings last weekend point to gang violence. If gangs are becoming more of an issue again, then yes, CMPD could do things like go undercover, seek injunctions against behavior by bad actors, etc.

Well, the clerestory windows...they let in light. But I agree with you. It's already a large mall, 1.6 million square feet? Additional levels would destroy its vibe. I'm just hoping Federated closes the SouthPark Macy's and replaces it with a Bloomingdale's.

A good bit of Madison Park is walkable to Myers Park High School. Madison Park is much closer to MPHS than say, Olde Providence which has been assigned to MPHS for a long time. But Madison Park has never been assigned to MPHS. Initially in the '50s, it was assigned to East Meck, until South Meck opened in 1959. Then it was assigned to South Meck until the early 1970s. Then Olympic for many years. Now Harding. Madison Park is still doing very well as a revived, close-in neighborhood. But you could tack on 100-150k to each house if the neighborhood were assigned to MPHS or South Meck. I don't pretend to understand how CMS draws its boundaries.

Heck, I'm waiting on the hotels. Also his digs on Sharon Road in Deering Oaks...

What should the south wedge/north wedge do to seriously rethink their boundaries?

They got tired of eating kale breakfast, lunch and dinner.