Cityplanner

Thanks- good to know that more retail is coming. I wonder if Belk at Phipps was ever a cash cow. People from other states would drive to Phipps to go to stores that don't exist in their hometowns. There's no reason to drive all the way to Atlanta to go to Belk. (Or Lifetime Fitness, for that matter.) I also wonder why Neiman Marcus didn't originally locate at Phipps. An anchor lineup of Saks, Neiman Marcus and at the time Lord & Taylor would have been exceptional.

I'm curious as to why Belk closed at Phipps Plaza and Simon replaced it with non-retail uses. Was the Belk underperforming, or did Simon just figure it could make more money by buying out Belk and building something else in its space? And why did Simon pick non-retail uses instead of replacing Belk with new upscale retail stores? I'd usually see a department store anchor transformed into non-retail uses because the mall failed. But that's clearly not the case with Phipps Plaza, unless I'm totally missing something.

That's way too many stations overall between Charlotte and Raleigh if the goal is to have a fast train, competitive with driving. Some of the smaller stations ought to be served only by some, but not all trains. There could be a mix of locals and expresses on that route, just like the Washington-Atlanta line had until the 1960s.

Having grown up in Greenville in the '70s and '80s, I never thought I'd see the day when Haywood would have occupancy issues and downtown would be packed. At least Haywood is owned by Simon, which is has more resources than CBL and some others, and thus has potential for a rebound.

Thanks for the info. I looked up the stores and restaurants that closed at Magnolia Park as listed above and it looks like those chains all just had problems. At least Haywood can find relief in that it’s not the only shopping center that has vacancies, I guess.

I thought that Magnolia Park was doing a lot of business; am I wrong? I haven’t gone there since Greenville Mall closed other than once in November when it took literally about an hour to get out of the parking lot and to I-85; it was packed.

I wonder if Magnolia Park or Greenridge would ever try to lure a bunch of stores over from Haywood, perhaps by building an expansion. I assume that Haywood’s current vacancies are just due to tenant issues that are unrelated to Haywood-or could Haywood’s sales per square foot be slipping due to downtown, Magnolia Park and Greenridge? Having a mall full of department stores and largely mid-tier mall chains isn’t the best strategy these days (compared to having off-price or high-end stores, which Haywood largely lacks).

What kind of business do people think downtown lacks, but needs? I’d like a Target and a department store. Ideally, a real higher-end department store that sells clothes and a range of pretty much everything else: imagine something like a Target but that has high-end clothes and a high-end range of day-to-day needs (does such a store exist anymore)? And maybe a Lowe’s?

Well, if Belk wants to be national, it needs to be in the Northeast. Buying JCPenney seems to be a poor move: the lower-middle tier is a tough place to be, but that doesn’t seem to be happening anyway. And opening a bunch of Belk stores in, say, Manhattan might not go over well. Surely L&T’s brand is worth something, if only on a regional level. I recall seeing that Lord & Taylor was ranked first in terms of customer loyalty among department stores, or something.

Definitely unfortunate to have a street-level vacancy downtown, but that's a prime location and if I recall right, before becoming the Carolina Ale House, it was a furniture store that had survived downtown's bleak days in the '80s. Isn't there a parking lot next to the building? I wonder if someone would come in and just buy the building and the parking lot and redevelop it.

This may be off-topic, but why doesn’t Sycamore (private equity firm that owns Belk) buy Lord & Taylor? Belk wants to expand nationally and apparently wanted to buy JCPenney. Lord & Taylor is shutting down. It has some really good real estate and a brand name that has value. Belk could get some good sites in the Northeast and could operate them like Belk stores, but with the L&T name on some of them. To me, Belk’s market segment is unclear: some stores are higher end and some are lower-end. It could clear this up by designating some of its higher-end stores as Lord & Taylor by Belk, or something.

For point 3, I am not saying that. I’m not a Democrat. I assume that it would be racist/sexist/classist/etc. of me to try to view things from a Democratic perspective.

If I understand correctly, the freedoms that people on the left want are: 1. Freedom of marriage (same-gender marriage) 2. Reproductive freedom (abortion rights) 3. Freedom from want (i.e., not having to worry about material things) 4. Freedom from offense (i.e., not having to hear racist and other offensive ideas) If I'm understanding correctly, I see why people would want those things, but the solution to me would be to just (1) lift restrictions on most activities so that everyone can do what s/he wants (within reason) and (2) work hard and make wise life choices that lead to sustainable financial outcomes.

Please stop calling things "dog whistle politics". Donald Trump is an overt racist. Period. He doesn't need to "dog whistle" to attract racist supporters to his racist views. So are some people on the left; do their constant bashing of "white males" and anti-Semitic statements indicate anything other than disdain for members of a specific demographic group? (Note: only some on the left are that way; I believe that an overwhelming majority of people on the left are well-meaning people who truly care about all.) So there's overt racism out there. Donald Trump is the most overt racist, but anti-Semitism (Ilhan Omar), bashing of "white males" and more are all bigotry. "Dog whistle" is a term that is applied by people on the left to deem any Republican policy that they don't like to be racist, as ridiculous as that description is. For example, when Donald Trump proposed requiring that Federal buildings be neo-Classical architecture ,that was considered a racist "dog whistle", to appeal to white people who were nostalgic for days of slavery (seriously). So if you see racism, call it out. But "dog whistle" is just a slur that is thrown at policies that Democrats dislike, so I ignore that slur.

Donald Trump is such a hateful human being who has done great damage to the US (and the planet generally). I was a rock-solid Republican for my entire life until he appeared. I'm certainly not voting for a Democrat, but I didn't vote for Trump and won't vote for Trump, or his enablers, ever. Hope I'm not the only one.

What went wrong with Citadel Mall? When I went there, maybe 15 years ago, it still had Parisian (always a sign of a nicer mall) and seemed like a regular mall otherwise. I don't recall seeing a high vacancy rate or anything that indicated a problem, although I've never been to Northwoods Mall to compare. Charleston seems like Greenville in that the nicer stores go downtown now.

The Libertarian party this year has a Presidential candidate who lives in Greenville (Jo Jorgensen) and a Vice-Presidential candidate who lives along the coast (Spike Cohen). I see some, but not much, coverage of these two candidates in local media. Surely they'd do better locally than elsewhere due to local ties, but (1) are they getting traction locally and (2) if not, why not? I voted for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld (both Libertarians then) in 2016 and Gary Johnson did better in his home state, New Mexico, than elsewhere. I did what I could for Bill Weld this year and believe he did better in his Northeastern home states than elsewhere, so despite elections being national, local ties do count for something. I'll avoid commenting on the Democratic and Republican candidates other than to say that I am not voting for them, but have nothing against some of them.

Thanks for sharing the great pictures. I’d welcome any info about retailers here, if any have been announced. Downtown really needs a high-traffic retail anchor. It would be great if the Apple Store would ditch Haywood but I know that’s unlikely.

Excluding the vacant Sears, has Haywood ever had this many vacancies? I remember that it took a few years to get fully leased; in the early '80s, there were plenty of vacancies, usually in the corridors leading to the exits, with walls covered with Cousins Properties logos. But that was when the mall was new and getting up to speed, and there were 3 other malls, so it's not really comparable to now.

European cities, particularly ones in Central Europe, fortunately still have block after block of gorgeous older buildings--particularly ones built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, typically before World War I. The styles have different names, such as "historicism" or "neo-Renaissance architecture", but the buildings have somewhat similar designs, with ornate exteriors, often with "rustication" (horizontal bands) and rectangular windows (taller than they are wide). Even a standard apartment or office building built in, say, 1895 can be gorgeous. Europeans built these buildings before, when they were much poorer than today, so cost can't be the issue (other than perhaps ongoing maintenance costs). And they've survived changing tastes and are still beautiful. Why aren't these buildings built today, at least in large numbers? Europeans used to--why not now?

Agreed; when I have seen 1950s/1960s office buildings re-covered in new exteriors, that’s done as part of a total renovation of the whole building. NYC has a lot of buildings of that era in Midtown and so many of them are now shiny and gleaming, and indistinguishable from new buildings except for their low heights and square shapes. I would expect total renovations to be necessary to remain Class A office space, so it’s a routine cost of doing business.

You are right. Thanks for pointing that out. All the more need to update the exterior to make it Class A office space.

I don't know enough about med schools or the medical profession to comment on a med school, but I would agree about a law school's benefits being low. I'd even say that a law school's overall effects would be negative, in that it would crank out new lawyers when there is already an oversupply, particularly for graduates of schools below the top 25 or so, so salaries would go down. But even if Yale opened a branch in Charlotte, I don't see the economic benefits. Lawyers go where the jobs are and the location of a law school isn't important (people fly around to job interviews); law schools and having a lot of lawyers in a place don't really create wealth or economic growth.

Sure, taste is subjective and so I can certainly respect other people's preferences. I just don't see any redeeming qualities in the BB&T building. Was it innovative for the 1970s? No. Is it inherently beautiful? No. Would I want to live in it? No. (I've lived in a converted office building, but it was neutral-to-attractive.) Not that I'm looking for more government control over anything--I'm certainly not--but new construction in downtown Greenville is overall pretty nice looking, in part because buildings are often consistent in their style (lots of brick, semi-traditional). I assume that the Design Review Board or whatever it's called gives input on new construction. Perhaps if major renovations to buildings required their exteriors to be renovated to better match the rest of downtown, that would help. The Bank of America building across from First Pres also needs some exterior upgrades, while I'm on my soapbox. But to each his (or her) own.

There are already way too many law schools in the US--and way too many mid-tier ones. If all law schools ranked below 100 in US News closed, and no new law schools opened, that would be a good starting point. Charlotte does not need a law school. Nor does anyone need a new law school.