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...

You think it's a brilliant idea to try and use vacant office space as a new CMS medical and technology high school? There's so many reasons this is such a bad idea I'm not even sure how to begin listing them but right off the bat: the HVAC systems cannot handle the ventilation requirements for labs/medical equipment, the electrical infrastructure couldn't support the technology part of this magnet program, no outdoor areas or athletic facilities, no food preparation facilities, there's a tenant on the first floor and no dedicated lobby/elevator for security, and to top it all off this is still a privately owned building in the middle of bankruptcy litigation and we just passed bond funding to support construction of a purpose built magnet school so I'm not exactly sure why we don't think that will be enough money to build a new facility in the first place.. There is a lot more to a building besides the walls and a renovation to that extent would be much more expensive than building from scratch. I'm really not sure why people think these old office spaces can be repurposed into anything else in their current states.

One of the wildest takes I think I've ever seen on this website..

That was just the number thrown out in a fluff piece so we don't know if that's real but still, 8% consistently paid out quarterly just from the immediate cash flow of these properties is certainly not very low and they are also entitled to 40% of sales proceeds after the 20 year land restriction expires on an already underutilized plot of land in a growing city. Atrium, Truist, Honeywell, Lowes, PNC, etc. are more than happy to sign up for that, they had to turn people down after the last fundraising session and it's not because everyone is feeling altruistic towards housing all of a sudden.

As long as credit is rightfully given, the preservation and rent reduction is entirely funded by the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The "Housing Impact Fund" is a private equity fund that is still expecting to generate consistent 8% returns, even after renovations and "rent reductions" (subsidized). One of its founders, Erskine Bowles insists this is not philanthropy. “We are capitalists,” he says. “We believe in capitalism." Is this a better use of city's affordable housing bond than subsidizing apartments 15 at a time in new developments? Probably. But it still highlights how much money is being siphoned off of low-income renters and public funds and how much money it would take in public funding to solve the current affordability issues this way.

And that's unincorporated Union vs inside the city! That's what was so surprising to me, not trying to start a Union vs Meck debate but I've never looked at other county tax rates but I just assumed based on local rhetoric about Charlotte taxes that surrounding counties were drastically lower. If you went to Waxhaw and asked 100 people if someone in SouthPark or Waxhaw paid more in taxes I bet you would get 100 votes for SouthPark.

If your property value went up more than 34% since the last reassessment then yes, you'll see the exact same thing with Union County.. My point is can you imagine paying more taxes than living in the city of Charlotte and being told no when you want to hook up to the water/sewer because your well is full of arsenic or your septic is failing?

Wow! So high and they still don't know where to put their poop?! That means if you live in Wingate, Marshville, Waxhaw, Indian Trail, Stallings, or Lake Park you are paying higher taxes than if you live in the City of Charlotte. Mecklenburg haven't updated their brochure for 2024 rates yet but they publish an annual breakdown that shows where taxes are being spent: https://tax.mecknc.gov/tax-rates

The reason you're seeing so many articles and people posting about it is to slowly work the idea that this would benefit the city to get local funds to bailout commercial space in Uptown. So many of these office spaces have neglected maintenance projects that they can no longer renovate floor plans without addressing the core building systems at a much higher cost. You can only put lipstick on a pig so many times and in the current environment you can no longer offload these buildings so they are looking for public assistance. You're spot on there is so much available land to build residential development in every part of this city.

If you switch to runners in a big enough place like Heist you need to do online ordering instead of at the bar even if people think they hate it. Suffolk Punch has absolute nailed this, I can't believe other large places haven't copied it. Check IDs when you are seated, start your own tab on your phone and run beers and food out whenever you order them. I swear everything comes out in under 5 minutes and you can get a beer faster than walking up to the bar in a lot of breweries.

No, absolutely not. The last thing any funding should be going towards is supplementing commercial property owners who have been wringing the last few dollars out of an aging property and deferring maintenance instead of renovating and improving spaces to attract new tenants. The costs associated with an office/residential conversion are prohibitive outside of where vacant land alternatives are not available (DC/SF/NY), historic buildings with additional value in their history/façade, or the extremely rare stars aligning of floor plates and MEP systems to reduce the amount of rehab that is required. All of these example projects involve very high end residential offerings because that is the only option with how costly these projects are.