Legacy Union (former Charlotte Observer redevelopment)

[KJHburg]

2 minutes ago, Blue_Devil said:

I thought they could only do two floors, but than I read like 8-10 from high wood. KJ and CLT Dev what do you know?

I will have to check.  what say you @CLT Development how many floors can be added on the wing next to the BOAT between it and the Deloitte tower??

[Reverie39]

Austin is surprising because its metro area is smaller than Charlotte and much smaller than Seattle and SF. I don't know how they're getting so many huge skyscrapers there.

I also heard from someone that there are very grand plans for public transit in that city including a full subway line. I'm bewildered at the thought of a city with 2.3 million metro residents doing all this. Perhaps Charlotte can learn from them.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Reverie39

[Temeteron]

1 hour ago, Reverie39 said:

Austin is surprising because its metro area is smaller than Charlotte and much smaller than Seattle and SF. I don't know how they're getting so many huge skyscrapers there.

I also heard from someone that there are very grand plans for public transit in that city including a full subway line. I'm bewildered at the thought of a city with 2.3 million metro residents doing all this. Perhaps Charlotte can learn from them.

I’m assuming it’s the thriving downtown and amazing weather.  It’ll be interesting to see how the next 10 years pan out there.  There have been a lot of natives complaining about crowdedness and traffic etc.  i hope they get to their transit soon. 

[JRCLT]

Charlotte, compared to its “peer” cities, is an anomaly since cities it’s size are more often than not the capital city or even relatively close to its capital city as compared to Charlotte. There are real perks to be a government center especially a state capital. Charlotte is at a disadvantage in that regard and is surprisingly doing almost just as well for itself if not better in some aspects.

[SydneycartonII]

17 hours ago, JeanClt said:

Charlotte, compared to its “peer” cities, is an anomaly since cities it’s size are more often than not the capital city or even relatively close to its capital city as compared to Charlotte. There are real perks to be a government center especially a state capital. Charlotte is at a disadvantage in that regard and is surprisingly doing almost just as well for itself if not better in some aspects.

Most state capitals are not the state’s main city.   Boston, Atlanta, Denver, Providence, and SLC are the exceptions to that rule.

 

Edited July 18, 2022 by SydneycartonII

[JRCLT]

Most state capitals are not the state’s main city.   Boston, Atlanta, Denver, Providence, and SLC are the exceptions to that rule.
 

That’s true, but not relevant to the point that Charlotte is compared to cities that are capitals despite Charlotte not being one and also dominating the state but not really. Charlotte is only large in population only due two it’s annexation and large size. It’s population being lower than Raleigh makes that evident. Raleigh has half Charlottes population and is half the size… no city really dominates in NC. Our population is spread out across many population centers. The largest concentrations being Wake and Meck.

[TheOneRJ]

3 hours ago, JeanClt said:

That’s true, but not relevant to the point that Charlotte is compared to cities that are capitals despite Charlotte not being one and also dominating the state but not really. Charlotte is only large in population only due two it’s annexation and large size. It’s population being lower than Raleigh makes that evident. Raleigh has half Charlottes population and is half the size… no city really dominates in NC. Our population is spread out across many population centers. The largest concentrations being Wake and Meck.

There isn’t really any way of knowing whether or not Raleigh’s population would be similar to Charlotte’s if it were the same size by area though. There are plenty of cities Charlotte’s size by area that are not Charlotte’s size by population.

Regardless, from an unbiased standpoint, Charlotte is definitely the dominant city in the state and really in all of the Carolinas from multiple perspectives.

[SydneycartonII]

5 hours ago, TheOneRJ said:

There isn’t really any way of knowing whether or not Raleigh’s population would be similar to Charlotte’s if it were the same size by area though. There are plenty of cities Charlotte’s size by area that are not Charlotte’s size by population.

Regardless, from an unbiased standpoint, Charlotte is definitely the dominant city in the state and really in all of the Carolinas from multiple perspectives.

I agree that Charlotte is the dominant city in the Carolinas.  (Having lived in Charlotte and the Triangle, Raleigh is a very sleepy city compared to Charlotte.)  In fact,  Charlotte is the dominant city between DC and Atlanta, and that’s a pretty big stretch.

My wife and I will retire when my youngest graduates from HS and will move back to Charlotte.

Edited July 18, 2022 by SydneycartonII

[JRCLT]

That’s true, but not relevant to the point that Charlotte is compared to cities that are capitals despite Charlotte not being one and also dominating the state but not really. Charlotte is only large in population only due two it’s annexation and large size. It’s population being lower than Raleigh makes that evident. Raleigh has half Charlottes population and is half the size… no city really dominates in NC. Our population is spread out across many population centers. The largest concentrations being Wake and Meck.

I was typing this pretty late… I meant the population density is greater than charlottes.

[Hushpuppy321]

17 minutes ago, JeanClt said:

I was typing this pretty late… I meant the population density is greater than charlottes.

True, May never overtake Raleighs Population Density (due to the size/square mile issue) - But at the rate Charlotte’s City Center is growing (4 to 5 Mile Radius around Uptown) it’ll be very impressively populated for a southern city by the 2029/2030 Timeframe.    
 

[Blue_Devil]

30 minutes ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

True, May never overtake Raleighs Population Density (due to the size/square mile issue) - But at the rate Charlotte’s City Center is growing (4 to 5 Mile Radius around Uptown) it’ll be very impressively populated for a southern city by the 2029/2030 Timeframe.    
 

You can already see how dense SouthEnd is becoming, and how dense it will be in 10 years. I think there will be 1500-2000 units added per year in SouthEnd for the foreseeable future. 

[Hushpuppy321]

4 minutes ago, Blue_Devil said:

You can already see how dense SouthEnd is becoming, and how dense it will be in 10 years. I think there will be 1500-2000 units added per year in SouthEnd for the foreseeable future. 

The Optimist Park/Villa Heights area has absolutely exploded with apartments as well.  They may add 300 to 400 apartments per year for the next few years too, until all the easily developed lots are built out.  Center City CLT could reach Denver level population (75k or more I believe) or more if the trends continue over the next 8 to 10 years.

The density is one thing that stood out to me about Charlotte after moving here from Wake County some years ago - the large volume of construction in a relatively small area is unmatched anywhere else in the State.  Wake is growing fast but is very dispersed throughout their Towns/Cities.   

[MarcoPolo]

Haven't been on in a while.....crazy busy.  Lot's of great news and discussions on the various threads, so it's been fun catching up!  

Density vs population, one of my nerdy pastimes, is a tricky undertaking when attempting to make comparisons between cities.    OneRJ's, JeanCLT's, and Hushpuppy321's thread is a great example.  Gentlemen, each of you are simultaneously right and wrong in your assessments.   Before I go on, I want to make clear, this is not a game of "my town is bigger/better than your town".   I know how sensitive the Charlotte  vs Raleigh beef is on here, lol!   Accurately determining the population of an area requires some MacGyver'ing of available data tools, because populations locate based on many factors, but the least sticky of these are the legacy, political boundaries that make up the map of our States, Counties, and municipal limits.  Not much detail can be gleaned regarding density dispersions relying on such boundaries.   Currently in the US, the best available tools are census tracts, zip codes, and Google Earth satellite imagery.   When you add the underlying Zoning, then you're "cooking-with-gas" so to speak.  A fun source of info that won't bog you down in the weeds, while still providing useful info for dinner party convo fun, is  www.freemaptools.com.   You can draw radii around any area and find out the underlying population.  It's a next step up from relying on city limits, and county lines.  Caveat, the sources of data can be a few years old, and if you do so for other countries, the methods used to collect the underlying data are not always reliable.  For the purposes of general discussions it, and several other similar websites, will suffice.  

Getting deeper into the issue than the websites go, I had to do a pretty in-depth analysis several years ago about density/pop/and market analysis, and was surprised by some of the results.   Back to Charlotte  vs Raleigh, or vice-verse depending on which is your preference, the populations using radii only show that for almost every increment of distance, the total population from downtown Charlotte outward is greater than similar circles drawn around downtown Raleigh.  This is also the case when you "weight average" the "nodal" center (geographic center of a population mass) for each.  Charlotte's is conveniently centered near downtown because its urban spatial form is centrodial, vs Raleigh's which skews westward because of the likes of Cary, Durham, and Chapel Hill.   About 110,000 more people live within 10 miles of downtown Charlotte than downtown Raleigh.   A quarter million or so more people live within 25mi of downtown Charlotte than downtown Raleigh.   Same is true at 50mi.   At 100 mi, which is mostly a comparison for fun, the population around Charlotte is 1.4  million more than Raleigh's, but only 600,000 less than Atlanta's.  

The real comparisons can be made when you factor in water bodies, and zoning.   For example, Charlotte's central core area, the 10 mile ring, includes large industrial areas, the airport, and large employment districts.  The result is that the population density within the predominantly residential urban fabric of Charlotte's is higher than that of Raleigh's, where many of these big footprint, non residential uses are located beyond the 10 mi ring.   The density difference isn't dramatic, but measurable, at 200 to 300 more people per square mile.   On the ground the character of a community is discernible at these numbers.  That's why Charlotte can "look and feel" bigger than Raleigh at times.   I know everyone is thinking....what about Atlanta?   The 10mi population from downtown Atlanta is 920,000.   Within this 10 mile ring there are large industrial areas, part of the airport, large commercial districts and therefore the residential population densities are much greater.    For comparison, the 10mi ring around downtown Charlotte is 570,000, and Raleigh's is 460,000.   That's why Atlanta feels so much "bigger".  

SydneyCartonII's comment about dominance is one that should be looked at in terms of yearly GDP to be comparable from a metrics standpoint because population is not enough of a measure for "dominance".   The latest estimates for US city GDP's bear out that Charlotte is indeed the dominant economic engine in NC, at $185 billion.  That's about the same size as all the other large cities in NC combined...including Raleigh's which stands at $85 billion.   Atlanta's, by the way, is over twice is large as Charlotte's.  

Have fun drawing circles!

 

[15895]

1 hour ago, MarcoPolo said:

Haven't been on in a while.....crazy busy.  Lot's of great news and discussions on the various threads, so it's been fun catching up!  

Density vs population, one of my nerdy pastimes, is a tricky undertaking when attempting to make comparisons between cities.    OneRJ's, JeanCLT's, and Hushpuppy321's thread is a great example.  Gentlemen, each of you are simultaneously right and wrong in your assessments.   Before I go on, I want to make clear, this is not a game of "my town is bigger/better than your town".   I know how sensitive the Charlotte  vs Raleigh beef is on here, lol!   Accurately determining the population of an area requires some MacGyver'ing of available data tools, because populations locate based on many factors, but the least sticky of these are the legacy, political boundaries that make up the map of our States, Counties, and municipal limits.  Not much detail can be gleaned regarding density dispersions relying on such boundaries.   Currently in the US, the best available tools are census tracts, zip codes, and Google Earth satellite imagery.   When you add the underlying Zoning, then you're "cooking-with-gas" so to speak.  A fun source of info that won't bog you down in the weeds, while still providing useful info for dinner party convo fun, is  www.freemaptools.com.   You can draw radii around any area and find out the underlying population.  It's a next step up from relying on city limits, and county lines.  Caveat, the sources of data can be a few years old, and if you do so for other countries, the methods used to collect the underlying data are not always reliable.  For the purposes of general discussions it, and several other similar websites, will suffice.  

Getting deeper into the issue than the websites go, I had to do a pretty in-depth analysis several years ago about density/pop/and market analysis, and was surprised by some of the results.   Back to Charlotte  vs Raleigh, or vice-verse depending on which is your preference, the populations using radii only show that for almost every increment of distance, the total population from downtown Charlotte outward is greater than similar circles drawn around downtown Raleigh.  This is also the case when you "weight average" the "nodal" center (geographic center of a population mass) for each.  Charlotte's is conveniently centered near downtown because its urban spatial form is centrodial, vs Raleigh's which skews westward because of the likes of Cary, Durham, and Chapel Hill.   About 110,000 more people live within 10 miles of downtown Charlotte than downtown Raleigh.   A quarter million or so more people live within 25mi of downtown Charlotte than downtown Raleigh.   Same is true at 50mi.   At 100 mi, which is mostly a comparison for fun, the population around Charlotte is 1.4  million more than Raleigh's, but only 600,000 less than Atlanta's.  

The real comparisons can be made when you factor in water bodies, and zoning.   For example, Charlotte's central core area, the 10 mile ring, includes large industrial areas, the airport, and large employment districts.  The result is that the population density within the predominantly residential urban fabric of Charlotte's is higher than that of Raleigh's, where many of these big footprint, non residential uses are located beyond the 10 mi ring.   The density difference isn't dramatic, but measurable, at 200 to 300 more people per square mile.   On the ground the character of a community is discernible at these numbers.  That's why Charlotte can "look and feel" bigger than Raleigh at times.   I know everyone is thinking....what about Atlanta?   The 10mi population from downtown Atlanta is 920,000.   Within this 10 mile ring there are large industrial areas, part of the airport, large commercial districts and therefore the residential population densities are much greater.    For comparison, the 10mi ring around downtown Charlotte is 570,000, and Raleigh's is 460,000.   That's why Atlanta feels so much "bigger".  

SydneyCartonII's comment about dominance is one that should be looked at in terms of yearly GDP to be comparable from a metrics standpoint because population is not enough of a measure for "dominance".   The latest estimates for US city GDP's bear out that Charlotte is indeed the dominant economic engine in NC, at $185 billion.  That's about the same size as all the other large cities in NC combined...including Raleigh's which stands at $85 billion.   Atlanta's, by the way, is over twice is large as Charlotte's.  

Have fun drawing circles!

 

 

Good analysis. Wouldn't it make more sense to compare the GDP of the Metropolitan areas (Charlotte relative to Raleigh & Durham's respective MSA's) though?. Charlotte doesn't feel more dominate as an economic engine than all the other large cities combined. 

 

[JRCLT]

There isn’t really any way of knowing whether or not Raleigh’s population would be similar to Charlotte’s if it were the same size by area though. There are plenty of cities Charlotte’s size by area that are not Charlotte’s size by population.
Regardless, from an unbiased standpoint, Charlotte is definitely the dominant city in the state and really in all of the Carolinas from multiple perspectives.

Dominating yes and no… you could say the triangle is just as influential and population between meck and wake are the same roughly. Charlotte is the largest and most populous city in the state. Perhaps what I mean is it isn’t as dominating in their state as say Denver, SLC, Seattle, phoenix, or Atlanta. Which unironically are capitals. As for the population I’ll give you an experiment rn I’ll spend some time researching and looking at if Charlottes size were roughly similar to Raleigh with where the current population lives.

I did a radius from uptown and shifted in different directions. The Area of the circles is equivalent to ~147 or the area of Raleigh with population ranging 320k-379k I wanted to do a more precise population count through neighborhoods borders… might do that another time when I have more time to invest. It’s clear though that Charlotte population is much more spread out. Southend and uptown are just more vertical and centralized.

[MarcoPolo]

Hi AirNostrum.  Yes, an MSA measure is much more comparative when assessing GDP.    I believe that is the only way the census currently measures this metric.   There may be other more elaborate methods.   The numbers I listed are for the metro's for each City.

[KJHburg]

meanwhile over at Legacy construction continues on the 4th office tower on the 2 block project.  Plus there is plenty of land for 2 more towers on the 2nd block  between  Church/Mint

Today.   Hey Lincoln Harris why not a hotel and apartment or condo tower joint venture with someone like a Four Seasons or another high end hotel group.

[SydneycartonII]

I like your idea, KJ.

[SydneycartonII]

22 hours ago, MarcoPolo said:

Haven't been on in a while.....crazy busy.  Lot's of great news and discussions on the various threads, so it's been fun catching up!  

Density vs population, one of my nerdy pastimes, is a tricky undertaking when attempting to make comparisons between cities.    OneRJ's, JeanCLT's, and Hushpuppy321's thread is a great example.  Gentlemen, each of you are simultaneously right and wrong in your assessments.   Before I go on, I want to make clear, this is not a game of "my town is bigger/better than your town".   I know how sensitive the Charlotte  vs Raleigh beef is on here, lol!   Accurately determining the population of an area requires some MacGyver'ing of available data tools, because populations locate based on many factors, but the least sticky of these are the legacy, political boundaries that make up the map of our States, Counties, and municipal limits.  Not much detail can be gleaned regarding density dispersions relying on such boundaries.   Currently in the US, the best available tools are census tracts, zip codes, and Google Earth satellite imagery.   When you add the underlying Zoning, then you're "cooking-with-gas" so to speak.  A fun source of info that won't bog you down in the weeds, while still providing useful info for dinner party convo fun, is  www.freemaptools.com.   You can draw radii around any area and find out the underlying population.  It's a next step up from relying on city limits, and county lines.  Caveat, the sources of data can be a few years old, and if you do so for other countries, the methods used to collect the underlying data are not always reliable.  For the purposes of general discussions it, and several other similar websites, will suffice.  

Getting deeper into the issue than the websites go, I had to do a pretty in-depth analysis several years ago about density/pop/and market analysis, and was surprised by some of the results.   Back to Charlotte  vs Raleigh, or vice-verse depending on which is your preference, the populations using radii only show that for almost every increment of distance, the total population from downtown Charlotte outward is greater than similar circles drawn around downtown Raleigh.  This is also the case when you "weight average" the "nodal" center (geographic center of a population mass) for each.  Charlotte's is conveniently centered near downtown because its urban spatial form is centrodial, vs Raleigh's which skews westward because of the likes of Cary, Durham, and Chapel Hill.   About 110,000 more people live within 10 miles of downtown Charlotte than downtown Raleigh.   A quarter million or so more people live within 25mi of downtown Charlotte than downtown Raleigh.   Same is true at 50mi.   At 100 mi, which is mostly a comparison for fun, the population around Charlotte is 1.4  million more than Raleigh's, but only 600,000 less than Atlanta's.  

The real comparisons can be made when you factor in water bodies, and zoning.   For example, Charlotte's central core area, the 10 mile ring, includes large industrial areas, the airport, and large employment districts.  The result is that the population density within the predominantly residential urban fabric of Charlotte's is higher than that of Raleigh's, where many of these big footprint, non residential uses are located beyond the 10 mi ring.   The density difference isn't dramatic, but measurable, at 200 to 300 more people per square mile.   On the ground the character of a community is discernible at these numbers.  That's why Charlotte can "look and feel" bigger than Raleigh at times.   I know everyone is thinking....what about Atlanta?   The 10mi population from downtown Atlanta is 920,000.   Within this 10 mile ring there are large industrial areas, part of the airport, large commercial districts and therefore the residential population densities are much greater.    For comparison, the 10mi ring around downtown Charlotte is 570,000, and Raleigh's is 460,000.   That's why Atlanta feels so much "bigger".  

SydneyCartonII's comment about dominance is one that should be looked at in terms of yearly GDP to be comparable from a metrics standpoint because population is not enough of a measure for "dominance".   The latest estimates for US city GDP's bear out that Charlotte is indeed the dominant economic engine in NC, at $185 billion.  That's about the same size as all the other large cities in NC combined...including Raleigh's which stands at $85 billion.   Atlanta's, by the way, is over twice is large as Charlotte's.  

Have fun drawing circles!

 

The most amazing city for GDP is NY.   Its GDP in 2020 was $1.5T.  No US city (Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, LA) remotely approaches its GDP per capita. If based on your statement, Atlanta’s is $200m, NY’s is eight times larger even though its metro population is only about 3.8 times bigger (5.5m versus 18.5m).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/183815/gdp-of-the-new-york-metro-area/

 

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by SydneycartonII

[J-Rob]

6 minutes ago, SydneycartonII said:

The most amazing city for GDP is NY.  

Fun fact: There is a section of Urban Planet dedicated to NYC -> https://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/forum/114-new-york-city/

It's not very active, but maybe if you post NYC content there you can get it going again.

Edited July 19, 2022 by J-Rob

[SydneycartonII]

2 hours ago, J-Rob said:

Fun fact: There is a section of Urban Planet dedicated to NYC -> https://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/forum/114-new-york-city/

It's not very active, but maybe if you post NYC content there you can get it going again.

Fun fact.  Someone else mentioned GDP in Atlanta and skyscrapers in Austin and Seattle.  I was responding to that.  If you’re insecure about NY, therapy might be an option.

Edited July 19, 2022 by SydneycartonII

[Reverie39]

This is great discussion. Thank you @MarcoPolo for introducing me to freemaptools... I have been searching for a population/area estimator like that for a long time. 

I'll add my thoughts: I think Charlotte is absolutely the dominant city of the Carolinas, economically and culturally. However the extent to which it dominates is less than the extent to which other cities dominate in similarly heavily-populated states. Atlanta is the driving force of Georgia and it's not close. Chicago for Illinois. Philadelphia for Pennsylvania. Boston for Massachusetts. Detroit for Michigan. Seattle for Washington. Whereas in NC we have a rather unique situation where we are high population and impactful economy but a little more spread out across three major metro areas (and three smaller ones). In that sense I think we can be compared more to Ohio, which is also highly populated but spread out a little between Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Similarly to Ohio, our state capital is fairly large but not the dominant city... though in the same tier.

[SydneycartonII]

37 minutes ago, Reverie39 said:

This is great discussion. Thank you @MarcoPolo for introducing me to freemaptools... I have been searching for a population/area estimator like that for a long time. 

I'll add my thoughts: I think Charlotte is absolutely the dominant city of the Carolinas, economically and culturally. However the extent to which it dominates is less than the extent to which other cities dominate in similarly heavily-populated states. Atlanta is the driving force of Georgia and it's not close. Chicago for Illinois. Philadelphia for Pennsylvania. Boston for Massachusetts. Detroit for Michigan. Seattle for Washington. Whereas in NC we have a rather unique situation where we are high population and impactful economy but a little more spread out across three major metro areas (and three smaller ones). In that sense I think we can be compared more to Ohio, which is also highly populated but spread out a little between Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Similarly to Ohio, our state capital is fairly large but not the dominant city... though in the same tier.

The comparison of NC to Ohio is a good one.  Texas also has a number of cities with relative parity.

[JorgiPorgi]

We should dedicate a thread to random urban discussions. 

[KJHburg]

and yes back to Legacy again  and they did drop the curtain on the new tower!

and when I was thinking of a  hotel condo combination another good one would a W and W Residences as it is owned by Marriott and with their other uptown properties could feed off each other and provide hotel service to some condos.  

https://www.connectcre.com/stories/lincoln-harris-drops-the-curtain-on-fourth-tower-in-charlottes-legacy-union/

Edited July 19, 2022 by KJHburg