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Ritz-Carlton Hotel & 1 Bank of America Center

uptownliving

By uptownliving
in Charlotte

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dubone Megalopolis

dubone

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I have been very surprised they didn't just plan to stack the hotel with the hotel. That would solve the street retail problem with this project. It would also help to keep this project from being the standard 32 story height that most towers downtown are. I think a a single ~48 story tower with a vertical mixture of uses, and solid street retail would be a superior project to a 32 story office tower with no street retail and a 15 story hotel tower with no street retail.

Even though most of the urbanists on this site are not all about height, and thus are typically okay with two towers over one. But if having the two towers means there is no space in the design for street retail, then it is obviously not superior from an urbanist point of view.

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dubone Megalopolis

dubone

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I'm not refering to the typo. I agree that is not something we should read into. I'm reading into the new news that the parking deck will need to be imploded, leading to an obvious chance for redesign of the project. I'm also reading into the fact that Perkins+Will has not release any more renderings, and claims to be finalizing the design (which can be interpretted as a large change or minor adjustments).

I think they SHOULD merge the two towers and fix the groundlevel designs. If they don't plan it, then fine. But I think there are some new situations that I think could reasonably have led the project owners to that same realization.

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CHARtoSF Unincorporated Area

CHARtoSF

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I get the feeling that the layout of the lower levels, mainly the first two floors, is going to change. Since they are going to have the entire block to work with all the way to the light rail line because the parking deck will be imploded, how can you not make this a much better street level project than what was originally proposed? With all the flack this project has been getting throughout this thread about street level retail and interaction, I hope somehow the next proposed rendering will address this much better.

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queensguy06 Hamlet

queensguy06

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Dubone, that would also explain why not more than a month ago I found an architectural drawing of both buildings from the side with a cutaway of the 'winter garden' inbetween, but since then I have not been able to find it again for the life of me. Funny how it just disappeared.

As for a complete redesign of both buildings, I wouldn't go that far. However, I am in the group that thinks we might see more street level interaction. The site is bounded by Epicenter on one side and the LRT and Arena on another - which lends itself to heavy foot traffic. This would leave room for the hotel entrance/doorman on the side fronting College St.

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ES Charlotte Whistle-Stop

ES Charlotte

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Today i was walking down trade st. and stopped to ask a man at the construction site what they were doing with the current parking garage. He said the plans were two add two lower levels underground and three on top. Im not sure why they would do this or if this dude isnt allowed to say what is really going on.. Is everyone positve the are imploding the deck??

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A2 Town

A2

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Today i was walking down trade st. and stopped to ask a man at the construction site what they were doing with the current parking garage. He said the plans were two add two lower levels underground and three on top. Im not sure why they would do this or if this dude isnt allowed to say what is really going on.. Is everyone positve the are imploding the deck??

I am asking the same question. I went by on my way to the PitaPit (Mmm Yummy), and saw more digging on the site. It just seems moronic to continue to dig a hole that will eventually be filled with ruble from the parking garage once it is brought down. Why not just stop digging bring the thing down and start from scratch. It is a total wasted effort and a lack of forsight to see the money being used up in further escavation if all along it will have to be dug right back up. ;)

A2

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Mobuchu Burg

Mobuchu

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I tried to get some info out of a friend of mine who is working on this project, but unfortunetly he is a company man and wouldn't give me anything juicy. He did however squash the idea of this being a stacked/single building project. Also the parking deck was not originally planned to come down, this was a late change. And he agreed it would be stupid not to have retail incorporated into the new deck...

And I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but as part of the "green" technology going into this project, it will have a "green wall" that will create cleaner air out of the building then what went in. Someone who knows more about this stuff can clarify, but the air being pulled into the building will pass through a natural filter system in the form of a waterfall with plants. What a great idea considering how terrible Charlottes air is ranked amongst the nations cities.

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atlrvr Metropolitan Area

atlrvr

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Great news about the air cleanser....they are doing this with their NYC tower as well.

If the garage demo/rebuild holds true, and retail is added, this will make an infinite level of difference to E Trade St. Having a street presence that invites pedestrians abutting the LRT-underpass would make people feel much much safer about walking in that area. EpiCentre will help, but it doesn't appear to have much retail near the rail bridge. This combined with the arena retail, will actually make for a pleasant walk.

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revitalize Whistle-Stop

revitalize

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With demo of the existing deck, I really hope they take this opportunity to create ped-friendly wide sidewalks, with areas of retail, street cafes, etc. Some pedestrian-scale architecture (i.e. low rise then step back to hi-rise). They have the chance to create a signature plaza that feeds off of the EpiCentre, transit center, and light rail stop - the "BoA signature gateway." Also tie the architecture in somehow with the "signature bridge" of the LRT that the city spent so much energy on getting.

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Guest

Guest

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BOASuperblock.jpg

I found this tiny rendering of the new boa building, this looks much more like a real building instead of a massing diagram. This would seem to have the winter garden on the bottom corner, so I'd imagine this would be a view basically from fuel pizza. You can see the plazas every three floors with trees, and glass that is obviously transparent/transleucent. I don't know if this is the real deal, but if so, I like the subtle curve.

http://www.wbmoore.com/current.aspx

Website found at, I noticed it searching for good images of 210trade.

It seems the whole project has been dubbed "Bank of America SuperBlock" If you search that name, you get a couple of job offers for the "superblock team" which has to do with the execution of the project.

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AuLukey Town

AuLukey

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How sure are we that the parking deck is coming down? I personally haven't heard any news that they've decided to tear it down. A while ago they were just going to upfit it to glass. It wouldnt make sense to dig so fast when it'll just be filled back up by debris.

Well, the debris does have to go somewhere, better a hole than the street.

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DigitalSky City

DigitalSky

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BOASuperblock.jpg

I found this tiny rendering of the new boa building, this looks much more like a real building instead of a massing diagram. This would seem to have the winter garden on the bottom corner, so I'd imagine this would be a view basically from fuel pizza. You can see the plazas every three floors with trees, and glass that is obviously transparent/transleucent. I don't know if this is the real deal, but if so, I like the subtle curve.

http://www.wbmoore.com/current.aspx

Website found at, I noticed it searching for good images of 210trade.

It seems the whole project has been dubbed "Bank of America SuperBlock" If you search that name, you get a couple of job offers for the "superblock team" which has to do with the execution of the project.

Wow! great find Mr. Nibles

Upon looking at I really like the subtle curves. Hopefully a larger image will surface soon :)

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A2 Town

A2

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They drilled and excavated all week (especially at night). One night I was out rather late with a group from out of town and actually saw them drilling down at 1 AM. This makes it hard for me to belive that they are still going to impolde the Parking deck. It make no sense. Why dig when it makes it extremely diffcult to remove debris from a tierd site. This seems downright moronic and a waste of money and time if that is the what they actually do.

A2

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A2 Town

A2

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FWIW it is 11PM on a Friday night and they are still digging. Take a snap shot of the 1st of the month and then take another of today. It is amazing how much deeper they have gone down in just one months time. If they were really going to implode the deck wouldn't they be a bit more slow on digging and rather be more insistant on getting things in line to process the demo of the deck. It not only takes approval via the city, but it takes time to prep the building that is being demolished which can take weeks even months.

A2

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