CLT704

I'm surprised no one has posted this yet. First Hearst/Truist and now the Power Tower/Martini Glass... is nothing sacred?? https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2023/09/27/wells-fargo-duke-energy-tower-signs-bank-uptown.html Wells Fargo seeks city's OK to add signage at top of former Duke Energy tower in uptown Charlotte

https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2023/More-for-2024-American-Airlines-adds-new-routes-and-destinations-to-see-the-world-next-summer-NET-RTS-08/default.aspx Somewhat surprisingly, AA is launching DFW-BCN in S24 rather than resuming CLT-BCN, which is the only "pre-pandemic" Euro routes that AA has not resumed. IMO a very disappointing announcement for CLT. I wonder if terminal capacity is a factor, the limited number of wide bodies is definitely a factor. Here's hoping the 321XLR will help us get some new destinations, maybe BRU or LIS again or something new like Dusseldorf.

Awesome photos! I really like the artwork they've installed on Tryon, I don't know why but it definitely gives off electricity/power company vibes to me. I've noticed the past 2ish weeks that it appears some Duke employees have moved in? I've been seeing people dressed in office garb, i.e., definitely not construction workers, waltz in and out of a complete/furnished and security-staffed lobby. I knew it was structurally finished late last year with interior work going on into 23 but I've not seen/heard anyway that anyone has moved in yet.

Sort of off topic but Ally keeping the CFO here just goes to show that, for all intents and purposes, it is a Charlotte bank. I don't think Ally would ever officially move its headquarters from Detroit given the historical links to GM as GMAC, auto is still the significant portion of the business, and a lot of folk go back to the GMAC days but 1. Charlotte quietly got named the "corporate center" (a lot of press releases are just from Charlotte and not Detroit), 2. Charlotte is its largest employee hub, 3. practically every business line is represented in Charlotte with the exception of some servicing and collection activities (that are mostly in suburban Dallas, Little Rock and Jacksonville) while Detroit is concentrated with auto employees, and last but not least 4. the vast majority of executives are here with only 5 out of 16 not based in Charlotte. It is truly fascinating to see the growth from Ally, even in the last few years from a few hundred employees scattered across some dingy office parks to a major player. We owe a lot of that to Bank of America too, many employees and senior leadership went over to Ally from "the mothership" starting back when Alvaro de Molina went to GMAC.

It looks like the club will be a level above the boarding level and I thought, albeit it is not very clear on the diagram, they've marked off the sterile corridor from C to D so that plan to put INTL gates on C could still be a go.

Long-haul? No, that would be 2014, when we had 13 long-haul flights, 11 to Europe and 2 to Brazil. : US Airways: London-Heathrow; Manchester (discontinued after '14 summer season); Dublin; Paris; Brussels (discontinued after '14 summer season); Frankfurt (I'm pretty sure it was only once daily in 2014, I think it was last twice daily in 2013); Rome; Barcelona; Madrid; Lisbon (discontinued after '14 summer season); São Paulo (discontinued Oct 2014); Rio de Janeiro (discontinued Jan 2015). Lufthansa: Munich This summer, I think we have 10: London-Heathrow x3, Dublin, Paris, Frankfurt, Munich x2 (one AA, one Lufthansa), Rome, and Madrid. I would bet Barcelona comes back next year, especially as travel continues to recover (recession/inflation aside) with a focus on leisure. I would love to see Manchester and the Brazil flights come back but it can funnel what traffic it does have through other hubs (especially Miami) and has really lost its dominance in the Deep South America traffic it used to have, it really is a domestic-focused carrier. I do think CLT will benefit when the 321XLR are on property: probably allow seasonal service to go year-round (think Madrid or Paris, 777 in the summer and 321 in the winter) and maybe open up some new or resumed destinations (e.g., Lisbon or some secondary Germany like Dusseldorf or Cologne).

Anecdotally, from when I lived at 30Six NoDa, ACWR would typically run 3-4x trains a week, it definitely wasn't daily; the inbound would come through late evening and the outbound early in the morning (it took a long time to get use to the horn at 2 am). There was a looooooong train in the early-to-mid afternoon on a Friday quite often too. The most I saw was 2 return trips (so 4 total, 1 into the CLT rail yard and 1 from the CLT rail yard twice) in a day. There was also the odd shuttle run to reposition a locomotive. I miss the train actually, it was weirdly comforting.

I've noticed the slow down between 25th and Parkwood, drives me mad seeing cars go past faster - the only reason I see for a slow zone is some issue where the track splits and goes into the vehicle yard, as zone as you past that section of the track the train speeds up again for all of about 10 seconds before slowing down to stop at Parkwood. I really only ride the BLE between 36th St and Uptown, I am always pleasantly surprised at how fast the OG blue line goes in South End before it makes me mad that the BLE is a piece of sh*t.

Any word on a tenant? You'd be pretty crazy to build a 40+ floor spec office tower in this environment.

Absolutely unacceptable. What a joke!

I would just like decent headways again and trains that actually move fast, it is not acceptable for a trip from NoDa to South End to take in excess of 40 minutes when you have to wait for the next train. I just got back from Minneapolis and their system was 1000x better even though they have just 2 lines totaling just 21 miles (just 2 miles more than us): 8-10 mins between trains, drivers that know how to/are allowed to accelerate, doors that open quickly and short stops at stations (the latter two seem silly but it was noticeable).

^As much as I would love to see WF HQ'd here, their center of power has seemed to gravitate to NYC over recent years and I would expect Hudson Yards to be the HQ if WF ever left San Fran. CLT2014 posted something at the same time as me that sums it up exactly!

What's triste about this? The mill is being renovated rather than sitting unused

One thing I did not realize until I got up to the tower today is just how opaque the windows are, they really are like mirrors.

From the Biz Journal: CEO Kelly King on the next steps for Truist's rise to prominence in Charlotte https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2020/12/29/kelly-king-truist-financial-next-steps-for-2021.html?cx_testId=40&cx_testVariant=cx_23&cx_artPos=7#cxrecs What about the technology and innovation hub here? It’s underway. It’s under construction right down below me. ... I sent out a note to our construction/real estate guy to get an idea about when it’s expected to open. He won’t let me nail this down, so I’m going to say late summer, early fall. It’s going to be awesome. ... It’s going to be the talk of the industry. It’s two floors in this building. It’s on (an) iconic floor, which was the old original Bank of America trading floor. So much for building a new tower across the street.

2009 (or 2010 but I seem to remember it starting before Rio de Janeiro, which as Dec 09) on a 767-200, it regularly had to stop in Phoenix or Los Angeles to refuel. It only lasted one season before being canned.

I haven’t seen any photos on here of the ground level branding:

Have Truist already dialed back the light scheme? What about the strip of light down the building?

From Twitter: http://twitter.com/JBrooks02/status/1336081810296598531

Between this and the new lighting scheme, Duke is rubbing their hands togethers menacingly....

I was holding out criticism until I saw the signs but holy crap they f’ed up big time, what the hell is that MDF board crap?? Edit: was it just me or were you guys expecting just the letters/logo to be put up and not the logo on some board? And the placement/sizing of the signs is hideous.

Wachovia 2.0.... If a deal were to come about, I wonder where the HQ would end up.

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2020/09/18/market-share-annual-data-from-fdic-2020.html Wells Fargo is no longer the 2nd largest bank by market share in Charlotte, Truist overtook them. It also seems like Bank of America took quite a large hit, as I seem to remember BAC holding a 79% market share that is now 59%.

I’m satisfied with Ally because of the higher interest rates, I’ve earned more in interest this year than I ever earned on my Wachovia/Wells Fargo Way2Save. And you would love my building society (credit union) back in the UK! When I moved my savings to them (Nationwide) in 2019, they gave me a passbook! Like this one: In 2019!!

Out of shear curiosity KJHburg, why do you bank at 3 different institutions? I bank at only two, WF and Ally, and I'd much prefer to keep everything under one roof if I could.