nakers2

You're not gonna find a free spot during the workday, but I have never had any issues in the evening finding a free parking spot on the street, frankly I'd prefer it, even if I had money to blow.

I hate to be the parking Nazi here, since I commute by car myself, but in a decade I think people will look back and realize that Uptown has way to much parking. It's like every development needs their own on site parking. Since the parking will be 100% valet service anyway, why wouldn't they look into renting some space in a neighboring deck, like at the Carillion building or one of those ugly freestanding decks across the street on the back side? People want to complain about traffic, but when you make it easy for people to park right on the site their going to (think underground parking at Epicenter, or the BofA deck for Belk Theater) you create a lot of concentrated traffic in one area. Panther's game days are their own thing, but when the Hornets are playing or there's a big name concert I shouldn't see hundreds of empty spaces in those decks in the third ward.

I can answer that, it's because American drivers are stubborn when it comes to change, they don't always see the benefits of roundabouts. Less 'conflict points', less need to stop (IE, fuel savings), more free flowing than a four way stop, etc. A lot of people will recount the most negative experience they've had with something versus the most positive, like the other day when someone did not yield to me when I was already in a traffic circle. But I understand that overall traffic circles are much safer than four way intersections.

I think the relatively low number of rooms speaks to the amount of public space this project has. It truly is a part of the community, not just some hermetically sealed hotel for visitors and visitors only.

At 25 stories it's gonna stick out on that side of Tryon. I love projects that make efficient use of the land, IE the Springhill Suites

I work at the Metropolitan Target and everyone will flock to the third floor (level with the second floor Target) or the first floor for BJ's, the second and fourth floors are almost never full except during the absolute busiest days of the year.

I just want to say that one of the best zoo's I've been to, the Antwerp Zoo in Antwerp, Belgium is only 26 acres and comfortably displays 5000 animals from over 950 different species. They have over 1 million visitors per year, compared to the 1,300 acre NC zoo's 700,000 per year. And it's not just small animals, they have Elephants, Zebras, Tigers, Penguins, Giraffes, you name it. Eastland mall site could make a very good, and very walkable zoo. However a smaller site even closer to Uptown is not impossible.

It was eerie hearing the announcement over the system wide PA they use on the bus. They don't use it often. They didn't talk about an accident but I knew that they wouldn't close the blue line in the middle of a workday without a very good reason.

Just hammers home that a light rail isn't exactly "light". I remember going to a Panthers game and seeing people at the 485 station crossing the tracks in front of the approaching train like jaywalkers, complete with the holding their hands out in a "stop" motion and then "thanking" the train operator for not running their asses over.

Does anyone have any details on what might be done to the Discovery Place? It glossed over it in the article but I haven't seen much more detail. I love the Discovery Place and its location, but for a city our size it could and should be much larger, they have thousands of artifacts in storage, likely because they simply cannot be displayed in the space they have.

I'm a little late to the conversation here, but I want to give my two cents. I was actually in uptown at 6:30, the exact time of the shooting, I was in fourth ward, however. I have gone uptown for the CIAA the past three years despite being as white as Wonder Bread and having no particular taste for black culture (obligatory "I'm not a racist" disclaimer) It has always been fun, I have never has any issues with anyone for being white or 'different', never felt threatened by anyone's activities, in fact I would have to say from a personal safety standpoint I felt less safe at Speed Street than CIAA weekend. I think that speaks a lot to the general demographic that each event attracts. Yes this was a big shootout, but what percentage of all attendees were involved? Versus at Speed Street where I may not be as concerned about a shootout, but have to essentially watch my back to make sure my girlfriend isn't being accosted by some drunk redneck, or shouted at by some "you're all sinners" preacher. I think the overall crowd at the CIAA is well behaved and polite, but a few groups of gangsters and troublemakers can quickly turn things on their head. At least the last two years, I'm not sure about the years before that, the violence has been directed toward performers, specifically rappers. I think it might be beneficial for the CMPD to provide some form of police escort and guard for individuals known to have targets on their heads. Anyone with access to google could have found out Young Dolph had a beef with a number of people.

This goes back to what I was saying about CATS and their seeming lack to PR common sense. I went to an information meeting at UNCC and the people they had there knew very little outside of the powerpoint. Not to mention they said the line would be open on time, no doubt, and this was only like two months ago. Its like they manage to find the best possible way to piss people off. IE the "CityLynx Gold Line is running every 30 minutes, sorry for the inconvenience" tweets.

I just can't get past the 7 month delay, I mean I know it's not a small feat, but how messed up and complex are the electronics that it takes 7 months past sechedule to complete? (along with testing and stuff too of course) CATS could really use a crash course in customer service and public relations. After months of hearing veiled hints at an on time or even early opening they drop this bombshell, it's not like they didn't know before that there at least "might" be some delays which they could have passed along to the public. That could've either softened the blow or if they ended up opening on time it would have been a pleasant surprise. My guess would be that 7 months is the absolute max, and that to cover their proverbial asses CATS has high balled the completion date. I predict operations by winter 2017-2018, any longer than that and I suspect CATS hasn't been entirely forthcoming.

Maybe its just my lack of knowledge on the engineering element of this project, but it would seem to me that the connections and utilities would have been planned out and blueprinted well before the project even broke ground, if not shortly after. The only reason I can see for HALF YEAR delay is that they dropped the ball on the electrical engineering aspect of this project and are rushing to play catch-up.

I wonder how feasible it would be to use that saved money to hire more workers or to possibly expedite work (24/7 construction) I personally would rather be on, even slightly over budget but finished on time than be months late and under budget. A lot of students are making their housing choices next year with the assumption that they won't need to buy parking passes for campus, not to mention eager commuters.

I was wondering how quick something would be posted. I am genuinely shocked, every indication was that there would be an on time opening. Even at their information meeting they hinted that they may be opening early. (I even just had a dream that they'd open on the 10th of August, how crazy is that?) March of 2018 seems almost ridiculous to me, I got my information via the Observer and I hope maybe there was a communication issue. My understanding is that March 2018 is the absolute maximum before they incur penalties from the Feds, but I find it hard to believe they are 7 months in the hole without having any prior announcements about it. If so this could possibly be chalked up as one of CATS' biggest blunders and might be a huge black eye to the 6 billion dollar proposal for a major system buildout.

It looks like a giant version of an off highway hotel, but it could be worse, at least it's not Charlotte Beige. I do agree about the detailing, they could've gone with a bit higher quality work in that regard, but I personally wouldn't call it ugly, but once again, to each their own. I wonder if this was designed specifically for Southpark or if its a template design that's been used before in other areas. I would definitely be more disappointed if it was custom designed versus "cookie cutter."

Are we looking at the same building? Sure it's not the most incredible building but it's not ugly, it's just a more conservative design that fits the area well. Build up some more density and it fits right in. But I guess to each their own.

I'm curious how MUCH parking will be included, the reason for my curiosity is the backlash toward the Home2 hotel on Rea Road that would have included less parking spaces than rooms, since this is SouthEnd and a relatively short cab/uber ride from the airport and uptown, I think it would be wise to keep parking on the surface and only the surface.

I agree with everyone's points here, but in regards to the skyline growth, a category in which Charlotte is the winner by far, I'm talking more about the streetscape, I didn't spend much time looking up in Raleigh, and that's okay. I also do like the fact Charlotte has more neighborhoods outside of Uptown, but in this case I was talking specifically about the city center.

I think this would be relevant to post here: I visited downtown Raleigh yesterday after attending an auto show nearby and I was very pleasantly surprised. (I visit Raleigh often actually, but admit I have not spent much time downtown) The overall retail and restaurant scene was very, what I'd call organic, compared to Charlotte. You could tell that some of these restaurants had been there for years, show me a restaurant in Uptown that's been there since 1930, I can't think of one. Many of their historic buildings were also still standing, especially along Fayetteville Street, their version of Tryon, except with wide and consistent sidewalks, and room for parking and bike lanes. The restaurant we ate in was one of two inside a former Piggly Wiggly grocery store, and their transit center in built into the bottom floor of a parking garage, not freestanding like the CTC. There were convenience stores and even, a small locally owned grocery store that you could tell had been there for a long time. I noted a Subway that was still open despite being late, providing more affordable eats than just high end restaurants and bars. And keep in mind all of these observations were taken within the span of a few blocks, not the entirety of downtown. I know some people on here are rather familiar with Raleigh and this is no news to them, but Charlotte could really take a page out of Raleigh's book, I know we cannot rebuild what we tore down, but the good spread of restaurants and shops, compared to Charlotte's clusters (think Epicenter) were really nice and allowed for a more enjoyable walk. I also felt like the blocks were smaller in Raleigh, or at least the streetscape made it seem that way. I'm not really trying to make any specific point with this post, but overall quite frankly I feel a bit jealous and wonder what massive center city we could have if Charlotte had not been so quick with the wrecking ball.

The stupid podium parking deck is what annoys me the most. It looks excessive, and probably is, along with the fact it's not proportionate to the building whatsoever.

I've heard from a variety of sources that it will be right around the start of the Fall Semester at UNCC. I think at this point they're cautious of setting an exact date to avoid chaos if it does get delayed for some reason, but from what I hear they're well ahead of schedule. I think CATS would be very wise to start running ASAP instead of sitting on a perfectly operational line for more than a week or so. Don't rush of course, but they are set to start testing (running empty trains) as early as the start of summer, so I don't see why they couldn't begin operations as soon as this testing and training is over, especially since Charlotte isn't new to light rail. I'd say the earlier you open the better the public image as well, showing that CATS can do something efficiently and on time will no doubt garner more support for the Red Line (it's inevitable, just when is the question) Silver Line, and maybe the Gold Line.

I commented the same thing on the Charlotte observer story earlier, I would like to think that's the case, future expansion, but something tells me that if another developer is in charge of what comes next, more parking will follow, that's my general observation, every developer wants their own parking garage, no sharing, and God forbid the executives have to walk across the street!

So 80's lol