CLT2014

Given the interest in light rail on this board, is there a big reason you don't commute via light rail if you have to traverse South End which has a light rail line (assuming you are heading Uptown)? I think it is interesting just for understanding why people commute via car along the same route as the train so we can plan a more effective system.

No, pedestrians have priority in that area and the pedestrian crossing lights break up the high speeding that occurs through South End, which is trying to become a more walkable neighborhood that reduces auto dependence. We need more and more of these crossings to keep pedestrians safe and create more of a grid in South End and honestly all of Charlotte where the distance between intersections with cross walks can be half a mile or more.

I think Simon Mall would have to facilitate that, buying out the respective buildings (Macys and Belk each own their structures) and helping pay for the tenant upfit to make it attractive to swap. Otherwise, there is no reason for Belk to give up the asset they own. Macy's would also probably be most profitable converting the Macy's to a Bloomingdales in the structure they own with upfit / renovations. A big part of the decision to shed locations at Macy's right now is where can they get more cash from selling the store (where they own the real estate) than operating it (such as the Union Square location in San Francisco closing -> worth more sold for $$ SF real estate than as a store for them). This also puts at bay activist investors that want to take over Macy's and largely liquidate for the real estate Macy's owns. Personally though, I think Charlotte is a roll of the dice for a Bloomingdales given their expansion plans are so small (only 15 stores, with no detail if those are full size stores or just the mini Bloomie's). Bloomingdale's has glaring gaps in tons of markets like Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix/Scottsdale, Seattle, Tampa, Minneapolis, Portland, San Gabriel Valley area of SoCal, hyper wealthy CA enclaves like Santa Barbara and Monterey / Carmel by the Sea, Naples Florida, metro Detroit, Denver, Austin, et... lots of competition and anybody's guess if they will focus on adding Bloomingdales to net new metros or focus on solidifying markets they are strong in like NY, CA, and FL.

It is a great plane and I'd certainly welcome more of them at CLT. The E175 offers all the spaciousness of a mainline jet, with no middle seats, big windows and faster boarding / de-boarding, et... give me a E175 over a 737 or A320 all day!

The 50 seat ERJ-145s operated by Piedmont for American Eagle will be gone at Concourse E by the end of the decade. American has placed an order for 90 Embraer 175 aircraft, which will be operated by their regional wholly owned subsidiaries. The press release does not specifically say Piedmont will receive any, but Piedmont is exclusively flying the 50 seat ERJ-145 right now that are going away. AA will either replace those with the E175 or merge the Piedmont subsidiary into Envoy or PSA. The E175 is the best regional jet out there and feel like a mainline with no middle seats, so this is a big win for customer experience, but some small cities may have service canceled if they can't sustain first class service, et. Also in the order is 85 A321neos and 85 Boeing 737 Max 10s. Mainline domestic planes continue to get longer and denser... inevitably some of these planes will rotate through CLT or be based here, which means even more passengers in Concourse B and C with these dense planes. AA's current A321neos have 196 seats. Concourse B is 16 gates for example and having a mix of 10 A321s at the gate, 2 A320s and 3 737-8s at 85% load is 2,500 passengers waiting for planes at one time. Existing A319 and A320 aircraft will be refurbished likely in the "Oasis" format with power at every seat and refreshed trim. The A319 will move from 8 first class seats to 12 and the A320 will go from 12 to 16. No widebody planes added to the order. AA's been clear they are focused on domestic / North American / Caribbean flying. https://americanairlines.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/american-airlines-places-orders-airbus-boeing-and-embraer Goodbye to the ERJ-145 at Piedmont: Hello to more E175's!!!

Delta has access to 7 gates today so this is really just a move to a different space that has room for a lounge / newer gates, but not a huge growth play. The extra common use gates over there will give them some flexibility if they have irregular ops and a plane is broken at one of the gates though. There is a chance they may go for 1x daily to Seattle to provide connectivity to their West Coast hub and go up against AA. With AA 7 - 8 times daily nonstop to LAX and Spirit now on the route too, I think Delta may avoid LAX - CLT. There is also 0 chance we'll see Caribbean or Mexico destinations from CLT on Delta anytime soon. The whole point of their hub and spoke network is to route traffic through their hubs (in particular Atlanta for anything / everything Caribbean for the South) and Delta flies very few point to point routes that don't touch a hub or focus city. Delta exclusively flies to Cancun from their hubs and focus cities for example.

Won't AA temporarily lose some gates on Concourse C when the FIS connector for some gates on C to become international gates + the new Admirals Club is built? My guess is the airport needs this far north concourse built so they can move some of the airlines at gates A21 - A29 temporarily up to this new super far north concourse. AA will then backfill those gates while some of the gates on Concourse C are closed to maintain their current flight level. Then... whether AA gives those gates at A21 - A29 back or works out a deal to grow / take over even more gates with CLT mgmt is anybody's guess.

I don't think Saks is coming anytime soon. They are financially struggling and have only opened 12 stores since 2010, 4 of which are already closed. They need to focus on optimizing the profitability of their current stores versus trying to expand. Their last expansion to mid-size cities was the 2001 - 2004 range where they entered Birmingham, Indianapolis, Richmond, and Raleigh. Since then... 43% of their new stores were unsuccessful entering new markets and closed.

The legislature is back to make it clear they will only support a road's first transit plan. "Some of the things that we often hear from transportation advocates in urban areas are probably difficult for folks to vote for," he [Berger] said. https://www.axios.com/local/charlotte/2024/02/26/berger-moore-transportation-plan-transit-roads-first

I noticed Lost World Brewing signage is up at the Metropolitan. This should be a good foot traffic generator when it opens. Will this be the only brewery in Charlotte off a greenway (excluding the Rail Trail)?

One big variance between Jacksonville and Austin.... babies. Austin is growing largely by net migration from other areas of the country. It has the third lowest fertility rate among large metros (1.53 children per childbearing aged woman, below replacement level). Jacksonville is growing by strong net migration from the more expensive parts of Florida and the Northeast, but is also has the highest fertility rate among any larger metro area nationwide at 2.189 children per childbearing woman (above replacement). Jacksonville's natural increase via births AND relocations from other areas gives it an advantage in population growth over Austin. Jacksonville has less overall households though, that tend to be larger (giving more slack to the real estate market). 2.47 people/ household in Jacksonville versus 2.21 in Austin. This leads to Austin having 48,000 more households out looking for a home and why real estate demand feels so much more explosive in Austin for apartments, et... Children can't buy homes and Jacksonville can pack more of its population into less homes as more people live together in Jacksonville.

Where do people grocery shop that live in that stretch hugging 277 on the north side of Uptown? Do they tend to go to the tiny HT in Fourth Ward or Food Lion in NoDa? The Plaza HT seems like fighting a lot of traffic patterns.

Looks like only about 1 / 3 of Union County is impacted in the eastern and more rural portion of the county (Fairview, Unionville, Marshville, et.). The very suburban / developed western end of the county (Waxhaw, Weddington, Marvin, Indian Trail, Stallings, et...) receives water largely from the Catawba River treatment facility jointly owned with Lancaster County, SC. That facility will continue to have fluoride unless Lancaster also decides to remove it. Monroe has its own water department as a city, separate from the county water. https://www.unioncountync.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/8460/638440261469770000 Overall a bizarre move and I suspect the conspiracy folks are just drinking bottled water anyhow. To further add to the comedy... fluoride was literally a joke in a Parks and Rec episode:

Awful. So young and brought a great brewery to our city. My thoughts are with his family and friends, understandably in shock.

I agree it will help some students, but likely a niche group based on where students live today and rail is planned to be extended. Looking at the dot map of where students live that attend CPCC Levine, the best transit for that campus would be a line along Pineville-Matthews Road or out into Union County as the majority of Levine campus students live along the I-485 corridor as opposed to the Silver Line / Independence corridor. It would be interesting to estimate what the ridership would be at a Levine station especially given the cost / benefit to build over the interstate to get to the campus.

The hard thing for trying to eliminate car trips with CPCC is the student body in the Associate's / Transfer bound program overwhelmingly lives in suburban areas away from rail (likely with their parents). They will need a car to get home to their parent's house at the end of the day. A big advantage of community college is to save money living at home... not burn all that on a luxury apartment in South End.

$970,000,000 over 114 airports is an average of $8.5 million per airport. While nice publicity, this is going to be rather minor / small improvements that aren't going to transform the airport experience anywhere (case in point just 16 jet bridges at CLT). The largest grant was $50 million to Fort Lauderdale to connect two concourses behind security and provide retail space.

Aren't there free public restrooms at Bearden Park and First Ward Park?

While some of these do some targeted towards homeless people in general, I think this gives police some authority that currently lacks. Not all of these actions are homeless people. There are evangelists at intersections standing in medians running between cars passing out Jesus Loves You fliers for example and knocking on your window asking you to repent. At one intersection, a guy passes out fliers for his taco truck in a gas station parking lot along South Blvd. Currently the police can't tell them to get off the median.

Atrium doesn't have to pay property tax as a nonprofit, so the mall should be #1. I think they'd be supportive of non-super block apartments (garden style). I think the South End style would probably get some locals upset.

If Carolina Place was in Charlotte city limits, I think we'd see apartments flying up. I wonder if Pineville is more difficult to work with to get apartments through the planning and approval process? Historically the town has been resistant to more urban development (such as the Blue Line) and non-garden style apartment complexes. Lately, almost all of Pineville's new developments have been SFH or Townhomes, though Pineville does push for garages to be behind properties in alleyways with porches facing the main streets, et. at relatively decent density. Uses aren't mixed though (McCullough near the SC border is walkable as far as the grid, but lacking retail to actually walk to) and the parking lots around Carolina Place likely would need to be taller apartments. I think a 5 story apartment complex would probably cause a lot of the town to cry the "small town charm" is under attack.

Wenworth and Fenn bakery closing their Latta Arcade location after 9 months to focus on Camp North End. The closure is getting a good amount of press about foot traffic being down in Uptown and renovations to the arcade being delayed. The bakery only had daily sales of about $200. Some of this is largely business fundamentals, the margin on a bakery, spoilage, and the season (limited indoor seating at Latta so you'd have to pick up the food and go since sitting at the park is cold). I do think for small businesses especially, Uptown is a hard submarket being so dependent on office workers who have a narrow window where they eat, like to order ahead, and tend to have regular routines / go to the same place to reduce decision fatigue for lunch time. You are competing in the lunch rush with chain takeout restaurants with apps that can text you when your order is ready, et. to efficiently grab your meal... and then it is pretty silent. Uptown doesn't draw in stay at home parents, retirees, people that don't work Uptown and have the day off, et... to fill the non-lunch rush hours. https://www.charlotteobserver.com/charlottefive/c5-around-town/c5-development/article285259942.html https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2024/02/09/wentworth-fenn-sam-ward-scratch-bakery-restaurant.html

I think the new Ballantyne Reimagined stroll district will only accelerate problems for Carolina Place. Outside of the worst of winter, people would rather stroll outside and shop in the new district Ballantyne is building, Waverly, and Blakeney Town Center... or just drive to SouthPark which isn't that far away. The stores around the perimeter seem to be doing the best where people can park and run an errand without going in the actual mall portion (like REI, Dick's / Golf Galaxy, Dave and Buster's, Belk, et.)

Porter shifted strategy to chasing leisure travel. Looks like the new planes they received got deployed to Florida and Vegas instead. In 2023 they added routes to Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Tampa, Fort Myers, and Las Vegas. I think that indicates we may be waiting a while. Their US destinations are the mega CSAs (NY, LA, CHI, SF, DC, BOS) + leisure / warm vacation spots right now. We don't fit in the large CSA bucket or leisure / beach.

That would bring the Canadian destinations to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Quebec City. Quebec City doesn't have pre-clearance though so the flight will need to arrive as a full international arrival on Concourse D. Will be interesting to see if they pick mainline like an A319 or a PSA regional CRJ-900. I could see AA adding Halix at some point where they have some flights to the Northeast hubs, but CLT would provide better connections to warm beach getaways. Winnipeg and Edmonton seem very long and thin routes and AA doesn't fly to those airports today.