Potential New Office Towers Inside 277 Loop

[DigitalSky]

i love how it's still called IBM Drive lol

[skysdalimit]

My dad works in the IBM place for a company called Areva. He used to work for Duke Energy, but his portion of the company was sold to Areva. He used to work in the old Wachovia Center (400 S. Tryon) uptown. He hates the university area.

[Seabreeze]

IBM still leases the two E shaped buildings, they are 6 stories tall which really can't be seen from the photo.

Those buildings were hell to walk around.... I have never gotten so lost in my entire life on so many seperate occassions... I remember they had tons of meeting space that our trainer had to sign up for so we would be in a different E shaped building, floor, and office each day... and everything looked the same.

If there is a bigger sprawled out office building, it needs to come with those airport things that walk for you... i just never understood why they didn't build up.

[redjeep77]

yeah you would think that a building that size out there would still be more expensive than building the corresponding skyscraper downtown. They must have had their reasons. I mean I would think that IBM and these other companies would want to be near the other business in the city. It must have been much cheaper (through a tax incentive or something) to build way out there. Interesting idea though

[monsoon]

Actually IBM originally owned 1300 acres in this area. Basically everything between Sugar Creek, Mallard Creek, Harris Blvd, and I-85 except for a few parcals on the edges of this property. Purchasing all that land, installing roads, a railroad, a full electrical substation, and those buildings was most likely far more expensive than building a tower. When they completed it, it was said that there was more sq footage that what could be found in DT Charlotte. It should be noted that CLT's CBD is about 1300 acres so in essence, IBM built a new DT in terms of office space in the late 70s early 80s. It was so large they even ran their own bus service to connect the various pieces together.

Taxes were a big issue as CLT tried an illegal annexation against IBM in the late 80s. I believe IBM filed a lawsuit against the city. CLT agreed to delay the annexation if IBM would drop the suit. Later the big fiasco with CMS didn't help and I believe that was part of the reason that IBM downsized in CLT and instead built up its workforce in Raleigh. The Raleigh location is now its largest facility in the world.

[UrbanCharlotte]

- A New Mint Museum of Art and the proposed Bechtler Museum of Art may be incorporated into this mixed-use project.

- Proposed for the block that currently contains the Hall House. At this point it is unknown if it will be incorporated into this project.

I haven't seen this before but it may be old? First i've heard of it.

It's just been listed as proposed but isn't the bechtler going into the Wach project?

[tiblerbrit]

Yeah, thats old. Its referring to the BofA tower that was being considered. It was also before Wachovia announced their plans.

[UrbanCharlotte]

well how do you trash a topic?