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SouthEnd Projects


atlrvr

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I'm afraid to give up any ownership in myself.....especially to make myself responsive to investor greed....

I'm a model for the small independent search engine....who is willing to take donations to support his philanthropic efforts.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I get excited everytime I drive down it. New and interesting stores seem to be opening on a consistent if gradual basis. Hopefully American Apparell will serve as the linchpin for the creation of a great new artsy and alternative district. I live nearby so it would be walkable for me and also serve as a great boost for Wilmore. Lets hope its done right and perhaps it can be a redo of Noda and we can get it right this time.

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First of all, Welcome voyager12. I know it may be a bit late since you've been around for a little while now.:)

I know we have batted around talk of Camden Rd. on several threads in here. I love Camden, it's one of my favorite little strips because of its potential. Personally, I'm a little glad SouthEnd has grown a little more slowly and that it isn't growing in one specific direction (like NODA). I really hope SouthEnd becomes more diverse than NODA and is sort of a "neighborhood for everyone". Personally I want to see CEO's in the Arlington (or other condos), skate punks on the corner next to Black Sheep, Fashonistas shopping at the stores, rock kids going to shows at Amos', Bank yuppies having drinks at a bar, maybe a great ethnic mom and pop joint next to one those pricey steakhouses. I'd like to see a cool fringe theatre opening up instead of hanging out in places like down around Rampart St. Maybe a nice outdoor retailer going in there, I would love to see something like Footslogger's in downtown Boone. I love places like Pike's and the new Canine place. All in all I just want it to have a little bit of everything instead of it pigeon holing itself as an "art's district" or "bohemian neighborhood". Let Plaza-Midwood take the bohemia title and mature into its own great hood. I don't like it when our center city hoods try too hard to compete with one another or go for the same niche. I don't think SouthEnd needs a niche or a specialty and going for one specific specialty will only limit the neighborhood. I think NODA will be a victim of its own success and will end up becoming a bland cookie cutter art's district where emo-kid high schoolers sit around drinking coffee, acting like immature goof balls and congratulating themselves for being "hip"(oh wait, I think that's already happened). SouthEnd can be more like it's own diverse city (sort of like a downtown for our Uptown), grittier, less corporate, more diverse, and can be more of an urban neighborhood than NODA could hope to be. Anyway, just my opinion, just out of curiosity what would like to see?

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Thanks for the welcome appatone :D. You have several good ideas. It is very important that we have diversity among the different neighborhoods and now that I think about it... a copy of noda, or plaza-midwood could be boring because we want uniqueness not the same old thing. I think Camden could thrive in a similar to vein with Lexington in Asheville. A great mixture of art galleries, unique restaurants and an independent bookstore thrown into the middle. I love independent bookstores. They add vibrancy and community interaction that is hard to beat. I try to support Bookbuyers on Plaza as much as possible. Have you been to Newstand Intl since they relocated to Morehead? Its great and I hope they do well in that location. Its high visibility but you have to "work" to get into the parking lot which could be a hindrance. Oops. I can be tangential. Camden could be great. Although I don't see how Jillians converting to a D&B fits into my paradigm for the area overall. :huh:

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I was actually shopping at Niche the other day, and was talking to Im guessing the owner, we talked about how we liked the area's potential. He said that Black Sheep was moving a larger unit next to Niche and American Apparel. Hopefully that will make those stores more visable. I really love this block and hopefully it will get denser. Tryon still has alot of gaps, and empty space. Between Morehead and Camden.

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I work on Camden and there are plenty of exciting things happening on the block. Look for plenty more changes in the coming months. First big one will be American Apparel, I believe there opening day is the 17th. First Friday of every month is gallery crawl, so anyone wanting to check out the area, it would be the perfect time.

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  • 3 weeks later...

http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/charlotte.../19/focus5.html

Someone (maybe me if I have time) should really take photos of the Packard building now that it has been renovated. I drove by this weekend, and it is really incredible. I'm so glad they didn't demolish it. SouthEnd really thrives on these restored old buildings. Its 1924 facade is really cool, and it creates tremendous value for SouthEnd and the city as a whole.

It is incredible to think that tacky stuff, like shag carpeting, covered rich terrazze marble floors. What happened in the second half of the 20th century that caused that to be a good idea?

It is nice to see that not only did they restore the building, but they made design changes that allowed it to better fit in with the Transit-Oriented zoning that now blankets SouthEnd.

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Someone (maybe me if I have time) should really take photos of the Packard building now that it has been renovated.

These pictures are probably a couple of months old but they were already on my computer so I figured what the hell... Since I've never put photos up on a forum before I haven't really sat down to figure out appropriate resizing and thumbnails and stuff so they're pretty big. Sorry. The second one is of the building next to the Packard.

Picture020.jpg

Picture021.jpg

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wow. thanks for highlighting these 2 buildings, appatone. i imagine that charlotte used to be chock-full of this type of building. the building next to the packard is really sweet as well... i love the rounded roofline. does anyone here know whats happening to that building?

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Appatone's photos are more recent than these, but here are some of how it and other nearby buildings looked at the end of March, before any renovations started.

18283854-M.jpg

18283853-M.jpg

These are other older buildings that are the next block up, that I think are kind of cool, and add a lot to the area.

18283828-M.jpg

18283829-M.jpg

The current state of the Packard building is much nicer. They have really restored the facade beautifully.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Anyone notice in the news there is a plan to put two arches at each end of Camden Rd? These would span the road so you have to drive or ride the train under it. (this could lead to a lot of bad luck, they need to look into this more) The idea is to distinguish South End as its own neighborhood as opposed, I guess to Wilmore and Dilworth. The plan is to use tax money to pay for the arches.

I always thought, the area that is now called South End, was always part of Wilmore. Maybe they don't want to be associated with it anymore.

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http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/new...ws/13497849.htm

This isn't general tax money that is going to these things. SouthEnd is one of three districts in Charlotte that levies a supplemental property tax where the proceeds go for marketing the neighborhood, and for building these types of special touches to brand the neighborhood. It also funds certain public events and festivals in the neighborhood.

(Uptown also has this special tax, and it funds the Center City Partners, which in turn funds many events and signs downtown. University City is now the third such area in the city, but I'm not sure specifically what they have done with that money so far, other than fund a study on improving pedestrian friendliness, and solving the Harris/Tryon intersection problem.)

SouthEnd has previously spent money on adding special street signs, adding special touches to sidewalks on certain pedestrian corners which has the South End logo on them, and adding street lamps and banners to the neighborhood.

Neighborhood boundaries often fluctuate over time. "SouthEnd" is a more recently branded neighborhood, but that doesn't have any bearing on Dilworth or Wilmore. It is now a separate neighborhood because it is trying to build a very different image than that of Dilworth and Wilmore, which are Pre-WWII suburban neighborhoods. SouthEnd is trying to build a denser, urban neighborhood identity, with commercial, dense residential, and even some industrial built around transiit. Often, growth leads to a division of a single neighborhood becoming multiple distinct neighborhoods as the different sections take on different characters.

I'm unclear specifically what these arches will be like, but I'd imagine they will be the typical neighborhood-entry columns of stone and/or brick, and then they'll just have an arch running from one column to the other.

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I'm terrified by the idea.....I'm imagining horrible styrofoam construction like the "stonehenge" at Ballantyne. The special district tax would be much better spent burying overhead utilities, especially at prominent intersections like Tryon/Camden.

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According to an article I read in the Observer recently, arches are going to be installed at either end of the Southend district. Camden and Tryon streets. The thinking being that the arches will give this corridor a sense of place and encourage more pedestrian friendly development. Unlike St. Louis we will be able to drive through these. I am all for encouraging the Camden corridor. It has great potential. I do think arches smack of Charlotte copying someplace else once again. Usually we are trying to be Atlanta, this time its St Louis. Why couldn't there have been a local contest to decide what kind of art to install? Heck, install Dollar Signs to drive through...since we are banking capital. Just something that says "Charlotte" for a change. :wacko:

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According to an article I read in the Observer recently, arches are going to be installed at either end of the Southend district. Camden and Tryon streets. The thinking being that the arches will give this corridor a sense of place and encourage more pedestrian friendly development. Unlike St. Louis we will be able to drive through these. I am all for encouraging the Camden corridor. It has great potential. I do think arches smack of Charlotte copying someplace else once again. Usually we are trying to be Atlanta, this time its St Louis. Why couldn't there have been a local contest to decide what kind of art to install? Heck, install Dollar Signs to drive through...since we are banking capital. Just something that says "Charlotte" for a change.

Sounds like a stupid idea to me. I'm sure if these get built, they'll be red brick with little crowns on them. We are always so original around here.

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