Travel observations and new developments of other cities and countries

[Licec]

45 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Not true.   That photo was taken from the airport visit our UP site and see the rest of those buildings.  Our uptown skyline is very tight and compact not spread out and it is easy to miss buildings especially a photo taken from 5 miles away. 

In the last 3 years downtown what we called uptown has these completions:  33 story 632 foot high Bank of America Tower 2019. 26 story 427 foot high Ally Bank Center 2021,  18 story 650 South Tryon  Deloitte tower 2020, 22 story JW Marriott hotel 2021,  23 story Honeywell Corporate HQ 2021, Uptown 550 apartment tower 2019,  29 story 384 FNB Tower 2021, 33 story Ellis apartment  tower2021,  15 story Grand Bohemian Hotel 2020.     The office towers alone represent over 2.6 MILLION sq ft of office space.   

Right now  under construction  is 41 story 620  foot high building underway  Duke Energy Plaza   This tower is 1 Million sq ft.  So that would be 3.6 Million sq ft of office space in the last few years uptown. 

We have an area called Southend that has multiple towers including this one 23 story Lowe Technology Tower photo attached.   45 towers are planned or about to get underway at latest count. 

Photo 1  and 2 new 41 story 620 foot high Duke Energy Plaza  Photo 3 23 story Lowes tower in Southend.  

Plan a trip to Charlotte and I will show you around or anybody else by light rail train, streetcar, toll express lanes etc.  

So that is a grand total of 8 buildings, correct?

[KJHburg]

28 minutes ago, Licec said:

So that is a grand total of 8 buildings, correct?

You miscounted and I forgot a few apartment towers uptown but I am not going to get into some kind of my city is better than yours agrument with you.   As I said I only counted in the uptown core as defined by the freeway loop look it up on a map.  Go ahead and dismiss Charlotte that is okay.   We keep chugging along at 18.56% metro growth 2.6 Million people  but Nashville is now growing faster at 20.86% 1.9M.   

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by KJHburg

[Rick Dalton]

Charlotte is cool

[KJHburg]

Little Rock has a great downtown large riverfront park and 2 pedestrian bridges over the Arkansas River.  Had been here before and but not along the riverfront. Plus a taller building than even bigger Memphis.  Very nice and clean and tidy downtown.  Rebuilding I-30 bridge downtown and widening lots of highways around the area too.  Nice food hall down by the river and the park. 

[Licec]

34 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

You miscounted and I forgot a few apartment towers uptown but I am not going to get into some kind of my city is better than yours agrument with you.   As I said I only counted in the uptown core as defined by the freeway loop look it up on a map.  Go ahead and dismiss Charlotte that is okay.   We keep chugging along at 18.56% metro growth 2.6 Million people  but Nashville is now growing faster at 20.86 1.9M.   

 

Your reply made me notice something. The development projects differential and the differences in how developers eschew one and seemingly flick to the other. I wonder why that is. This is truly and duely fascinating. 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Licec

[Rick Dalton]

Nashville has much more hotel development than charlotte

[smeagolsfree]

Again this is not a city to city comparison. KHJBurg is always kind enough to share photos of what he has seen around town and he post one pic of Charlotte and gets criticized. Show some respect!

Licec You continue to poke the bear!

8 hours ago, natethegreat said:

Nashville has much more hotel development than charlotte

Nashville has a lot more of a tourism draw I would think would be the reason.

[KJHburg]

15 hours ago, natethegreat said:

Nashville has much more hotel development than charlotte

Absolutely true.  How many of your towers in the last couple years were hotels downtown?  I can tell you just a handful here in Charlotte.    When I was staying in Bellevue I asked the front desk clerk and he said their occupancy is running 100% on the weekends and very strong during the week.  Y'all have a great leisure market and convention market though not sure if that has come back fully yet.    Nashville has replaced New Orleans in my mind as place people want to go south and have a good time (with exception of the entire state of Florida)  

Edited September 23, 2021 by KJHburg

[smeagolsfree]

The hotel market is hurting right now even with the influx of tourist. We have virtually zero convention business, business travel, international travel, and concert travel business right now. The occupancy would be a lot higher if that comes back. Right now the hotels are hurting for workers as well, not to mention many of the bars and restaurants.

[nashvylle]

@KJHburgcan you please opine on Charlotte's housing, in particular affordable housing supply? I feel like affordable housing is a least a discussion in every city's council meetings to some degree. You hear about affordability issues in Seattle, Austin, New York, San Fran, I hear about it in Nashville, but Charlotte I have not heard (but also not searched) about the city becoming completely unaffordable despite its very strong growth. Same question for homeless population.

Has Charlotte found the secret??

Charlotte is such an impressive city to me. It's extremely clean, appears safe, tremendous job base, and is making tons of headway on mass transit. I would say while its mass transit is not as extensive (in miles of track) as Atlanta, but I fee like more people might use Lynx and it's safer. 

Thanks

Edited September 23, 2021 by nashvylle

[rolly]

Something nice that Nashville is missing, but Memphis, Charlotte, and Raleigh have is Amtrak service. 

For example, Memphis has the 'I-55' corridor route.  It would be great if they could get a route along I-40 from Knoxville to Little Rock.

This multi trillion dollar 'Infrastructure Bill' isn't going to do much for the US train network. Would have been nice!

[BnaBreaker]

To me it's astounding that there are no direct rail connections between Chicago/Detroit/Milwaukee and Louisville/Nashville/Atlanta/Florida... perhaps a line that started in Indianapolis and ended in Savannah by way of Louisville/Nashville/Chattanooga/Atlanta.  Obviously there are many factors that go into dictating where new routes are built, but to me that one would make the most sense by far if we're talking new routes, at least in terms of potential ridership.

[MDC26]

1 hour ago, rolly said:

Something nice that Nashville is missing, but Memphis, Charlotte, and Raleigh have is Amtrak service. 

For example, Memphis has the 'I-55' corridor route.  It would be great if they could get a route along I-40 from Knoxville to Little Rock.

This multi trillion dollar 'Infrastructure Bill' isn't going to do much for the US train network. Would have been nice!

Amtrak sucks.  Might be better in the NE, but in the South, you'd be better off flying or driving.  It would be a waste to spend billions of dollars in century old technology.  Would be better off to put that into something like the hyperloop.  Hyperloop along I-40 from OKC to Raleigh or Charlotte.  That would be awesome.  

[Mr_Bond]

@KJHburg, I heard this afternoon, from someone who should know, that downtown Charlotte has about 30 million square feet of commercial space and downtown Nashville has about 17 million.  Does that sound right to you?

[BnaBreaker]

1 hour ago, MDC26 said:

Amtrak sucks.  Might be better in the NE, but in the South, you'd be better off flying or driving.  It would be a waste to spend billions of dollars in century old technology.  Would be better off to put that into something like the hyperloop.  Hyperloop along I-40 from OKC to Raleigh or Charlotte.  That would be awesome.  

I understand where you're coming from, and you're absolutely right that for a lot of it's routes, in the service's current state, it simply doesn't make sense to select it over driving or flying.  I've looked into using it for long trips from time to time, and it not only takes way longer, but is often more expensive than simply hoping on a direct flight.  Why would anyone choose that option? 

Where I differ from you, I guess, is when you say that rail is an outdated technology not worth investing in.  At this point, the automobile and airplane are century old technology too, but the primary difference  in my opinion is that in this country, we continuously invest in keeping those systems up to date technologically and relevant.  I mean I'll give you that even if our trains were as fast as European or Japanese trains, some routes in a country this geographically large still just simply wouldn't be feasible options to the average traveler.  And I understand the hesitancy to the notion that throwing money at something will fix it.  But train travel is something that is very much a part of modern life in most countries around the world.  Again, the main difference to me is that those countries invest in their train systems whereas here, it's so much of an afterthought to most people that it's almost a joke.  

As for the Hyperloop, it's an incredible idea in theory, and I'm excited to see what the future has in store for it and applaud the outside-the-box thinking that birthed it.  But I take more of a wait and see approach when it comes to things like Hyperloop, and the dream of roads full of self-driving cars.  I don't think we should put all of our eggs in baskets that we aren't even sure will ever even become baskets.  In other words, I think we should deal in the here and now because it seems like It'll be quite some time before the technology is even ready for primetime, and then the infrastructure will probably take decades to build out.  

[KJHburg]

2 hours ago, Mr_Bond said:

@KJHburg, I heard this afternoon, from someone who should know, that downtown Charlotte has about 30 million square feet of commercial space and downtown Nashville has about 17 million.  Does that sound right to you?

Every commercial firm counts office space a little different but JLL in their 2nd Qtr office market report says Charlotte has over 26 Million sq ft in our urban core and JLL says Nashville has 16.8 M sq. ft including Midtown so you were right on. 

Edited September 24, 2021 by KJHburg

[KJHburg]

10 hours ago, nashvylle said:

@KJHburgcan you please opine on Charlotte's housing, in particular affordable housing supply? I feel like affordable housing is a least a discussion in every city's council meetings to some degree. You hear about affordability issues in Seattle, Austin, New York, San Fran, I hear about it in Nashville, but Charlotte I have not heard (but also not searched) about the city becoming completely unaffordable despite its very strong growth. Same question for homeless population.

Has Charlotte found the secret??

Charlotte is such an impressive city to me. It's extremely clean, appears safe, tremendous job base, and is making tons of headway on mass transit. I would say while its mass transit is not as extensive (in miles of track) as Atlanta, but I fee like more people might use Lynx and it's safer. 

Thanks

Affordable housing is of course an issue in a fast growing city like Charlotte (and Nashville for that matter)  I feel Charlotte has really gotten serious about it in the last few years.  First passing a $50 M city bond issue that was matched by the private sector mainly our big banks and financial instiutions. Here is a recent story

Charlotte could soon spend $23 million on affordable housing | wcnc.com

City Council approves $25.8 million for affordable housing developments (charlottenc.gov)

Charlotte is also trying to preserve NOAH Naturally occuring affordable housing mainly older apartment complexes around the city. 

NOAHs: Charlotte has a formula for long-lasting affordable housing | The Optimist Daily    (this is very important keeping the more affordable apartments in the city as we have lost some to demolition and rebuilds) 

Some affordable housing in older apartment complexes is being offered to homeless or those near homelessness.  We had an encampment of homeless on state property near uptown Charlotte last winter.  It lasted a month or two until a local TV station discovered it had a big rat problem.  Then in a couple of days it was ordered cleared (state said it was the city's problem and vice versa)  but when the rats were discovered it declared a public health hazard.  All the people were offered transitional housing and it was cleared.    Now the city is combatting this issue with vigor as are private nonprofits.  Finally one agency that oversees all the help available and stats to show where we are at and how it is progressing.  First step was seeing how big the problem is and getting people off the streets and that is where some of the NOAH comes in. 

Welcome - Mecklenburg County - Housing & Homelessness Dashboard (mecklenburghousingdata.org)

One of the most succesful programs  in the country of actually reducing homelessness is in Houston.  They are a model for the nation (and I think Charlotte finally learned a thing or two from them) 

Check out Houston's approach which encompasses a 3 county area.   They have actually reduced the homeless on the streets there. 

https://www.homelesshouston.org/

affordable housing will always be an issue in fast growing cities but you have to chip away at it every year.  Homelessness is a related problem as well.  Even tiny homes are being developed.

Housing for Homeless | containit

The homeless encampment of last winter really woke people up to the problem and our local media has been good about talking about the issue.  Ignoring the issue gets you nowhere of course.   I hope this helps. 

 

[markhollin]

Proposed for Washington DC area: The View at Tysons, 600' office tower, plus hotel and more office at Spring Hill Metro Train station.
 

[KJHburg]

21 hours ago, nashvylle said:

@KJHburgcan you please opine on Charlotte's housing, in particular affordable housing supply? I feel like affordable housing is a least a discussion in every city's council meetings to some degree. You hear about affordability issues in Seattle, Austin, New York, San Fran, I hear about it in Nashville, but Charlotte I have not heard (but also not searched) about the city becoming completely unaffordable despite its very strong growth. Same question for homeless population.

Has Charlotte found the secret??

Charlotte is such an impressive city to me. It's extremely clean, appears safe, tremendous job base, and is making tons of headway on mass transit. I would say while its mass transit is not as extensive (in miles of track) as Atlanta, but I fee like more people might use Lynx and it's safer. 

Thanks

Here some news from today about helping the homeless with homes.  an agency in Charlotte bought an old hotel and will convert it to homeless transitional housing.

from Axios Charlotte:

""Roof Above has received $1 million from Lowe's to help transform an old hotel into 88 apartments for people experiencing homelessness in Charlotte, Katie writes.  Context: Roof Above announced plans last December to buy the old Quality Inn at the intersection of Clanton Road and I-77 to turn into permanent housing.  Ultimately, the property will operate like Moore Place, a 120-unit community that opened in 2012 and provides affordable housing, on-site case management and medical care for Charlotteans experiencing chronic homelessness.
Details: Construction on the hotel is underway and the project is anticipated to be complete by early 2022, Roof Above said in a statement Thursday. The hotel rooms are being renovated and converted into studio apartments with their own kitchens.  Lowe's is also providing appliances for each unit at a discounted rate.  Tenants will pay a third of their income toward rent, per Roof Above.""  

[MDC26]

14 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

I understand where you're coming from, and you're absolutely right that for a lot of it's routes, in the service's current state, it simply doesn't make sense to select it over driving or flying.  I've looked into using it for long trips from time to time, and it not only takes way longer, but is often more expensive than simply hoping on a direct flight.  Why would anyone choose that option? 

Where I differ from you, I guess, is when you say that rail is an outdated technology not worth investing in.  At this point, the automobile and airplane are century old technology too, but the primary difference  in my opinion is that in this country, we continuously invest in keeping those systems up to date technologically and relevant.  I mean I'll give you that even if our trains were as fast as European or Japanese trains, some routes in a country this geographically large still just simply wouldn't be feasible options to the average traveler.  And I understand the hesitancy to the notion that throwing money at something will fix it.  But train travel is something that is very much a part of modern life in most countries around the world.  Again, the main difference to me is that those countries invest in their train systems whereas here, it's so much of an afterthought to most people that it's almost a joke.  

As for the Hyperloop, it's an incredible idea in theory, and I'm excited to see what the future has in store for it and applaud the outside-the-box thinking that birthed it.  But I take more of a wait and see approach when it comes to things like Hyperloop, and the dream of roads full of self-driving cars.  I don't think we should put all of our eggs in baskets that we aren't even sure will ever even become baskets.  In other words, I think we should deal in the here and now because it seems like It'll be quite some time before the technology is even ready for primetime, and then the infrastructure will probably take decades to build out.  

The airplane and car have greatly improved in technology.  The Amtrak train isn't much different than passenger trains were 100 years ago.  And I'm talking about Amtrak in its current form.  I think its pointless to put in more infrastructure just to expand it as it currently is.  European and Japanese rail is vastly better than what Amtrak is using.  If we are looking at doing something more like that, ok, but to have the current Amtrak train run from Memphis to Nashville or other routes like that is misuse of taxpayer money.  

[Licec]

On 9/23/2021 at 5:31 AM, smeagolsfree said:

Again this is not a city to city comparison. KHJBurg is always kind enough to share photos of what he has seen around town and he post one pic of Charlotte and gets criticized. Show some respect!

Show us where someone criticized him? Why so thinned skinned about asking him why all of the pictures people post of Charlotte look the same throughout the years? The poster dxfret commented just two days ago that: "The downtown Memphis skyline looks almost identical to 35 years ago". There was no hissy fit about that comment. So why now? For some reason or another people have posted pictures of Charlotte in various forums throughout the years and they all look the same as if nothing has changed. I and I'm sure others are curious to know why that is.

On 9/23/2021 at 5:31 AM, smeagolsfree said:

Licec You continue to poke the bear!

Where's Grizzly Adams when you need him?

Edited September 24, 2021 by Licec

[Urbanman]

4 minutes ago, Licec said:

Show us where someone criticized him? Why so thinned skinned about asking him why all of the pictures people post of Charlotte look the same throughout the years? The poster dxfret commented just two days ago that: "The downtown skyline looks almost identical to 35 years ago.". There was no hissy fit about that comment. So why now? For some reason or another people have posted pictures of Charlotte in various forums throughout the years and they all look the same as if nothing has changed. I and I'm sure others are curious to know why that is.

In my opinion, when you have a skyline that’s as compact as Charlotte’s and you have 2-3 iconic towers that stand out like Charlotte has, it’s harder to make an impact on the skyline in pictures. Charlotte’s “ infill development” is probably best felt at the street level, just my opinion.

[smeagolsfree]

It’s a matter that myself, and several others took it as a slam of Charlotte and that has been a sore spot on here and the Charlotte board for some time. To say the skyline has not changed in 35 years is again another slam. That would the same thing if someone came on here and said the same thing slamming Nashville. He would be called out in a heartbeat. The wording of KJHBurgs comments and Nate the Great meant that some would have taken it as a slam.

I have had to take a step back and take a chill pill and I suggest you do the same.

[BnaBreaker]

7 hours ago, MDC26 said:

The airplane and car have greatly improved in technology.  The Amtrak train isn't much different than passenger trains were 100 years ago.  And I'm talking about Amtrak in its current form.  I think its pointless to put in more infrastructure just to expand it as it currently is.  European and Japanese rail is vastly better than what Amtrak is using.  If we are looking at doing something more like that, ok, but to have the current Amtrak train run from Memphis to Nashville or other routes like that is misuse of taxpayer money.  

Agreed!  I didn't explicitly say as much, but that's sort of what I meant when I was talking about investing in our rail system.  It badly needs an update!  

[Licec]

1 hour ago, smeagolsfree said:

It’s a matter that myself, and several others took it as a slam of Charlotte and that has been a sore spot on here and the Charlotte board for some time. To say the skyline has not changed in 35 years is again another slam. That would the same thing if someone came on here and said the same thing slamming Nashville. He would be called out in a heartbeat. The wording of KJHBurgs comments and Nate the Great meant that some would have taken it as a slam.

I have had to take a step back and take a chill pill and I suggest you do the same.

I suggest you do. Because this is weird times x. Nobody should get this upset over observations that pictures of a city look the same. There's something definitely wrong there. There's so much more to life than a "skyline". E-gad.