Toni

I once read Richmond described as "America's most mid-sized city." Thought it was hilariously accurate.

Deleting my last post about Richmond BizSense--there was something wrong on my end where new stories wouldn't load.

I've lived in Charlotte. I've commuted on the Lynx (meh). It has 1/5000th of the character Richmond has. In terms of quality of life, I don't see how the two compare. The only thing Charlotte has going for it is that most young people there realize how boring it is (but have to live there for work) and are actively trying to change that.

I used to live in a neighborhood called "South End" in Charlotte, NC, which is about as far from Uptown Charlotte as Jefferson Park is from Downtown Richmond (like, 1 mile). This type of building was extremely common--cheap, 4-story woodframe construction with parking surrounded by walls. No store fronts; zero street presence. It had nothing to do with the safety/desirability of the neighborhood, it was just developers trying to build cheap and fast. The apartments in South End were still very expensive due to proximity to Uptown. But eventually, the (slight) majority of South End construction started to have street-level retail. And now, the neighborhood is getting 10-15 story steel constructions. Most of those are commercial, but a couple are residential, and it's interesting to see the progression of the neighborhood!

Remind me please which development this is?

Do you happen to know if this is 1225 South Church (the West building) of 425 Wilcox (the East building)? I lived in the East building last year, which was actually completed in 2012, and by mid-2016 (right after I moved in) they had to re-do the entire exterior, which meant blocking off all tenants' access to balconies, outdoor areas, and even blocking off all natural light with a tarp for a week or two per tenant. All that just FOUR YEARS after construction! I couldn't believe how shoddily built it was and, of course, never would have moved in if I knew it would be under reconstruction the whole time I was there.

Good question! Actually (kinda) the other way around. North Carolina, and Charlotte in particular, became a banking center in the early 20th century thanks to North Carolina state laws. North Carolina was at one time the only state in the country that legalized branch banking. Way back in the day, all banks were required to store all assets at one location--except in North Carolina. That meant money (and lending, etc.) could be based out of the cities (Winston Salem and Charlotte) but with branches out in the country to provide capital to farmers. That gave North Carolina a big leg up over the rest of the South in terms of letting banks grow, succeed, and expand. As the 20th Century went on, some highly ambitious Charlotte businesspeople made sure Charlotte (rather than Winston-Salem or Raleigh) became the banking center for the state. As consolidation of banks occurred in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, Charlotte just had the goods to stay or become the headquarters--certainly way more so than cities like Richmond. New York obviously competes as a banking center, but in the South, no place comes anywhere close to Charlotte. Now, when Wells Fargo and BoA want to add more jobs, they just pick up another block of Uptown Charlotte (that they already own/lease most of), rather than worry about spreading labor out up and down the East Coast. Last year I worked in a 30-story tower in Charlotte and 15 of those stories were the BoA IT department--and at that it probably barely cracked the top 5 in terms of Uptown buildings with most BoA employees.

And a very rudimentary drawing of what they might have in mind:

Times-Dispatch reporting that VCU has filed an application with the Commission on Architectural Review to demolish the existing building (old restaurant) at 501 West Broad Street and possibly put up a 13-story tower

Cool - let us know when this article comes out!

I live at 1225 South Church and can try to get pictures tonight or tomorrow morning. Anything in particular you're looking for a shot of?

I live in this building and I'd love to know what the deal is. This particular building (Phase II of 1225 South Church) was finished in 2012. They started this massive renovation project in October 2016 and it's still going on--so their original exterior lasted only 4 years. For over 8 months we haven't had full access to our parking lot/driveway. Any given apartment lost balcony access for about 3 months, and had construction noise for the same. I had no natural light in my apartment for 10 days since the exposed wood (and windows) were covered by a tarp. If I had known this was going to happen, I never would have moved in, but somehow it never occurred to me that a 4-year-old building would need such intensive work done. Must've been really crummy construction in the first place.

Interesting new infill development on Perry Street: New Private School Heads for Manchester 400+ students sounds like... not too small!

It's been quiet on here for about a month, which reflects the apparent lack of action on the camera. I was wondering if someone who knows more about construction sites could give an update. Ever since the taller crane has gone up, it mostly looks like they've just moved dirt around (not even dug deeper or anything). Does anyone have a sense of when we'll start to see vertical floors being added? Also why is there an enormous pit on the parking garage side of the lot but not the tower side? Please pardon my ignorance if these are really obvious questions--I really know almost nothing about construction.

Haha well to be honest I don't know if I can count as "from Charlotte." I'm a lifelong Virginian who just moved down to the Queen City for a one-year work gig, so I've been reading the Richmond page here frequently since I miss the city! Figured I'd sign up and comment since Charlotte came up in conversation. And I agree with the "corporate campus" description. But if I can say a good thing about Charlotte, it's that it's aware of that vibe and, for the most part, doesn't want to keep it up. Sure there's still growth in the sprawling suburbs just like how we have Innsbruck and Short Pump, but in the neighborhoods surrounding Uptown (the CBD), the city is doing a pretty good job with public transit and bike connectivity, and the people are slowly building up some local flavor with non-chain restaurants, breweries, etc. So overall I'd say Charlotte is moving in the right direction, and the super-fast growth in the urban core doesn't hurt--it will feel like more of a big city real soon.

Funny, I live in Charlotte and I would give anything for Richmond's connectivity and general city feel. Uptown Charlotte definitely has some great buildings, but it becomes the worst kind of sprawl with no real street grid once you go half a mile in any direction. Also, look at Uptown Charlotte from an aerial view, and you'll see that the tall buildings section is about 8 blocks long but only 2-3 blocks wide. It's pretty much just Tryon Street, so it makes a great skyline, but it still doesn't feel like a real city when you're walking around, which I think downtown Richmond does (not to mention that Richmond has old neighborhoods like the Fan, Jackson Ward, Oregon Hill, etc. just outside of downtown--leave downtown Charlotte and you mostly just get boxy, big, inelegant four-story wood-frame apartment complexes with zero charm). I too laughed a little bit when I read that CharlotteFive article. Yeah the Observer tower is a bit old-fashioned and not flashy at all, but at least it doesn't have a flat roof! But I also see how it won't fit in to Charlotte very well, and it's not obvious why putting the frontage of the building along the interstate while the street access will just be open fields, creating little urban landscape to speak of.