JHart

I really heard nothing but taking anecdotes and applying it at scale in a way to cast doubt about the positive impacts of EVs. Obviously if you assume purchasing an EV is an added car and not replacing another ICE you were going to purchase instead, assuming batteries are produced in China, assuming the mining practices previously used for lithium and other rare-earth metals aren't going to improve over time like every other part of the supply chain; then you can extrapolate it out to show a worse impact. Cradle to grave studies of EV/ICE show the added emissions bump from manufacturing batteries is offset by reduced driving emissions (even if you recharged an EV with electricity produced by 100% coal fired plants which is very rare even in rural areas) around 30,000 miles of driving. Are EVs the savior of the planet ? No, definitely not. Are they better than ICE? Absolutely. They are an easier scapegoat than our horrendous agricultural and development practices. And that is just on an emissions basis, the intangible health benefits are almost never talked about.

They don't actually want retail there, they were just forced to include street level retail space in order to build a massive standalone parking deck..

Gas taxes are also roughly 80/20 gas/diesel and almost all usage fees are paid by personal vehicles (commercial vehicles typically register out of state) even though almost all highway wear is due to commercial vehicles.

I think the north side is getting a little attention at least. The Plaza and Parkwood road diets have made a very noticeable difference in speed and I would even say improved traffic flow. If they just poured concrete bike lanes instead of planters and plastic barriers it would have been a home run. Matheson is next, still like 2 years, but it is going to be such an incredible difference. The N. Davidson and Jordan Place intersection should be the model for all intersections in the city and not just because of a XCLT trail running through. They extended the concrete pedestrian islands deep into the intersection to force drivers to slow and make sweeping turns and also to shorten the walking/biking distance to cross and it makes this intersection such a massive improvement.

I personally think that if we've overbuilt Uptown office buildings to the point that valuations and loans against these properties are so far off from reality that all of these buildings are no longer viable as office space at any price point, then there is no way the city government has enough money to fix the actual problem. I would probably have less objections for incentives to just build cheap housing on vacant lots in Uptown.

I think it needs to be income producing, we want to incentivize companies from tearing down historic properties, homeowners we just mandate they follow historic restoration guidelines through zoning There is additional value in historic facades, that's why if you look at a list of large office/residential conversion projects they are all in NY/DC/SF where land and construction costs are so high or they have a historic facade that provides additional value besides just square footage being used as office space.

They paid $35M for the building and they estimated the renovation at ~$210M from that article. My point is if the goal is to get residents in Uptown, they could take the same $250M and build more apartments for cheaper on a vacant lot. All residential conversions are super luxury because that is the only way to get the numbers to work, it is so much more expensive than building from scratch even under the most ideal conditions. It's just another grift like Levine. Why can't I get 50% of my higher tax revenues back if I renovate my house? If it improves the tax base the city still comes out ahead! (Not trying to be snarky, I just thought it would help illustrate the idea).

It's not a proof of concept of anything. The concept of developing (even converting) a residential building is already very established, it isn't happening in this case because it doesn't make financial sense to do so. Do you think the city should be paying Daniel Levine to start building on his land because he has sat on it for so long? If your answer is no, then it isn't any better to pick a different developer for public investment. MRP could take their same $250M and build a residential tower on any of our vacant lots across the city.

LMAO! I'm sure everyone loves the idea of our private monopolized utility selling a building at a discount well below market value and then using public funding (the source of which isn't even clear because tax incentive grants use tax increases not decreases) to help an out of state developer convert what is arguably the most desired development location in the city into apartments at a time with decreasing rents after the largest apartment boom this city has ever seen. It's really nice because we get to funnel money from the Charlotte taxpayers out to private investors in multiple different ways throughout the entire process!

Good ole Union County. Fighting 100 years of medical research and harming its residents in the name of personal freedom. It's a good thing they aren't self-sufficient and rely on other counties for most of their water or else this would cause more harm. https://www.wbtv.com/2024/02/19/union-county-leaders-vote-removing-fluoride-water-supply/

Here is a quote from the president of the Dilworth Community Association about the UDO, “I can say in the Dilworth historic district, I haven’t heard much fear over the elimination of single-family-only zoning. We have multiplexes on almost every corner.”

Downtown San Francisco is not 50% parking lots and construction costs are multiple times that of Charlotte, they just are not comparable. The numbers can work in NYC, SF, and DC because of how expensive new construction is or if a building has additional value like a historic façade. If you look at Dallas, there have been a few conversions of several floors of 40 story office towers, but they have always sat on top of newly renovated office space and lease at a premium compared to other apartments. There was still a developer renovating new class A commercial space and bringing in new tenants. Who is we? If developers can make the numbers work then by all means have at it, I keep having to repeat myself because of the calls for public investment. If the major concern is tax basis then there are plenty of other more equitable options for adjusting our tax codes that don't shift the burden from out of state speculative investors to Charlotte citizens.

How these office buildings are valued makes no difference in the conversion costs. It may make a difference to a potential investor, but when the conversion costs are already higher than it costs to build a new apartment building then there is no possible way to make the math work. $440/sqft plus the common area renovation costs plus whatever imaginary number you want to put on the existing building and land value.. Every single one of these proposals included recommendations for public grants in order to even make the concept appear real on paper. Do you not see how contradictory all of this nonsense is? If we have vacant office towers all over Uptown sitting worthless, then we are not a booming city.. Why would there be increased demand for people to live in high rise residential units if there is so much pull back in commercial activity in Uptown? How exactly would converting these properties make their tax values go up when residential lease rates are nowhere close to commercial?

Not saying anything is happening but they did hang new "Coming Soon" banners over the fencing that had the old delivery date on it

We are still building new commercial office space here in Charlotte, there is zero need for any incentives to be provided for poorly maintained commercial offices. That office didn't suddenly become unleaseable and lose 50% of its value overnight.. Those cities in the article do not have acres of vacant land ready for construction and have development costs that far exceed Charlotte's which make the math more compelling. How would the city paying incentives to convert an office building to residential make the tax revenues go up? People aren't paying $40/sqft for residential leases...