210 Trade | EpiCentre

[JerseyBoy]

I recall in some earlier renderings seeing that they would be some canopy-like structures over the escalators.

[New Name]

I love the old style marquee/canopy for the entrance to the hotel though!

[Andyc545]

I'm not crazy about the way aLoft looks compared to the rest of the project on site. I love the condo tower much, much better, as well as Epicenter.

About the escalators on site. Many cities have escalators on their city sidewalks, off hand: Las Vegas and Niagara Falls, mainly used to connect the retail on 2nd floors as well as used for pedestrian bridges over roads (in vegas). In these cities, they are covered from the top to protect against weather, however they are still open from the sides. You would think that rain and snow would damage the escalators, however, I'm thinking that all electronics and moving parts are protected by weather barriers in some way, but I do know that urban areas support escalators. It's a good thing, will add a little interest and convenience to the area.

[wheatie]

There are escalators at Candlestick Park in San Francisco which I believe are on the outside of the stadium.

[krazeeboi]

I'm not too fond of the bland, neutral colors of the exterior. Charlotte has enough of those. I'd like to see exactly how the other side looks as well.

[Charlotteman]

aloft isn't much to write home about, architecturally. But compared to the ever perplexing, ugly Trademark, it's a masterpiece. Let's hope it won't be painted a boring "beige" a la Hampton Inn and Hilton Garden Inn.

btw Seattle has several outdoor escalators, and they are weather protected. Nothing really special about it.....

[Andyc545]

There are escalators at Candlestick Park in San Francisco which I believe are on the outside of the stadium.

I've seen them, also. I forgot about those. Lovely park by the way.

[fortyniner]

There is a terrific outdoor escalator in Birmingham on Montgomery Hwy. that leads from some shops and restaurants on the lower level to a Rave theater on the uphill side. Rave is a nice chain I wish we had in Charlotte. The escalator is quite long and runs in all weather. It really is an attraction unto itself.

[Charlotte_native]

It won't matter if it is parking anyways, since the city is constantly putting the red "no parking" bags over the top of meters.

What is the deal with that, anyway? I've not figured out the logic for when they decide to screw up parking randomly...

[Justadude]

I believe it is to increase street capacity. There are times of day and times of year when you really need the extra lanes to prevent gridlock.

[Raintree21]

They do it on seemingly only on weekends. I heard the rationale was that the city employees don't work on weekends so they cover the meters early Friday, even for events that aren't until Sunday, thus preventing anyone from parking on the streets for the entire weekend.

[49er]

i remember hearing a few years ago that the movie theater operator wanted drop off lanes as part of their lease agreement. It makes sense if you think about it. The parking bags are probably up more often since the arena opened and more events are scheduled.

[urbandesign]

I believe it is to increase street capacity. There are times of day and times of year when you really need the extra lanes to prevent gridlock.

I've heard the same thing, but I've very rarely, with the exception of Tryon, seen significant gridlock in Uptown. Even with football and basketball games, it usually only takes a few minutes to get out of Uptown - bigger issues on Morehead and I-77 if you make that mistake after a game.

I don't have a problem with the gridlock on Tryon, as it slow traffic and is more pedestrian friendly. Also, on Tryon the lights seem to be intentionally unsynchronized - not sure if it's intentional, but it seems to be impossible to make more than two consecutive intersections without getting caught at a light in normal traffic. Basically, if you're in a hurry stay off Tryon - no big deal.

Back to the point, it seems like those F'n red bags are up all the time for no good reason. Does anybody know the real reason? I mean really know actual reason, because I don't and have not heard anything that makes much sense. Not that the real reason will make any sense what-so-ever, of course.

I can't believe it has anything to do with city workers not wanting to work. It costs money to buy those lil' red beotchs and the associated locks, not to mention paying someone to install/remove them each time. Sorry about the off topic rant...

[Charlotte_native]

They do it on seemingly only on weekends. I heard the rationale was that the city employees don't work on weekends so they cover the meters early Friday, even for events that aren't until Sunday, thus preventing anyone from parking on the streets for the entire weekend.

I don't understand that. What does it have to do with city employees being at work? Weekends are when we need the parking and it is free then anyway. They actually are often not "bagged" during weekends, it seems completely random when they do it. As a resident I think on-street parking should always be available (with the reasonable exception of 7 - 9 am and 4 - 6 pm to get rush hour traffic in and out) unless a true reason is presented.

[Guest]

you've never seen gridlock on any street except tryon? Are you serious? Have you never been out on a friday or saturday in downtown, I've seen Gridlock on College quite a few times.

[Justadude]

I'm pretty sure it is a matter of moving traffic; I don't have an official source to verify that sentiment, but that is at least consistent with streetside parking being shut down during rush hour.

urbandesign, think about it this way: even one car parked at a meter is enough to shut down an entire lane from being used by drivers. I don't know how many times I've moved into a lane, and then been stuck there waiting for a Good Samaritan to let me over again because of a car in the metered parking. During a large event like a Panthers game, weekend festival or even just rush hour, that one car is enough to cause minor gridlock on its own. Multiply that across however many streets are metered, and you're talking about major shifts in street capacity.

[urbandesign]

you've never seen gridlock on any street except tryon? Are you serious? Have you never been out on a friday or saturday in downtown, I've seen Gridlock on College quite a few times.

I think of gridlock as several square blocks of "the grid" being severely locked up, not just two congested parallel streets with people cruising. With very few exceptions, at worst, you're only going to have to sit in congestion until the next cross street.

You might be forced to maken an illegal right turn to get off Tryon, which is rediculous. I'm all for ped safety, but c'mon...

I don't think bagging the parking meters has any impact on congestion, with the cars and cabs constantly stopped at the side of the road anyhow.

Edited July 24, 2007 by urbandesign

[urbandesign]

During a large event like a Panthers game, weekend festival or even just rush hour, that one car is enough to cause minor gridlock on its own.

I agree with limited bagging, on a few streets, during major events like NFL games (Vick should be electrocuted, then revived, drowned, then revived, shot...).

I also don't have a big problem with it during rush hour, though bags are not used then, it's just illegal to park on many streets during rush hour (bag or not), enforced by immediate towing.

However, it seems random streets seem are bagged on ramdom evenings and weekends? I'm curious if the city has a schedule/map of when/why this is going to happen? Somebody must know...

[Raintree21]

I don't understand that. What does it have to do with city employees being at work?

It makes sense financially. I don't know but I would assume that most ParkIt! people (or whatever department is in charge of meters) don't work on the weekends. For them to pay overtime to their employees to come in on Sunday morning before an event would be a huge cost. To save on the money, they just do it on Friday before they leave for the weekend and then remove them on Monday morning.

[Andyc545]

It makes sense financially. I don't know but I would assume that most ParkIt! people (or whatever department is in charge of meters) don't work on the weekends. For them to pay overtime to their employees to come in on Sunday morning before an event would be a huge cost. To save on the money, they just do it on Friday before they leave for the weekend and then remove them on Monday morning.

Well, I mean there are other shifts that people could work, aka a weekend shift. I work Fri through Mon. The department in charge of the meters is indeed ParkIt, which is part of the city of Charlotte. Here is a link to the dept page. Maybe someone that's interested enough can search through that website and maybe gain more information about the parking meters.

http://www.charmeck.org/Departments/Transp...ams/Park+It.htm

[Charlotte_native]

It makes sense financially. I don't know but I would assume that most ParkIt! people (or whatever department is in charge of meters) don't work on the weekends. For them to pay overtime to their employees to come in on Sunday morning before an event would be a huge cost. To save on the money, they just do it on Friday before they leave for the weekend and then remove them on Monday morning.

The reason I said it doesn't make sense is because after 6 and on weekends you don't have to pay the meters anyway. Parking on the street is free -- so no one has to be at work or monitor them.

[HopHead]

Has anyone heard anything on when Flaherty & Collins will start building 210 Trade? It's been about a month since anything has been done on the residential tower side as far as I can tell. Once they start, I assume this tower will rise pretty quickly?

[JerseyBoy]

It depends, if it's concrete (which I think it is) then we might see one floor every 5-8 days but if it's steel then it would be way faster than that. Just look at how The Park got topped out in such a short amount of time.

[Andyc545]

Has anyone heard anything on when Flaherty & Collins will start building 210 Trade? It's been about a month since anything has been done on the residential tower side as far as I can tell. Once they start, I assume this tower will rise pretty quickly?

OK, so I've been doing some speculative detective work on the 210 Trade webcam history. The floor that is currently at the top, the 5th floor (I think), had its concrete poured the morning of the 13th of this month, about 17 days ago. This is a long time between floors being poured, considering the previous 4 floors were poured at a quicker rate. Looking at drawings and pictures of the buildings final product, this is actually the top floor before the tower itself begins erecting, that is the portion that is all glass. Right now we are at the stage of concrete with windows. I'm assuming the remainder of the structure will be steel and glass from here on out, however don't quote me on the steel, just speculation. I'm assuming the reason why we have had this 17 day halt of going vertical so far is that they have to swap out all of the equipment, teams of workers, and supplies for the tower. Once this has been done, it seems the building should be quickly going vertical. It's nice to see Epicenter topped out too.

Edited July 31, 2007 by Andyc545

[Guest]

It depends, if it's concrete (which I think it is) then we might see one floor every 5-8 days but if it's steel then it would be way faster than that. Just look at how The Park got topped out in such a short amount of time.

Actually 210trade has extremely small floorplates, and will go up a floor every 4-6 days. Its floorprint is two-thirds that of avenue. Its floor plate is only around 10-12k sq feet.