1000 Room Convention Center Hotel

[deleted]

1 hour ago, Popsickle said:

As much as I love the Panthers I can't disagree with this idea more. 

Agreed but it was pure (and irresponsible) speculation.

[Cadi40]

 I would love to see a W by Marriot in Charlotte. Very upscale and modern Hotel. I do agree that an attraction would have to accommopany the hotel. Maybe an aquarium, indoor water park, or something along the lines of that. 

[CLT2014]

36 minutes ago, Cadi40 said:

 I would love to see a W by Marriot in Charlotte. Very upscale and modern Hotel. I do agree that an attraction would have to accommopany the hotel. Maybe an aquarium, indoor water park, or something along the lines of that. 

I doubt we would ever see a W whose brand is sexy and hip collocating their hotel with an aquarium or indoor water park that would mainly attract hoards of children and a valet line of Toyota Siennas and Honda Odysseys. Sounds more like what a Residence Inn with family friendly rooms or an Embassy Suites would want to be built near. 

Edited May 16, 2018 by CLT2014

[Dale]

Miami's new convention hotel will have an electric race car track. Maybe we can parlay our racing heritage into something like that, albeit with an oval track ...

https://www.thenextmiami.com/electric-race-car-track-planned-at-miami-worldcenters-1700-room-convention-hotel/

[Dale]

FYI:  at last check, Miami's 1,700 room is two towers, one 640'.

[Cadi40]

1 hour ago, CLT2014 said:

I doubt we would ever see a W whose brand is sexy and hip collocating their hotel with an aquarium or indoor water park that would mainly attract hoards of children and a valet line of Toyota Siennas and Honda Odysseys. Sounds more like what a Residence Inn with family friendly rooms or an Embassy Suites would want to be built near. 

I wasn’t putting the two together, I don’t think that would happen anywhere.

[KJHburg]

Subscriber article on the convention hotel discussion with a few more details and the Duke data center site has come up.  The data center is gone but 500 employees still work there. If the city buys that site or seems very interested then we might get a new Duke tower on S Tryon for sure.   But in the meantime those workers will have to be housed somewhere. Other tidbits Mecklenburg county has more 26,000 rooms and this is just Meck Cabarrus county would add thousands more.   5285 rooms uptown now. 

Two key paragraphs:

""" One possibility: Duke Energy controls a 2.3-acre site, large enough for a hotel to be built, at 401 S. College Street, which happens to be next to the convention center. Duke spokesman Neil Nissan told CBJ the utility company for years housed a data center in the 122,000-square-foot building on College Street before relocating the data center in 2017. Duke still has 500 employees in the building. The company said it has “no other specific plans at this time” when asked whether the company would consider selling the land.   CBJ has previously reported Duke’s interest in building a new uptown office building within several years, likely in partnership with a private developer. That would give the company room to reshuffle employees from other buildings. In May 2017, Duke bought a combined 2.1 acres for $27.5 million — property bounded by South Tryon and South College streets that could be targeted for an office project. The company has not yet disclosed any plans for the site.  The city owns 3 acres used for surface parking near but not adjacent to the convention center at 549 S. Caldwell Street. When asked Monday by reporters about that property as a hotel site, Murray declined to discuss any possible locations. In 1998, the city bought the property for $8.4 million."""

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2018/05/16/heres-the-projected-land-cost-for-charlottes-1-000.html?ana=e_du_prem&s=article_du&ed=2018-05-16&u=oAaDx%2B74FoP4qOJ%2By4AU6dhJPpc&t=1526498889&j=81623601

 

[deleted]

9 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Subscriber article on the convention hotel discussion with a few more details and the Duke data center site has come up.  The data center is gone but 500 employees still work there. If the city buys that site or seems very interested then we might get a new Duke tower on S Tryon for sure.   But in the meantime those workers will have to be housed somewhere. Other tidbits Mecklenburg county has more 26,000 rooms and this is just Meck Cabarrus county would add thousands more.   5285 rooms uptown now. 

Two key paragraphs:

""" One possibility: Duke Energy controls a 2.3-acre site, large enough for a hotel to be built, at 401 S. College Street, which happens to be next to the convention center. Duke spokesman Neil Nissan told CBJ the utility company for years housed a data center in the 122,000-square-foot building on College Street before relocating the data center in 2017. Duke still has 500 employees in the building. The company said it has “no other specific plans at this time” when asked whether the company would consider selling the land.   CBJ has previously reported Duke’s interest in building a new uptown office building within several years, likely in partnership with a private developer. That would give the company room to reshuffle employees from other buildings. In May 2017, Duke bought a combined 2.1 acres for $27.5 million — property bounded by South Tryon and South College streets that could be targeted for an office project. The company has not yet disclosed any plans for the site.  The city owns 3 acres used for surface parking near but not adjacent to the convention center at 549 S. Caldwell Street. When asked Monday by reporters about that property as a hotel site, Murray declined to discuss any possible locations. In 1998, the city bought the property for $8.4 million."""

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2018/05/16/heres-the-projected-land-cost-for-charlottes-1-000.html?ana=e_du_prem&s=article_du&ed=2018-05-16&u=oAaDx%2B74FoP4qOJ%2By4AU6dhJPpc&t=1526498889&j=81623601

 

Wouldn't it be better to expand the Center itself at 401 South College (assuming city can purchase from Duke) and build the hotel at Stonewall/Caldwell/Davidson?  Contiguous meeting space would seem more valuable than an attached hotel (and the hotel can be attached via an enclosed bridge to the HOF).

[Scribe]

2 minutes ago, JBS said:

Wouldn't it be better to expand the Center itself at 401 South College (assuming city can purchase from Duke) and build the hotel at Stonewall/Caldwell/Davidson?  Contiguous meeting space

Why not do both on the same lot of land, a la @ricky_davis_fan_21 proposal with the hotel being a tower on top of the convention expansion....

[DMann]

Hard to believe that 500 people work in the Duke Data Center at MLK, Jr and College

[Nick2]

I would be very surprised if the Duke data center site that RDF outlined isn't used for a major improvement/expansion/hotel for the convention center. There's plenty of space for a few new hundreds of thousands of sq ft of additional space as well as a 50ish story thousand room hotel. I don't care much about which specific brand that ends up here because if it does end up as a thousand rooms, it'll be a good brand most likely.

An aquarium here wouldn't make much sense to me. I think near gateway/BoA stadium would be an excellent spot for one. Maybe tear down Circa?

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Scribe said:

Why not do both on the same lot of land, a la @ricky_davis_fan_21 proposal with the hotel being a tower on top of the convention expansion....

The real problem is... the exhibition space is subterranean and it wraps around in an L shape a HUGE loading dock.  In order to physically expand the space, you'd need to find some way to move the entire loading dock another floor down  or something. 

[Nick2]

Is it not possible to simply built over top of the loading dock?

[Cadi40]

I'm trying to think what a realistic possible attraction would be for this Hotel, However I just can't see it. An Aquarium would be nice but the odds of that happening are slim to none.

[J-Rob]

Who do you think is funding this attraction you keep referencing?  

[Scribe]

40 minutes ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

The real problem is... the exhibition space is subterranean and it wraps around in an L shape a HUGE loading dock.

I was looking at that, the only solution I came up with was to put the loading docks a level deeper on the Duke lot and make the Exhibition Hall space have A, B, C and D sections in an inverted C.  The blue is Hall D and the red is the ramp to the new loading docks that would be under the hall D!

Pardon the MS Paint skillzzzz!

Edited May 16, 2018 by Scribe
A slightly better rendering...

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, J-Rob said:

Who do you think is funding this attraction you keep referencing?  

I think I solved all our problems!!! I just bought 4 money tree seeds from a gentleman on Craigslist, he promises each'll grow 1 million dollars a day! it only cost me $40,000!!!!

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by Guest

[CharlotteWkndBuzz]

Who says the attraction has to be at the bottom lol?  My wish of an observatory would actually be perfect at this hotel. Possibly a nice resturant at the top too. If it is 30 plus stories, really think they should do something up top. What better way to showcase our skyline to the thousands and thousands of convention goers than viewing it from above. 

[Scribe]

Another thing I noticed is that the NASCAR HOF space is directly integrated into the Charlotte Convention Center space planning site 40,000 sqft ballroom with ~12,000 sqft pre-function space...:

[cjd5050]

1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

Subscriber article on the convention hotel discussion with a few more details and the Duke data center site has come up.  The data center is gone but 500 employees still work there. If the city buys that site or seems very interested then we might get a new Duke tower on S Tryon for sure.   But in the meantime those workers will have to be housed somewhere. Other tidbits Mecklenburg county has more 26,000 rooms and this is just Meck Cabarrus county would add thousands more.   5285 rooms uptown now. 

Two key paragraphs:

""" One possibility: Duke Energy controls a 2.3-acre site, large enough for a hotel to be built, at 401 S. College Street, which happens to be next to the convention center. Duke spokesman Neil Nissan told CBJ the utility company for years housed a data center in the 122,000-square-foot building on College Street before relocating the data center in 2017. Duke still has 500 employees in the building. The company said it has “no other specific plans at this time” when asked whether the company would consider selling the land.   CBJ has previously reported Duke’s interest in building a new uptown office building within several years, likely in partnership with a private developer. That would give the company room to reshuffle employees from other buildings. In May 2017, Duke bought a combined 2.1 acres for $27.5 million — property bounded by South Tryon and South College streets that could be targeted for an office project. The company has not yet disclosed any plans for the site.  The city owns 3 acres used for surface parking near but not adjacent to the convention center at 549 S. Caldwell Street. When asked Monday by reporters about that property as a hotel site, Murray declined to discuss any possible locations. In 1998, the city bought the property for $8.4 million."""

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2018/05/16/heres-the-projected-land-cost-for-charlottes-1-000.html?ana=e_du_prem&s=article_du&ed=2018-05-16&u=oAaDx%2B74FoP4qOJ%2By4AU6dhJPpc&t=1526498889&j=81623601

 

This may be the tinfoil talking but....

DEC had the slip on the 2nd tower a while back.  Got some bad PR from it and still wants to do a massive rate hike.  Not the best time to also build a shiny new tower.  So to work around this, they float the idea to the city on the S. College site when meeting with the city about funding for the RNC bid.  After talking about how much money they might contribute, they 'suggest' the city push for a hotel on the site that would in turn displace their workers.  This would then give DEC the cover to build the new 2nd tower because they were so gracious in selling the S. College site for the city.  

 

 

 

[KJHburg]

3 minutes ago, cjd5050 said:

This may be the tinfoil talking but....

DEC had the slip on the 2nd tower a while back.  Got some bad PR from it and still wants to do a massive rate hike.  Not the best time to also build a shiny new tower.  So to work around this, they float the idea to the city on the S. College site when meeting with the city about funding for the RNC bid.  After talking about how much money they might contribute, they 'suggest' the city push for a hotel on the site that would in turn displace their workers.  This would then give DEC the cover to build the new 2nd tower because they were so gracious in selling the S. College site for the city.  

 

 

 

actually it makes sense.  I think Duke Energy wants to own a tower and control their own destiny and not be a tenant in a Wells Fargo owned building for their corporate headquarters.  The city gets the best site for a convention hotel and that data center corner could be more or less integrated into the hotel.  And the site across Caldwell could be future expansion of the center itself more meeting rooms of various sizes connected to the HOF which is already connected to Convention center.    So count me as having tinfoil on my head too! 

[Dale]

[deleted]

1 hour ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

I think I solved all our problems!!! I just bought 4 money tree seeds from a gentleman on Craigslist, he promises each'll grow 1 million dollars a day! it only cost me $40,000!!!!

 

I clearly watch too much Netflix but thought of this:

http://theoffice.wikia.com/wiki/Garage_Sale

 

[Cadi40]

1 hour ago, J-Rob said:

Who do you think is funding this attraction you keep referencing?  

I'm saying I don't think there would be an attraction with this hotel that's realistically possible.

[Richhamleigh, DC]

On 5/15/2018 at 10:16 AM, JBS said:

I'd rather see the money spent elsewhere also.  However, I don't view Charlotte as a city without attractions.  Carowinds, USNWC, two huge lakes, racing stuff-HOF, shops, multiple tracks-for those so inclined, Billy Graham Museum for those interested, proximity to mountains for day trips, etc.  Plus, some of our neighborhoods are great places to spend an afternoon or evening.  I think our museums are underrated also.    

I didnt say Charlotte doesnt have attractions, the city and region have many....but a city without attractions that appeal to the broadest range of ages, incomes, education, lifestyles, etc., is not going to be a healthy tourist destination.  Conventions are being drawn to cities that offer more than what we have to offer, in cities that are considered "tourist destinations".   Our competition isn't Des Moines, it's Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Nashville, Dallas, Austin...

Even shopping Uptown would be an improvement from the perspective of visitors.  I hear frequently that Charlotte is beautiful, but not having lively (outdoor) retail districts Uptown makes strolling along our streets less interesting and engaging.