BankTown Banking & Finance News

[RANYC]

32 minutes ago, SydneycartonII said:

It’s ridiculous that Goldman might build in Dallas.  They should focus on the QC.  They already have a big operation in SLC, which they should move here too.  Charlotte has a much better QoL than Dallas or SLC.

 

 

 

I recognize we're all Charlotte promoters as a side or shadow hustle, but out of curiosity, why do you believe Charlotte has a much better quality of life than Dallas or Salt Lake City?

Edited June 10, 2022 by RANYC

[KJHburg]

5 minutes ago, RANYC said:

I recognize we're all Charlotte promoters as a side or shadow hustle, but out of curiosity, why do you believe Charlotte has a much better quality of life than Dallas or Salt Lake City?

I love Charlotte's location close to the mountains but without excessive snowfall and close to the ocean beaches.   SLC has a wonderful base of mountain location but way too far from the ocean for me.  Likewise Dallas is far from the ocean and mountains and at the 4th biggest metro in the country is just too big for me.   Dallas has longer summers than we do and their propensity for ice storms and tornadic weather is higher.   Charlotte is like goldilocks not too big not too small .  Cost of living is similar in Dallas and Charlotte but housing is higher in SLC.  SLC has less crime than Charlotte.   And yes as a Charlotte native I am biased but I could live anywhere I want to and have lived or worked in 6 states. 

[CLT2014]

1 hour ago, SydneycartonII said:

It’s ridiculous that Goldman might build in Dallas.  They should focus on the QC.  They already have a big operation in SLC, which they should move here too.  Charlotte has a much better QoL than Dallas or SLC.

North Texas is already a major employment hub for Goldman. They have around 4,000 employees in the region. This is largely an office consolidation for them in North Texas to a new tower versus their older tower and suburban office locations. They'll also have room for expansion as they try to focus on hiring back office ops in lower cost of living cities. 

[Matthew.Brendan]

1 hour ago, SydneycartonII said:

 

80 floors would pretty easily be 1000’+ and give Dallas a new tallest. 

[RANYC]

51 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

I love Charlotte's location close to the mountains but without excessive snowfall and close to the ocean beaches.   SLC has a wonderful base of mountain location but way too far from the ocean for me.  Likewise Dallas is far from the ocean and mountains and at the 4th biggest metro in the country is just too big for me.   Dallas has longer summers than we do and their propensity for ice storms and tornadic weather is higher.   Charlotte is like goldilocks not too big not too small .  Cost of living is similar in Dallas and Charlotte but housing is higher in SLC.  SLC has less crime than Charlotte.   And yes as a Charlotte native I am biased but I could live anywhere I want to and have lived or worked in 6 states. 

Well, yes, I was looking for an objective assessment.

I like Charlotte too.

But objectively, who has a better public school system - Dallas region or Charlotte region or are they about the same?  That tends to be a staple in QOL rankings.  Dallas does have an average teacher salary that's considerably higher than in Charlotte, and given housing costs are similar, that's probably meaningful.

Yes, it takes about an hour more to get to the beach from Dallas than from Charlotte, but negligible IMO.

Yes, Dallas summers are longer and probably more extreme.  Will give you that.  Also, Charlotte is greener, which might count for something in some quarters.

Dallas appears to have a much higher murder/violent crime rate than the city of Charlotte.

 

 

[KJHburg]

28 minutes ago, RANYC said:

Well, yes, I was looking for an objective assessment.

I like Charlotte too.

But objectively, who has a better public school system - Dallas region or Charlotte region or are they about the same?  That tends to be a staple in QOL rankings.  Dallas does have an average teacher salary that's considerably higher than in Charlotte, and given housing costs are similar, that's probably meaningful.

Yes, it takes about an hour more to get to the beach from Dallas than from Charlotte, but negligible IMO.

Yes, Dallas summers are longer and probably more extreme.  Will give you that.  Also, Charlotte is greener, which might count for something in some quarters.

Dallas appears to have a much higher murder/violent crime rate than the city of Charlotte.

 

 

Okay schools Dallas  and all of Texas has ISD independent school districts.  Some are quite small some very large.  Frisco ISD north Dallas suburb excellent.  dittos for Plano ISD or Highland Park ISD.   others in the metro area not so.  Honestly I would say this is a wash.  we have county wide school systems here with a few city districts like Kannapolis city and Mooresville city.  Dallas county has at least 10 school districts.  Collin County north of Dallas county has at least 14 school districts.  Some are excellent some not so.  When you chop up areas like this there tends to be similarity in demographics.  I went to the Northside ISD in San Antonio which is good but now there are much better ones in that metro.    Best school districts in the metroplex https://www.hdavidballinger.com/best-schools-dallas-campus.php   Many have 4-5 elementary schools feeding into 2 middle schools and 1 high school etc. 

 

Housing prices are similar but property taxes are double what they are in Charlotte area.  Of course they have no income tax in the state and property taxes are reassessed every year in Texas so your tax bill is going up and sometimes down every year.  Austin by the way has the highest property taxes in the state.  

hmm I love Texas but their beaches do not hold a candle to any beach in the Carolinas.  When texans head to the FL Panhandle something is up.  A few are nice but overall the Carolinas are far superior in this regard.   Transit Dallas has us beat not just because it is bigger but DART is a huge system than reaches lots of their huge metro area.  

[DonkeyKong]

3 hours ago, Matthew.Brendan said:

80 floors would pretty easily be 1000’+ and give Dallas a new tallest. 

I’m sure zero state income tax is appealing to Goldman execs. 

[JRCLT]

0 offices in Charlotte but three in Dallas. It makes sense?

[Blue_Devil]

1 hour ago, JeanClt said:

0 offices in Charlotte but three in Dallas. It makes sense?

I mean if it is a office consolidation… yes?

[15895]

13 hours ago, RANYC said:

Well, yes, I was looking for an objective assessment.

I like Charlotte too.

But objectively, who has a better public school system - Dallas region or Charlotte region or are they about the same?  That tends to be a staple in QOL rankings.  Dallas does have an average teacher salary that's considerably higher than in Charlotte, and given housing costs are similar, that's probably meaningful.

Yes, it takes about an hour more to get to the beach from Dallas than from Charlotte, but negligible IMO.

Yes, Dallas summers are longer and probably more extreme.  Will give you that.  Also, Charlotte is greener, which might count for something in some quarters.

Dallas appears to have a much higher murder/violent crime rate than the city of Charlotte.

 

 

Charlotte likely doesn’t have a better QOL that likely matters in the real world. If anything, seems like Dallas attracts more people than Charlotte. But I’d think they are virtually tied with the caveat Charlotte has advantages of being smaller and Dallas has advantages of being larger and the disadvantages of being smaller and larger respectively. 

In any event. Good luck with objective assessments. That’s no fun at all. But you can see on the previous page how it was mentioned there is a difference between Charlotte being a banking hub and how that is determined versus being a financial hub and how it’s probably generally less than 10th largest in most measures . I think that along with Dallas being such a large economy, & Texas’s favorable business climate, making it clear to see why it’s not egregious Goldman would anchor an 80-floor tower in a metro of 7.6 million people versus Charlotte. 
 

The tallest building in Atlanta is Bank of America Plaza at 55 floors (1000 ft.+ tall) 

The tallest building in Dallas TX is Bank of America  Plaza at 80 floors. 

The two tallest buildings in Houston is JP Morgan chase (75 floors) and Wells Fargo (71 floors).

Those are likely different than the type of jobs hosted at a lot of the bank towers in Charlotte. I think they moved a lot of financial related jobs in Charlotte for BofA to Legacy Union. I think 1 BofA was related to retail banking operations, Odell/Gateway was Tech, a huge chunk of corporate was tech, I think Hearst had financial related stuff.  But the tallest bank towers in most US cities (where they aren’t headquartered) tend to be strictly financial & customer facing. 
 

Maybe someone can speak better on that or correct the record if I am off my rocker.

Edited June 11, 2022 by AirNostrumMAD

[RANYC]

29 minutes ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

In any event. Good luck with objective assessments. That’s no fun at all.

Was asking the question to those who might find it fun/interesting.  Objective assessment might comprise a collection of data points on Charlotte's advantages that one might pitch to corporate site consultants.  Features and amenities that would have broad appeal to inform strategic placement decisions.  I get why GS moving and consolidating operations in Dallas.  I think Dallas is a strong draw - lots of wealth, strong corporate base but also a decent "gig" economy, no state income tax although state's expenditures per person are about same as in NC so they're getting it from somewhere, but I think no state income tax can be powerful psychologically, and location in center of the country.  SydneyCarlton made a statement questioning the GS move and that Charlotte has a much better QOL.  Just curious how that assertion might be framed for other corporate decision-makers weighing Dallas versus Charlotte. 

Edited June 11, 2022 by RANYC

[Desert Power]

On 6/8/2022 at 9:58 PM, atlrvr said:

Here's the metrics I'd measure.  City rank for each of the following:

Banking (Spread Lending) Activity

Assets of bank HQ in the city

Local deposits

Fintech

Number of Fintech unicorns founded in the metro

Just some comments about these two metrics. One area that Charlotte certainly punches well above it's weight is in the corporate functions that go into this banking activity. Treasury, Risk, Finance, and a host of other type of Line of Business functions have just such an outsized presence here. A lot of that is due to the sheer size of BofA/Wells in the city, but it seems other firms also like to hire for those jobs in Charlotte,

We're pretty bad at fintech though. I know part of that is due to the type of tech jobs these banks have here are just really outdated, but it feels like we should have more activity in this space than we do.

[SydneycartonII]

1 hour ago, Desert Power said:

Just some comments about these two metrics. One area that Charlotte certainly punches well above it's weight is in the corporate functions that go into this banking activity. Treasury, Risk, Finance, and a host of other type of Line of Business functions have just such an outsized presence here. A lot of that is due to the sheer size of BofA/Wells in the city, but it seems other firms also like to hire for those jobs in Charlotte,

We're pretty bad at fintech though. I know part of that is due to the type of tech jobs these banks have here are just really outdated, but it feels like we should have more activity in this space than we do.

Fintech is critical.  Due to its relationship with finance, NYC is a fintech powerhouse, and Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc anchor about ten million of office space just between the three of them.  Hopefully, Charlotte can leverage some of that too.  Amazon is also the rumored tenant to anchor a new 1,250’ tower that will rise across the street from MSG.  I’d like to see something like that in Charlotte, and since Charlotte is a banking powerhouse, the foundation is in place for this to happen.

Edited June 11, 2022 by SydneycartonII

[Rufus]

2 hours ago, SydneycartonII said:

I’d like to see something like that in Charlotte, and since Charlotte is a banking powerhouse, the foundation is in place for this to happen.

Maybe it's just me, but Charlotte is a banking powerhouse, yes, but not one that would warrant a 1,250ft tower. Just a few pages back there was a discussion on financial centers vs. banking centers, and it's pretty apt to understand that just because Charlotte is home to 2 of the largest banks in the country, and numerous offices of other major banks, doesn't mean this is where the big wigs are working. The vanity towers of banks won't find its way down here anymore, and I am ok with that. Looking at JP Morgan's new tower rising, it's very apparent, to me at least, that Charlotte's time for such a project has passed. 

I don't want this taken the wrong way, but I have always thought of Charlotte as being the "behind-the-scenes" banking city. It's where the sausage gets made, but probably not sold...if that makes sense. 

[Blue_Devil]

3 hours ago, Rufus said:

Maybe it's just me, but Charlotte is a banking powerhouse, yes, but not one that would warrant a 1,250ft tower. Just a few pages back there was a discussion on financial centers vs. banking centers, and it's pretty apt to understand that just because Charlotte is home to 2 of the largest banks in the country, and numerous offices of other major banks, doesn't mean this is where the big wigs are working. The vanity towers of banks won't find its way down here anymore, and I am ok with that. Looking at JP Morgan's new tower rising, it's very apparent, to me at least, that Charlotte's time for such a project has passed. 

I don't want this taken the wrong way, but I have always thought of Charlotte as being the "behind-the-scenes" banking city. It's where the sausage gets made, but probably not sold...if that makes sense. 

As more apartments are built in Uptown, (and they are coming) the only way to build will be upward. I suspect we will see a few 700+ towers once the economy stabilizes and a lot of the uptown land is filled with apartment towers.

[RANYC]

7 hours ago, SydneycartonII said:

Fintech is critical.  Due to its relationship with finance, NYC is a fintech powerhouse, and Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc anchor about ten million of office space just between the three of them.  Hopefully, Charlotte can leverage some of that too.  Amazon is also the rumored tenant to anchor a new 1,250’ tower that will rise across the street from MSG.  I’d like to see something like that in Charlotte, and since Charlotte is a banking powerhouse, the foundation is in place for this to happen.

Perhaps this falls under "fintech" as well, but I wish there was more buzz in Charlotte about digital assets, crypto, tokenization, smart contracts, web 3.0, whatever you wish to call it.  

I recall reading that Honeywell is in some partnership with JPMorgan to run a bunch of finance-related use cases involve quantum computing.  Not sure whether the honeywell side of that partnership is here in Charlotte or elsewhere, but I think quantum computing will eventually be the future of finance, and if various aspects of its development & evolution could be centered here, that would be awesome for Charlotte.

Seems like our city government doesn't appear to do much to champion the smartest and most innovative things happening in industry here. They only hit up our titans for contributions to equity programs or special corridors.  I guess it's not bad to always be talking about affordable housing, but I'd like to celebrate innovation and ingenuity here as well in the hopes that it draws more smart and innovative transplants.

Edited June 11, 2022 by RANYC

[kermit]

25 minutes ago, RANYC said:

Seems like our city government doesn't appear to do much to champion the smartest and most innovative things happening in industry here. They only hit up our titans for contributions to equity programs or special corridors.  I guess it's not bad to always be talking about affordable housing, but I'd like to celebrate innovation and ingenuity here as well in the hopes that it draws more smart and innovative transplants.

I see that too. IMO that is partially a product of our banking legacy — we spent 100 years cultivating an industry where stability, safety and fiscal conservatism is the dominant corporate culture. Risk taking is almost antithetical to banking so its not surprising local institutions and policy makers are also reluctant to embrace it.

Risk avoidance is also a characteristic of Southern culture. Many of the VCs operating in RTP saw Southern culture (along with the academic culture of RTP) as a huge obstacle to impressive ROIs in NC investments. “Its hard to hit a homerun in RTP” they would say. (Disclaimer this was 15 years ago)

Edited June 11, 2022 by kermit

[15895]

4 hours ago, Blue_Devil said:

As more apartments are built in Uptown, (and they are coming) the only way to build will be upward. I suspect we will see a few 700+ towers once the economy stabilizes and a lot of the uptown land is filled with apartment towers.

I’d love to see a lot of mid & low rise specifically catering to affordable and low income housing in uptown. Seems like there is a huge lack for the working class charlottean and Charlotte families to live in the urban core. 

[KJHburg]

9 hours ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

I’d love to see a lot of mid & low rise specifically catering to affordable and low income housing in uptown. Seems like there is a huge lack for the working class charlottean and Charlotte families to live in the urban core. 

your wish is going to happen as the 10 story Hall House historic hotel is being demolished for a low rise affordable housing project.  

[RANYC]

3 hours ago, KJHburg said:

your wish is going to happen as the 10 story Hall House historic hotel is being demolished for a low rise affordable housing project.  

Just ran by Hall House this morning.  Are we absolutely, positively sure the final plan is to actually demolish the 10/12-story brick structure that's there?  I know it was talked about a while ago, but seems there have been no recent, detailed announcements from Inlivian about the plans for the site.  Would be such a travesty to see that majestic bldg reduced to rubble.

[Guest]

I’m honestly still stunned by this. How is it that the number one complaint I hear about Charlotte is it’s perceived lack of history, yet there seems to be no real market for media coverage on a 100-year-old, at least somewhat nice looking hotel being demolished for a shorter less durable structure? Is the media afraid to touch it due to the affordable housing element?

Edited June 12, 2022 by Guest

[TCLT]

5 hours ago, KJHburg said:

your wish is going to happen as the 10 story Hall House historic hotel is being demolished for a low rise affordable housing project.  

I feel like people are conflating old with historic. This building has no real significance.

 

1 hour ago, MothBeast said:

yet there seems to be no real market for media coverage on a 100-year-old, at least somewhat nice looking hotel being demolished for a shorter less durable structure? Is the media afraid to touch it due to the affordable housing element?

This is an unoccupied and currently unusable building of no historic significance and questionable architectural significance that's already publicly owned in an underdeveloped and undesirable part of a city with a desperate shortage of affordable housing in the urban core. And the pitch for saving the building is to turn it into a boutique hotel for wealthy tourists. The "shorter less durable structure" will add hundreds of residences to an area that really needs it and provide more affordable housing units with exceptional access to transit and job opportunities. How is anyone surprised that there's no critical mass of public support to save this building?

[Guest]

Because people in this thread have been able to do the math on how you can save the building and build even more affordable housing than is planned, with multiple developers expressing interest apparently, which means Inlivian and the city certainly have to and yet came to this, in my opinion, misguided and perplexing decision.

[KJHburg]

2 hours ago, RANYC said:

Just ran by Hall House this morning.  Are we absolutely, positively sure the final plan is to actually demolish the 10/12-story brick structure that's there?  I know it was talked about a while ago, but seems there have been no recent, detailed announcements from Inlivian about the plans for the site.  Would be such a travesty to see that majestic bldg reduced to rubble.

absolutely positively they will demo it for their stick built structure.  they filed permits from what I understand. 

35 minutes ago, TCLT said:

I feel like people are conflating old with historic. This building has no real significance.

 

 

it is an all brick hotel built in 1940 making it 62 years old.  How many all brick buildings uptown have you seen built in the last 30-40 years?   This building could have been sold or leased to a developer to renovate and affordable housing built.  It was NOT an either OR situation.  All of the Chantilly neighborhood should be bulldozed too then as it was built in the 1940s and we can replace that with stick built midrise apartment housing.  

http://landmarkscommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Barringer-Hotel-SR.pdf

[TCLT]

30 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

This building could have been sold or leased to a developer to renovate and affordable housing built.  It was NOT an either OR situation.

I don't remember seeing anyone suggest this building could be renovated for affordable housing. In fact I'm pretty sure CLTDevelopment said it couldn't be because of the ceiling heights. Also any developer willing to pay top dollar for the land would've wanted to bulldoze the building anyway so the city would've been leaving money on the table by requiring the building be saved. Pretty sure this was an either or situation if you wanted affordable housing created in uptown.