Duke Energy Plaza Headquarters | 40 Story formerly Charlotte Metro Tower

[SydneyCarton]

Another beautiful icon for the QC!

[CLT>]

Watch out for the signage on this one, might be approaching Truist size...

[navigator319]

2 minutes ago, CLT> said:

Watch out for the signage on this one, might be approaching Truist size...

apples and oranges man.   Truist slapped their name on plywood and bolted it over architectural elements of a building not designed for signage.

The signage/logo will look just fine here, well integrated to facade and placement on tower.  Agree though it does look to be ~3  floors in hight which is large.

[Owenorange]

It’s like the Gantt Center is being consumed
 

[stiluvclt]

Just wondering, If I correctly remember the rendering of this beautiful project, it didn't have tapered corners (or whatever they are called architecturally). Has there been an updated rendering posted?

 

[Yo Diaz!]

Just wondering, If I correctly remember the rendering of this beautiful project, it didn't have tapered corners (or whatever they are called architecturally). Has there been an updated rendering posted?
 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The corners are chamfered in these elevations. It’s just at first glance because of the darker glass that it doesn’t look like it.


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[san]

Do we have any idea of what the lighting structure will be for the tower? Possibly along the lines of the DEC? I hope it has the same vertical lighting that both the DEC and Truist have as it will definitely help our skyline pop.

[hinsp0]

Tower cranes rising behind the Westin.

[KJHburg]

Foggy afternoon evening makes for so so photos but here you go.  And the parking hut is still there.  Several angles.   This. Tower. Is Huge!  when the uptown office workers come back en masse they will be surprised BIG time! 

[Norm2]

They are really not wasting any time throwing this tower up!

[RANYC]

Bizjournal article from yesterday referenced Duke's move to a hybrid model, allowing more people to work only part-time in its properties.  This tower going up will have 1 million square feet, and room for 4,000 workers.  They're changing the way the tower gets used and configured based on COVID and the new hybrid arrangements.  Article also mentioned several Duke offices in Uptown closing and perhaps being consolidated into the new tower.  There's a Renewables business at Nascar Plaza, but that lease isn't up until 2026.  Call center jobs not likely to need office space going forward as those employees seem fine working from home.

[Urban Cowboy]

Businesses should not expect workers to WFH forever. My wife finds it isolating and less productive/efficient for team work. If businesses want to save money by reducing office space, they should pay their workers more. I’m a realtor and you would not believe the WFH setups I see in homes that don’t have dedicated offices. Not fair to expect the average worker to have dedicated space, or be able to afford dedicated space in their home. Not to mention the mental health of having work in the same space that is supposed to be a sanctuary. It’s hard to escape your job’s stress when your office is your home. My 2 cents.

From today:

Edited February 15, 2021 by Urban Cowboy

[InSouthPark]

1 hour ago, Urban Cowboy said:

Businesses should not expect workers to WFH forever. My wife finds it isolating and less productive/efficient for team work. If businesses want to save money by reducing office space, they should pay their workers more. I’m a realtor and you would not believe the WFH setups I see in homes that don’t have dedicated offices. Not fair to expect the average worker to have dedicated space, or be able to afford dedicated space in their home. Not to mention the mental health of having work in the same space that is supposed to be a sanctuary. It’s hard to escape your job’s stress when your office is your home. My 2 cents.

From today:

 

I think it will be a "WFH if you are able and want to".  Not a "you must work from home".  Our office is open to 15% capacity because some folks hate working from their dining room table, or worse for some apartment dwellers.  But for people like me, in IT, with a dedicated home office that looks out into the woods and a million times better than my windowless cube...if I am given the option to WFH long term, I will take it in a heartbeat.  I'm an introvert that has no need, or desire, to be face to face with employees for 95% of my work.  My fiancé works for a large progressive company right over the border and they have told their employees the same.  "Come in if you need to, stay home if you want to, when this is over, there will be a mixed work week if employees desire it" 

[queensguy06]

5 hours ago, Urban Cowboy said:

Businesses should not expect workers to WFH forever. My wife finds it isolating and less productive/efficient for team work. If businesses want to save money by reducing office space, they should pay their workers more. I’m a realtor and you would not believe the WFH setups I see in homes that don’t have dedicated offices. Not fair to expect the average worker to have dedicated space, or be able to afford dedicated space in their home. Not to mention the mental health of having work in the same space that is supposed to be a sanctuary. It’s hard to escape your job’s stress when your office is your home. My 2 cents.

 

3 hours ago, InSouthPark said:

I think it will be a "WFH if you are able and want to".  Not a "you must work from home".  Our office is open to 15% capacity because some folks hate working from their dining room table, or worse for some apartment dwellers.  But for people like me, in IT, with a dedicated home office that looks out into the woods and a million times better than my windowless cube...

 

The work from home trend was well on its way before the pandemic hit as a natural progression of the continued push by companies to squeeze as much productivity out of employees as possible.  You can see this trend from the mid-century "Mad Men" style work environs to the cube farms of the 70s-90s humorously depicted in "Dilbert" comics and "Office Space" to the more organic dot-com era recreational style work places.  It was just a matter of time until innovation and technology allowed for this transition, and COVID has simply sped that process up, to the detriment of some employees as mentioned by Urban Cowboy. 

I can theoretically get more production out of a salaried worker if they can roll out of bed, grab a cup of coffee, and be at there work space at 8:00am where they will work until 5:00 or 6:00pm with intermittent breaks as opposed to making that employee commute one to two hours a day to a centrally located office.  In addition, that salaried employee tends to feel more empowered around their schedule if I say, "Hey - start around 8:00am and just get your hours in for the day as you see fit and as demand requires.  If you need to go to a doctor's appointment at 11:00am just make sure you are communicating with your team."  The idea of a regular 9-5 job has been eroding for 20 years. 

I think SouthPark is spot on with how this transition will continue after the pandemic has subsided - mixed scheduling of split office time/work from home with a more gradual push towards a large segment being work from home entirely over the next 5-10 years.  Inevitably, there will be businesses/jobs that require office buildings - urban cores are not going away.  But there is a reason that the vast majority of new high rises in major cities across the country are condo/apartment (and more specifically "luxury" units) and not office buildings.  I don't foresee a huge demand for class A office space post COVID that will need filling on levels we've seen in the 90's & 2000's.

Back to Urban Cowboy's point, while I certainly can agree on the hardships and haphazard approach people have had to take with current working from home conditions, I see that more as a product of the urgency required from stay at home orders.  Obviously the ideal situation would be to say we are moving your position to full time work at home job over the next 6-8 months allowing for an ideal transitional period to get your office space set up, but unfortunately that wasn't an option.   Now that the band-aid has been ripped off, there really isn't much going back.  And companies will justify requiring out of pocket expenses for an at home work space through added benefits and savings from working at home  - i.e. commuting (more than $1,000 in gas and maintenance annually).

[JRNYP2C]

I hope I fall into the "Work from home moving forward, and come in when you need to" scenario.  I find it completely amazing that it took a pandemic to thoroughly shake the foundation of companies to understand that most of the non-customer facing jobs can be done remotely.  Luckily, I have dedicated space, and am single - so it works out well for me.

Initially, I was against bringing all the stress into my "sanctuary" as it was mentioned above.  However, I have learned to balance leaving that stress in that room, as a trade off for sitting in traffic for two plus hours a day and traveling 55 miles round trip each day.  I honestly feel a difference in my stress levels - even though I work more hours than before.  It is much better to get up and walk around the house while on a conference call, start a load of laundry, step onto the back porch, or grab a quick snack from the kitchen.  With a newer car, it has made a HUGE difference in wear and tear on that, as well as easy on my wallet with not having to fill up the tank every week.

Money is going to be key for many companies as this whole thing continues to evolve.  If big companies can save a boatload on real estate (i.e. office towers or office parks), they will take advantage of that.  The IT infrastructure has to be cheaper than the cost for a cubicle that sits empty about a third of the year.  Plus for our group, we have had to turn on a dime and truly get away from paper and do much more electronically.  So the need for copying or scanning has become mostly obsolete.

Luckily, our group doesn't have to have the "feel good, warm and fuzzy" meetings in person all the time.  In all honesty, I don't need to be around people every day to do a job, or do my job well.  Maybe I fall into the loner camp more than I thought, because I actually enjoy not being in the office for almost a year now.  That isn't to say that we will need to be there from time to time, and if I only go in once a week or three times a month, that is VASTLY better than it was before.

Again - just my 2 cents.

[Hushpuppy321]

16 hours ago, JRNYP2C said:

I hope I fall into the "Work from home moving forward, and come in when you need to" scenario.  I find it completely amazing that it took a pandemic to thoroughly shake the foundation of companies to understand that most of the non-customer facing jobs can be done remotely.  Luckily, I have dedicated space, and am single - so it works out well for me.

Initially, I was against bringing all the stress into my "sanctuary" as it was mentioned above.  However, I have learned to balance leaving that stress in that room, as a trade off for sitting in traffic for two plus hours a day and traveling 55 miles round trip each day.  I honestly feel a difference in my stress levels - even though I work more hours than before.  It is much better to get up and walk around the house while on a conference call, start a load of laundry, step onto the back porch, or grab a quick snack from the kitchen.  With a newer car, it has made a HUGE difference in wear and tear on that, as well as easy on my wallet with not having to fill up the tank every week.

Money is going to be key for many companies as this whole thing continues to evolve.  If big companies can save a boatload on real estate (i.e. office towers or office parks), they will take advantage of that.  The IT infrastructure has to be cheaper than the cost for a cubicle that sits empty about a third of the year.  Plus for our group, we have had to turn on a dime and truly get away from paper and do much more electronically.  So the need for copying or scanning has become mostly obsolete.

Luckily, our group doesn't have to have the "feel good, warm and fuzzy" meetings in person all the time.  In all honesty, I don't need to be around people every day to do a job, or do my job well.  Maybe I fall into the loner camp more than I thought, because I actually enjoy not being in the office for almost a year now.  That isn't to say that we will need to be there from time to time, and if I only go in once a week or three times a month, that is VASTLY better than it was before.

Again - just my 2 cents.

Wow - I wholeheartedly agree with you.  Not for me (I work in Construction) but for my wife.  She is absolutely loving working from home for all the same reasons you mentioned.  I do things will get  back to normal - a new normal as many companies will probably continue some hybrid model of the Work From Home, Come In Occasionally model. 

[QCxpat]

Today 9:25 a.m.

Edited February 17, 2021 by QCxpat

[t_money]

Those windows look like mirrors! So shiny.

[turbocraig]

1 hour ago, t_money said:

Those windows look like mirrors! So shiny.

In real life they literally are like mirrors.  

[Skyybutter]

On 2/4/2021 at 1:22 PM, j-man said:

This shot reminds me of The World Trade Center in NY being constructed some years ago. 

100% Took the words right out of my head!! 

[SentioVenia]

From yesterday afternoon.

[QCxpat]

Today 10:20 a.m.

Edited February 21, 2021 by QCxpat

[atl2clt]

Great pics from both of the above posters. 

My tally shows 16 completed floors (16/40 floors = 40% of proposed height). This building should end up at least 2.5 times taller than it is right now. How exciting.

This building is rising so quickly. In a matter of weeks it will be taller than Ally. 

[DownEast]

Disco Chicken is summoning a new building before our very eyes.

Edited February 22, 2021 by DownEast

[SydneyCarton]

18 hours ago, QCxpat said:

Today 10:20 a.m.

The contrast between the ultramodern facade and the beautiful old church spire is stunning.

Edited February 22, 2021 by SydneyCarton