KJHburg

Okay I don't normally cheer when a project gets delayed but I am happy the destruction of the round Holiday Inn downtown wont be happening soon. ""The Holiday Inn hotel in Downtown Raleigh won't be demolished anytime soon, with its new owners set to evaluate options later this year. In November 2021, Tidal Real Estate Partners purchased the lot at 300 Hillsborough St., and the neighboring parking lot at 320 Hillsborough St. for a combined $23.8 million. The company unveiled plans in early 2022 for a 20-story tower featuring a hotel, apartments, a parking deck and restaurant and retail space, which it received approval for in July 2023. Tidal Real Estate, which is based on West 27th Street in New York City, later reached a deal to bring the first Kimpton hotel to Raleigh. But Damian Cortez, the general manager at the hotel, said Thursday that there is no decision yet on the future of the hotel. "The owners of the property, it's up to them," he said. Cortez said the owners will meet in October and decide whether to renovate the property or close it. "We don't know yet," he said. "The coin is still spinning. We don't know if it will be heads or tails." Tidal Real Estate's projects page on its websites lists 2026 next to the project. Whether that's a projected construction start or opening date is unclear as Tidal did not respond to requests for comment. As of July 2023, Tidal Real Estate Partners said there was "no firm timeline for the demolition phase.""" Iconic Raleigh Holiday Inn to survive as major development hits wall - Triangle Business Journal (bizjournals.com) I hope the existing round hotel can be saved and the rooftop restaurant reopened. I do think it is a landmark. photo from Biz Journal story.

Downtown Raleigh quarterly report and still steady progress. The residential growth is great which adds more customers to shops and restaurants. Remember upcoming walking tour starting at Union Station at 10 am June 15. Reports, Publications, and Plans | Downtown Raleigh, NC

Suburban office space is not dead. Here is an office park outside the University Research Park that has brought its occupancy up from 50 to 70%. ""University City office park The Grove has added significantly to its tenant base, a credit to owner B Group Capital Management's willingness to invest in the property, said Stream Realty Partners' Grant Keyes. Keyes said over the last 18 months, Stream has executed more than 70,000 square feet in new lease deals and renewals at The Grove, a four-building, 260,620-square-foot office park on Cliff Cameron Drive. Stream handles leasing at the property. Those leases came on the heels of significant upgrades and renovations, he said. Occupancy at The Grove jumped from around 50% prior to B Group's acquisition to 70% currently, Keyes said. The average leasing rate at the office park is $26.50 per square foot. Recent leases include: Alliance Health, 18,125 square feet A Bridge to Achievement, 15,000 square feet Autism Living Experience, 10,587 square feet Keller Williams, 7,428-square-foot renewal"" B Group Capital invests in renovations to draw in new tenants at The Grove - Charlotte Business Journal (bizjournals.com) The Grove - Charlotte Office Space (thegrovecharlotte.com)

Not a big announcement but very interesting that Canadian based Tim Hortons wants to open their coffee and doughnut shops in the Triangle. Must be those hockey players! ""A restaurant chain known for being loved by Canadians is eyeing North Carolina, and the Triangle specifically, for expansion. Tim Hortons, the multinational coffeehouse and restaurant chain, could soon be planning to open its first North Carolina locations. William Washington, the head of real estate for Restaurant Brands International (NYSE: QSR) — the Toronto-based fast food holding company that owns Tim Hortons, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs — wrote in an email to Triangle Business Journal that the company is "looking to bring Tim Hortons" to the Triangle area and that "we are recruiting new franchisees.""" Tim Hortons in North Carolina. It could happen soon - Triangle Business Journal (bizjournals.com)

This is a great looking in fill project and redevelopment of the current Coca Cola bottling plant site on Hillsborough (near my favorite Bullocks BBQ) from the Triangle Biz Journal ""The $200 million redevelopment of a bottling facility in northwest Durham is moving forward. Atlanta-based Ardent Companies recently filed site plans for its redevelopment of the Durham Coca-Cola Bottling Company warehouse. The new development will have 370 apartments, 35 townhomes and nearly 70,000 square feet of retail space including a grocery store. The company had the property rezoned in October. The multifamily units will be a mix of studio, one, two and three bedrooms in a 7-story building that will wrap a parking deck with 520 parking spaces. The company hasn’t settled on how many bedrooms the townhomes will have but five of them will be offered at 80 percent of the area median income. All of the townhomes will be for sale. Amenities include a swimming pool, courtyard, outdoor grilling areas and interior amenities that have yet to be decided. Retail will be in six buildings, one for the grocer and five for new retailers. The grocery space will be 23,291 square feet and the remaining buildings will hold about 15 retailers. Douglas said the company wants to create Class-A service and family-oriented retail that meet the daily needs of the local community. That includes retail options like fitness and food and beverage concepts. Jay Douglas, executive director for Ardent Companies, said the company is anticipating closing on the land by the end of this year so it can break ground in the first quarter of 2025. If it follows that timeline, the development will open in the third quarter of 2026."" that size grocery store sounds like a Sprouts or Trader Joes to me. $200M development in Durham takes next steps - Triangle Business Journal (bizjournals.com)

CLT is on its way to a new record year in passenger travel this year. from the Biz Journal ""So far this year, passenger traffic has been on the rise at CLT. More than 13.7 million passengers have boarded or departed a plane at Charlotte Douglas during the first three months of the year, according to airport statistics. That's up 16.2% from the 11.8 million passengers in the first quarter of 2023. It keeps Charlotte Douglas on pace for another record-breaking year in 2024. CLT most recently set its highest-ever count for passenger traffic last year, breaking its 2019 record with 53.4 million passengers. That broke its 2019 record of 50.2 million passengers."" Check out CLT's most popular US flight destinations - Charlotte Business Journal (bizjournals.com)

Downtown Albemarle on some business today. they did convert an old hotel to apartments downtown. I thought I took a photo of that but I guess I did not. anyway small downtown but quite a few shops and businesses.

The Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow will have a new name in the future. Move over red and gold and bring in the purple of Truist Bank. ""The PGA Tour has secured a new title sponsor for its Charlotte event, with Truist Financial Corp. expected to take over for Wells Fargo & Co., sources told the Sports Business Journal. The tour, in a note to players yesterday afternoon, said a new, unnamed sponsor had come on board, the sources said. The note thanked Wells Fargo for its sponsorship of the tournament. SBJ first reported in March that TIAA was another final bidder for the deal alongside Charlotte-based Truist (NYSE: TFC). The PGA Tour had been seeking as much as $25 million annually for title sponsorships for signature events. It’s unclear what Truist would be paying or what the tournament would be called."" Truist taking over PGA Tour sponsorship at Quail Hollow? - Charlotte Business Journal (bizjournals.com)

from Business NC about the new film production coming to downtown Greensboro ""A film production company that had facilities in Nashville and Los Angeles has moved its operations to Greensboro. 7 Cinematics, which has won three Emmys, has relocated its headquarters, production and warehouse facilities in the former Triad Stage building in downtown Greensboro. It's finalizing construction for its offices, editing suites and a high-end screening room for clients and artists. The company has also opened a 6,000-square-foot logistics hub. The company produces a range of content, including concert feature films, live-music broadcasts and livestreams around the world with artists such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dead & Company and KISS. The company’s work has aired on NBC, Direct TV, PBS, CBS, Netflix, YouTube and other streaming platforms. “A permanent home in Greensboro gives our team more – more time to do what we do best, more creative freedom, more artistic merit and more lifestyle amenities at an affordable price,” said Adam Paul, founder and CEO of 7 Cinematics. It's a homecoming for Paul and other 7 Cinematics members. In the 1980s, Paul and his friends recorded their skateboarding adventures in downtown Greensboro. The former Triad Stage building was purchased for $1.35 million by an investor group earlier this year. The investors include Arthur Samet, Will Stewart, Durant Bell, Jeff Yetter and Daniel McCoy, the Triad Business Journal has reported. They are planning to reopen the main floor of the building as a concert and music venue. Triad Stage opened its 300-seat theater in 2002 after the former Montgomery Ward building was renovated. The theater group closed last year because of financial problems."" Here is their website look at whom they have worked with and yes this is a big thing for Greensboro! 7 Cinematics | EMMY-Winning Productions

Out of the metro area for most of the day today and here is a little HQ relocation of a fintech from Brazil to uptown Charlotte! Charlotte Inno - Fintech company Monkey moves headquarters to uptown Charlotte from Brazil (bizjournals.com) might need to convert the website into English top right corner from Portuguese Monkey

I thought I just saw this list but in case I did not post it here is a list of the nonstop flights from CLT compiled by Charlotte Magazine. UPDATED: All Nonstop Flights from Charlotte Douglas International Airport - Charlotte Magazine

I finally could read this article about the Triad without subscribing to the NY Times here are some highlights: ""Scott Kidd didn’t expect a terribly busy job when he became the town manager of Liberty, N.C., a onetime furniture and textile hub whose rhythms more recently centered on a yearly antiques festival. Those quiet times, less than three years ago, soon became a whirlwind. Toyota announced it was building a battery factory on the town’s rural outskirts for electric and hybrid vehicles, and since then Mr. Kidd has reviewed ordinances, met with housing developers and otherwise sought to meet the needs of a seven-million-square-foot facility. The flurry of activity reflects new investments in a region of North Carolina that has lagged behind: the Triad. The average income in Randolph County, which includes Liberty, is $47,000, and some jobs at Toyota will offer an hourly wage comfortably above that. More people moving into the area could breathe life into Liberty’s downtown. But the potential dividends for the area — which includes Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point, in the center of the state — depend on equipping its workers with the skills needed for those new jobs. Mr. Kidd worried that many local workers lacked the education and skills to work at the plant. At the same time, some residents and local leaders who welcome the new industries worry about maintaining the area’s character, lest it become like the rapidly growing — and expensive — sprawls elsewhere in the South. “We don’t want to be Charlotte,” said Marvin Price, executive vice president of economic development at the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, referring to the banking center 100 miles down Interstate 85. “We want to be the best version of Greensboro.” Like many states, North Carolina has drawn on new federal and state incentives to attract more advanced manufacturing and clean technology businesses. And the Triad, built on the tobacco, textile and furniture industries, is trying to pivot toward advanced manufacturing, offering a potential blueprint to other regions whose economic engines sputtered with globalization and the rise of automation. When it opens next year, Toyota’s Liberty factory will make batteries for vehicles built in Kentucky. Ten minutes away in Siler City, Wolfspeed, a semiconductor manufacturer, is building a factory with a $5 billion investment. For decades, the Triad has been the state’s manufacturing base. High Point became known as the home furnishings capital of the world, with the city and surrounding areas accounting for 60 percent of the country’s furniture production at their peak. Along with furniture, Greensboro and Winston-Salem specialized in textiles and tobacco. And while the Research Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill had renowned universities in the University of North Carolina, Duke and North Carolina State, the Triad had Wake Forest University. But like many manufacturing regions, its fortunes started to decline in the 1970s. Jobs in textiles started being moved overseas or automated, furniture contracted with the arrival of cheaper Chinese imports, and tobacco contracted because of a decline in smoking. Mills shut down, sitting vacant for decades, and downtowns languished. Signs of change are evident in downtowns. In High Point, a hosiery mill sat vacant for decades, opening only for biannual furniture showrooms. But in 2021, a group of local investors joined with the city’s Chamber of Commerce and a local foundation that donated more than $40 million to convert the site to a co-working space, Congdon Yards. Today, it houses around 50 employers and 360 employees. Similar projects have been undertaken in Winston-Salem and Greensboro. In downtown Winston-Salem, old cigarette factories have become the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter, a research-focused district that cost more than $500 million. In Greensboro, one of the city’s oldest textile mills has been converted into a mixed-use complex, with amenities like a pizzeria to go along with office space."" Overall it is very positive article talks about some folks moving from the west coast and NY to Winston for more affordable housing etc.

Yes I did forget to mention Nashville is getting its new tallest it has not yet come out of the ground so it was a deep hole but look forward to seeing it get going soon. New state and city tallest at 750 feet. Their skyline has expanded greatly since my first in the 1990s but unfortunately, the roads have not. Here is the site this photo. On Church St which has multiple new high rises under construction within just a few blocks.

Final round up of Nashville photos. There new domed football stadium is under construction (just mud and dirt so no photos) The downtown drinking district aka Broadway is as busier than ever. There is more day drinking in those blocks than drinking all over Charlotte in a full day. (and it smells like it too LOL) Ironically I was told by a local that several office tenants have decided to move out of a class A office tower that is not too old to get out of the tourist district. Highwoods of Raleigh actually owns the building. It seems it is just a little too close to all the bar action. Nashville has almost every hotel brand known to man but they do not have a Ritz Carlton though one was planned. The tall building in the 2nd photo is the Four Seasons hotel and condo tower. The food hall at 5th and Broadway where Alliance Bernstein ended up across from Ryman Auditorium is about 5x the size of Monarch Food Hall uptown and super busy with office workers and lots of tourists. the view from the high-rise office of my niece shows a condo tower under construction and that is something we don't have going on in Charlotte at all. This high rise condo tower is called Pullman and is the first of two. It is 28 stories and 310 units. I wish we had some condos going up but with today's interest rates it is probably not viable. anyway lots of construction in downtown Nashville but I like the way Charlotte looks with our tree ordinance, infrastructure etc. as for parking in Nashville plenty of podium style building with lots of levels of parking but lots of underground parking too.

More from Loving Life last night from again their Twitter. These drone displays are great! Did anyone else have photos of these from the ground or somewhere else in uptown?

Great photo from today of Lovin Life festival with the Beach Boys. From their Twitter feed.

PART ONE: I went to Nashville and came back about a week ago. They for sure have more high-rise buildings under construction than Charlotte does. They have some good projects going up like Neuhoff in Germantown. This area is like NoDa, a former industrial area with adjacent older neighborhood that is really changing. This project is at an old meatpacking plant. Neuhoff (neuhoffdistrict.com) another massive project is Nashville Yards where Amazon has 2 office towers (I think only one is occupied) and their famous banana trailer out front. (and yes you can grab a free banana if you are an Amazonian or a "community member" like I was walking by. anyway they have completed 2 office towers, one is under construction for Pinnacle Bank, 2 twin apartment towers under construction, and an entertainment center by AEG. Check out their website. Nashville Yards Lots of high-rise apartment towers even more than in Charlotte but the rents are high. We seem to be building much more midrise apartment buildings which are less expensive to build and rent. But I checked a couple of their webpages like the Alcove Tower and they seem to have rent specials free months etc. What Charlotte really does a lot better is in the area of infrastructure and that is across the board. From sidewalks and greenways to roads and expressways to traffic light management to mass transit (which Nashville is voting on a BRT system this fall) to our airport. (their airport does have a new Hilton hotel on site which is something CLT needs as it is 3x the size in passengers) All these areas Charlotte is way ahead of Nashville and in terms of sidewalk infrastructure I would say we are 20-30 plus years ahead of them. So many neighborhoods there even close in to the downtown have no sidewalks. For example, their most upscale shopping mall Green Hills has one 4-lane road into the area and out. All other roads are just 2 lanes and most are without sidewalks. The traffic even mid-day is very congested. The growth in Nashville seems almost out of control compared to Charlotte which seems much more orderly and planned. All booming cities have congestion but their levels are above ours and more prevalent throughout the day. I go to Nashville at least once a year so it is interesting to see the changes. First 13 photos are of Neuhoff district with office, retail and apartments down river from downtown in the Germantown neighborhood. then 2 skyline shots. Nashville Yards shots notice the banana trailer in front of the Amazon tower. Nashville Yards is basically built on a huge platform like Atlantic Station area of Atlanta with ground level actually several levels below or like parts of downtown Atlanta near Mercedes Dome and the NBA arena there. It was once the railroad yards which have shrunken to just the main railroad lines. Capitol View is a neighborhood that I would love to see built in First Ward. Mostly midrises apartments and office buildings on the edge of their downtown. Capitol View | Boyle Investment Company | Nashville TN (capitolviewnashville.com) (after the banana shot)

Here is a suburban neighborhood with lots of variety of housing types and styles. Afton Village in Concord was zoned Traditional Neighborhood Development zoning. This is the result and it started out as a regular all single family homes and now is a wonderful mix of duplexes, triplexes, rows of townhomes, garden style condos and single family homes adjoining a city park and greenway. Check out the variety of housing types and all is for sale products but some are rentals now. They have restaurants and some shops as a part of the community and the Cannon YmiMCA is there too. Sometimes is hard to tell that a duplex is a duplex and not a single family home. Plus I like the townhomes with front courtyards and rear entry alley accessed garages. Condos from mid 200s, townhomes from the mid 300s, single family from 500s. 1st photo is a duplex, 2nd row of townhomes, 3rd photo shows 2 single family homes flanked by townhomes etc. Afton Village - A New Old Neighborhood in Concord, North Carolina

From the Lovin Life twitter from last night.

This new 23 story office building called 110 East in Charlotte's Southend was designed by Nashville's own Hasting Architecture and the views are fantastic.

no more incorporating the old facade into the new building. Look at the link above you can see how it fits in.

Stiles is going to do some spec suites on the 12th floor of this new building. Basically building out an office for immediate move-in. As spec homes in residential real estate have been around forever in this country this is somewhat of a "new" concept in commercial real estate. With the explosion of coworking in the last decade building owners found more tenants like just moving into a space instead of designing and constructing every detail of their space. Other buildings in and around Charlotte have been quite successful with this strategy like Carillon, One South, 101 Independence uptown and even suburban buildings have done it. And with great views like this 110 East building has I think it will serve them well.

it closed maybe 20 years ago or more it was prime back in the 80s off the 4-lane I-85. You might not have been alive to see it open LOL. My long-time Charlotte friend thinks maybe late 1990s closed. But he confirms it was the Charlotte answer to Raleigh's Angus Barn.

for those who don't remember this was once one of the finest steakhouses in Charlotte. It was quite the place back in the day 1970s 80s Charlotte. Our answer to Raleigh's Angus Barn (which is still there and serving steaks and is packed as usual)

Downtown Concord streetscape work, old courthouse renovation and 2 new apartment buildings being completed, another retail/residential building being renovated. Lots of work in downtown Concord. and my lunch at Benny's downtown.