Pearl District - Atrium/Wake Forest School of Medicine

[MarcoPolo]

Big things are afoot SentioVenia.

The future is looking "healthy" (pardon the medical pun) for the block of land framed by E. Morehead, S. McDowell (both sides), Berkeley Ave , and I-277.   And, keep an eye on this block's relationship  to Pearl St Park and its connection to the City's growing green infrastructure system.   The video "fly-through", aside from being locationally informative, unfolds as it does with purpose.  

There are three development efforts substantially underway now that will be transformational to the Queen City's urban fabric and economic profile for decades to come.   This is one of them.   Very exciting!

[ertley]

I really don't think this is all that far from the Blue Line: By my rough calculation, it's a six block walk, which, in a lot of cities with established mass transit, isn't unfathomable.

There's already a staircase connecting the Rail Trail directly to Morehead's north side sidewalk, which means commuters can walk unmolested by traffic--remember there's only a bridge over South Boulevard--all the way to Euclid, which of course on the north side is just a one block vestige of a street, so pedestrians will be able to cross it without too much delay or hassle, same with Royal Court, making their first and only hard stop at McDowell. Sounds like a dream walk to me, compared to having to stop at every block for a light, with wind or shadows from looming tall buildings that you get in bigger cities. 

What I hope is that the land on the west side of McDowell, which is so OBVIOUSLY now ripe for redevelopment, is 'thoughtfully' incorporated within the master plan, with plenty of pedestrian connections between Morehead and McDowell, and even over to Royal and Euclid eventually, making the Blue Line ped commute a little quicker and direct. 

My 'advice' to them would be to connect the west end of Baxter to Myrtle--there's just a weird little one story professional building standing in the way of it--which separately fulfills my desire for maximizing street connections in Charlotte. That will fully integrate the two sides of the new innovation area with the East Morehead neighborhood, and then it's as simple as putting a good number of pedestrian paths among the new structures to make walking throughout easy and enjoyable.  

[JacksonH]

4 hours ago, carolinaboy said:

Sneaky move by Wake Forest to up and move to Charlotte. I guess Charlotte will now have that major prestigious university they've lacked (no disrespect intended to UNC Charlotte). If the Demon Deacons schedule a home football game or two in the Panther's stadium we'll know the "move" is legit. 

Maybe they planned all along to move to Charlotte but it was just too far to do at once, so the relocation to Winston-Salem in 1956 was just a pitstop on the way to Charlotte.  Imagine if they never left the eponymous town north of Raleigh; there would be four prestigious universities in the RDU area within about 37 miles of one another.

Seriously, though, they surely have no intention of leaving Winston-Salem, do they?  It's not unusual for universities to have major satellite campuses in other cities.  Johnson and Wales is another example.

[Cadi40]

Well the Midtown area may actually be living up to it’s name within the next few years with a new Atrium Bed tower, various high rise developments, and the new Medical School!

[JacksonH]

3 hours ago, ertley said:

I really don't think this is all that far from the Blue Line: By my rough calculation, it's a six block walk, which, in a lot of cities with established mass transit, isn't unfathomable.

When I lived in the DC area I lived for ten of those years one mile from the metro.  I walked that mile every day.  It's not a big deal.

[kermit]

50 minutes ago, JacksonH said:

Seriously, though, they surely have no intention of leaving Winston-Salem, do they?  It's not unusual for universities to have major satellite campuses in other cities.  Johnson and Wales is another example.

Nope. All the medical school activities currently in Winston are planned to keep going there. I can't speak to the professional school stuff that just popped up yesterday.

[KJHburg]

2 hours ago, kermit said:

Nope. All the medical school activities currently in Winston are planned to keep going there. I can't speak to the professional school stuff that just popped up yesterday.

I can see the prestigious Wake Forest school of law  branch here along with their current MBA program.   Charlotte now is one of the largest cities without a law school.  

Look at Wake's stats on their acceptance rate and number of students admitted.  Plenty of room for both campuses.

MD Program Current Class Profile | Wake Forest School of Medicine (wakehealth.edu)

Edited March 25, 2021 by KJHburg

[Hushpuppy321]

21 hours ago, MarcoPolo said:

There are three development efforts substantially underway now that will be transformational to the Queen City's urban fabric and economic profile for decades to come.   This is one of them.   Very exciting!

The Atrium-Wake Forest Medical School is one - What are the other two you're referring too?

[Guest]

Gateway Station and..... North Tryon?

[Owenorange]

On 3/25/2021 at 10:54 AM, kermit said:

Time to resurrect the Morehead Streetcar:

 

It will never happen but a street car extension off of gold line down McDowell, to Kenilworth to Park would be fantastic. But lack of dedicated ROW, stuck in traffic,  grumble, grumble.

[Third Strike]

1 hour ago, Owenorange said:

It will never happen but a street car extension off of gold line down McDowell, to Kenilworth to Park would be fantastic. But lack of dedicated ROW, stuck in traffic,  grumble, grumble.

If you give these roads a road diet, you could easily have a Gold Line spur that has its own ROW. Might be an important proposal for this area, especially with all the development that’s happening in Midtown, Dilworth, and the Park Road area. 

[HopHead]

Some more details on this development... And this is BIG! 1.3M sqft of development as a part of the medical school. Including 1,000 apartments and 600 hotel rooms are what's in scope for the petition filed today.

 

[carolinaboy]

16 minutes ago, HopHead said:

Some more details on this development... And this is BIG! 1.3M sqft of development as a part of the medical school. Including 1,000 apartments and 600 hotel rooms are what's in scope for the petition filed today.

 

Somebody put 1.3 million square feet in perspective for me., give me a reference to compare it to.

[Blue_Devil]

14 minutes ago, HopHead said:

Some more details on this development... And this is BIG! 1.3M sqft of development as a part of the medical school. Including 1,000 apartments and 600 hotel rooms are what's in scope for the petition filed today.

 

If it is a professional campus, the hotels will be very important. Great to have a nice hotel for patients too. And visiting professors. 

1 minute ago, carolinaboy said:

Somebody put 1.3 million square feet in perspective for me., give me a reference to compare it to.

Google's offices in Manhattan are 1.3 give or take.  

[TheOneRJ]

3 minutes ago, carolinaboy said:

Somebody put 1.3 million square feet in perspective for me., give me a reference to compare it to.

The size of Concord Mills. 

[atlrvr]

They are asking for zoning permission for up to 325' for the main tower and 225' for the smaller tower rendered.  There will be 2 other sites that could allow 225' and the parcels fronting Morehead up to 125'.

 

 

[CLT2014]

Should be a nice relatively self-contained campus. There will be plenty of apartments on and off campus for the students and lower level employees within walking distance, a hotel for visitors, and luxury homes nearby in Myers Park, Dilworth, Eastover, et. for the academic staff to buy with their $250K+ salaries. 

An additional bridge would be welcome over Kenilworth and Little Sugar Creek connecting Pearl Street Park to Midtown. That way students / faculty could walk to Trader Joe's and restaurants in Midtown safely and have a more direct walk to the stores.

Edited March 29, 2021 by CLT2014

[RANYC]

This is an explosion of activity in this part of center city.  Can we safely assume that this is a massive accelerator of Brooklyn redevelopment or still TBD?

[Blue_Devil]

6 minutes ago, RANYC said:

This is an explosion of activity in this part of center city.  Can we safely assume that this is a massive accelerator of Brooklyn redevelopment or still TBD?

I mean, you would have to think the land prices there are going to now sky rocket. 

[rancenc]

Article from Axios on future plans surrounding the new Wake Forest School of Medicine site.

https://charlotte.axios.com/252768/new-med-school-campus-could-include-hundreds-of-apartments-and-hotel-rooms/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslocal_charlotte&stream=top

[carolinaboy]

Semi OT: Could this development cause UNC Charlotte to expand their uptown campus/presence?

[CarolinaDaydreamin]

27 minutes ago, carolinaboy said:

Semi OT: Could this development cause UNC Charlotte to expand their uptown campus/presence?

I think they certainly can be impacted by it. This fills a void in much of which UNCC is doing, and it might lead to different programs to move closer. If this what the turning point in establishing a mini UNCC campus in Levineland, that would be fantastic. 

[kermit]

55 minutes ago, carolinaboy said:

Semi OT: Could this development cause UNC Charlotte to expand their uptown campus/presence?

Supposedly the Business School has had a second Uptown building (adjacent to the first) all teed up for a while. Not sure why the trigger wasn’t pulled on that before Phil departed since evening class space is tight in the existing building.

There is a problem of what programming to offer in the Uptown campus. You can’t easily split programs between the main campus and uptown because the travel time is too great for students to move between classes. This basically prevents any undergraduate education from being offered there (since students need to go to various gen ed classes). Other than the business school I can’t really see any other current programs working Uptown. Would be a different story if there were more professional masters / law programs. The Wake Med campus might present a good opportunity for UNCC to develop dental and pharmacy programs?

[KJHburg]

this is kinda of news Charlotte could see in the future with the new medical school

from the Triad Biz Journal 

""Wake Forest Baptist Health has received a $2.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to support research efforts at Wake Forest Organoid Research Center (WFORCE) for aggressive cancers.   The funding supports the development of a new drug testing platform that predicts treatment outcomes.   The platform also leverages tissue bioengineering advances and genomic technologies to reconstruct and grow patient-derived tumor organoids in the presence of different drugs to predict clinical responses of patients and guide treatment selection.   ""

[KJHburg]

Wow JLL says Charlotte metro is the next big life sciences hub not considering the existing ones.  

With this medical school this could be reality for sure.

Where Are the Next Life Sciences Hubs? (cpexecutive.com)