Belk Place: Carolina Theater and Hotel Intercontinental

[atlrvr]

Yes, the building permit for the foundation specified micro-piles.

[KJHburg]

the Intercontinental Hotel today rising slower.   Cleveland Construction who did the Skye Condos is doing the work.  

[Dale]

That definitely looks like foundation work.

[Guest]

This was redesigned a bit, a little sexier, and I'm trying real hard to get official renderings. 

[nicholas]

8 hours ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

This was redesigned a bit, a little sexier, and I'm trying real hard to get official renderings. 

Pics or it didn’t happen. 

[CLT>]

There were more dry cleaning chemicals than originally thought on the site, but it's only behind 1 month at this point. The Foundation did decide that the theatre portion won't open until about 2mo after the RNC comes to town, no confirmation on the hotel opening date yet.

[SentioVenia]

[DMann]

'Bout time, they have driven a piling into every square inch of that site!

[KJHburg]

Walked by earlier today.  Slow progress here but some progress.  

Bonus shot of the old Montaldo's building now the Foundation for the Carolinas.  

North Tryon is home of more of older Charlotte's historical buildings than any other part of uptown. 

[nicholas]

[SpiritOf76]

[tozmervo]

I'd like to start a GoFundMe to get @SpiritOf76 a handheld camera stabilizer  

[DMann]

I thought I saw the beginning of a tower crane on the site,  I am going by there in a bit to double check it

[DMann]

Nope, my bad!

[Hushpuppy321]

I suspect we won't have a Tower Crane at this site until the May/June timeframe.  Tight sites like these always slowdown construction and make things complicated.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Hushpuppy321

[navigator319]

The entire Empire State Building was built and opened in the amount of time that has passed since work began here. All the fancy engineering reasons in the world won’t change that fact and in the abstract that is mightily fuked up. Glacial.

 

 

[Guest]

The entire Empire State Building was built and opened in the amount of time that has passed since work began here. All the fancy engineering reasons in the world won’t change that fact and in the abstract that is mightily fuked up. Glacial.

 

 

I don’t think you can fit 3,400 people shoulder to shoulder on this site...

 

Also engineering isn’t the reason. There’s a ton of reasons, but my fingers can’t type that much on my phone. I’ll check back in the morning.

 

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[Dale]

17 hours ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

I don’t think you can fit 3,400 people shoulder to shoulder on this site...

 

Also engineering isn’t the reason. There’s a ton of reasons, but my fingers can’t type that much on my phone. I’ll check back in the morning.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ricky, can you summarize ?

 

[videtur quam contuor]

Navigator used Empire State Building as a comparison for this building but the ESB was famous, (still is) for the developers throwing everything at it for construction with 3400 workers (not all at the same time) and finishing the building in just over one year. A marvel of logistics and planning, and the site allowed 24/7 opportunity. Five men died during construction. That is my summary.

[Dale]

35 minutes ago, tarhoosier said:

Navigator used Empire State Building as a comparison for this building but the ESB was famous, (still is) for the developers throwing everything at it for construction with 3400 workers (not all at the same time) and finishing the building in just over one year. A marvel of logistics and planning, and the site allowed 24/7 opportunity. Five men died during construction. That is my summary.

True, but I got the impression Ricky was hinting at other factors.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Dale said:

Ricky, can you summarize ?

 

Empire State Building was built at a time before OSHA (created in 1971) Regulations

Empire State Building was built at a time where there was no labor shortage, hell nobody had jobs. Now theres a major labor shortage. Gotta have people to build these buildings.

... is a 2 acre site hemmed in by streets on 3 sides (2 are wide boulevards). Intercontinental is 3/20ths of an acre, and hemmed in on two sides with historical buildings, 1 side with a narrow road, 1 with a decently big road. 

... was built in about a wide open of an area as you could get in NYC in 1930. Even today the tallest adjacent building is 5 floors. Intercontinental will literally be built into and cantilever over a theatre that has been rotting for decades. 

Intercontinental, because its proximity to everything else will need specialty equipment, specialty engineers. 

Literally everything needs to be shored up because its proximity to two historic buildings. 

Government shutdown, trade wars, tarrifs, deporting people.

So many reasons for this to take a long time.

They also dumped someone on the team midway, I believe.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Guest

[Dale]

2 hours ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

Empire State Building was built at a time before OSHA (created in 1971) Regulations

Empire State Building was built at a time where there was no labor shortage, hell nobody had jobs. Now theres a major labor shortage. Gotta have people to build these buildings.

... is a 2 acre site hemmed in by streets on 3 sides (2 are wide boulevards). Intercontinental is 3/20ths of an acre, and hemmed in on two sides with historical buildings, 1 side with a narrow road, 1 with a decently big road. 

... was built in about a wide open of an area as you could get in NYC in 1930. Even today the tallest adjacent building is 5 floors. Intercontinental will literally be built into and cantilever over a theatre that has been rotting for decades. 

Intercontinental, because its proximity to everything else will need specialty equipment, specialty engineers. 

Literally everything needs to be shored up because its proximity to two historic buildings. 

Government shutdown, trade wars, tarrifs, deporting people.

So many reasons for this to take a long time.

They also dumped someone on the team midway, I believe.

Oh, I thought you were going to say that they needed more money again. I’m just pissed that government is open for business again.

[Guest]

Oh, I thought you were going to say that they needed more money again. I’m just pissed that government is open for business again.

Nah they just got a big dollar permit, so it should be ready to go soon.


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[southernnorthcarolina]

Well, these things take time.

The Carolina Theater closed more than 40 years ago.  What to do, what to do, what to do went on for decades.  CityFair, including retail and a parking deck, came and went; there were all sorts of proposals to intergrate a renovated Carolina Theater into CityFair, but when the downtown Belk closed, CityFair (the primary purpose of which was to provide parking for Belk) quickly folded, and was demolished.

This thread began over 11 years ago, with the then-anticipated luxury condo plus a Jetsons type scheme of an elevator for the condo-owners' cars.  Like that was ever going to happen.

The current scheme, financed with generous corporate donations and tax dollars, looks like it is actually happening, and it may be worth the wait; it is most impressive.  And yet, details are still lacking.  So many questions...

There seems to be no parking.  And this is not necessarily a problem, with the Hearst parking deck adjacent, and other nearby facilities, as well.  The big advantage of a hotel as opposed to condos is that most hotel guests will arrive by cab or other transit.  Most of what parking is needed by hotel guests will be at night, so I would think a deal could be arranged with the Hearst Tower.  And I would assume that most theater events will take place at night and on weekends.   Further, isn't a direct connection between the Heart garage and the hotel's 6th flooor lobby possible?  And if so, wouldn't this provide a connection to the Overstreet Mall bridge system?

Is there a loading dock for the hotel, perhaps in the basement?  Is there a service elevator?

It appears that the glass in the hotel tower is now darkly tinted, which makes sense from a privacy standpoint.  But the glass enclosure of the theater facade, which will serve as a lobby, remains clear, which is also logical., for visibilty of the historic theater facade within.   "Standard" insulating glass has a very light green tint, but for a premium price, hyper-clear glass can be specified (how to avoid killing hapless birds is another problem).  Very clear glass, plus bright LED lighting (even during daylight) could really highlight the historic theater facade.

It's a most exciting project, and I look forward to learning more details, however slowly.

 

[jednc]

48 minutes ago, Dale said:

Oh, I thought you were going to say that they needed more money again. I’m just pissed that government is open for business again.

When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. (nail = damn Democratic handouts) 

Edited January 29, 2019 by jednc
added the smiley for some context