Misc. Uptown Projects/News

[videtur quam contuor]

15 or so years ago a long time local restaurant owner told me the J&W students were composed of an overly large proportion subsidised by affluent-to-wealthy families. I paraphrase here as his exact term was "trust fund" students.

[TheOneRJ]

17 hours ago, kermit said:

Yes, JWU has seen declining enrollments for a while now, the Charlotte campus has one foot in the grave. Higher ed in general is going to feel a bunch of pain as the number of college age students declines, schools like JWU (expensive and small) are going to get the worst of it. Even peripheral UNC system schools are seeing enrollment declines (particularly ECU).

Edit: this story is from the CBJ in August: https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2022/08/26/johnson-wales-university-jwu-campus-crossroads.html

 

As of last week it seems they have finally filled the President role and quotes from him still suggest they plan to remain in Charlotte for the foreseeable future attempting to grow the population.

[midtownclt]

DEVELOPMENT

Duke Energy finalizes sale of 1 of 2 uptown buildings, as developers plan changes

Here’s the latest on what out-of-town developers are planning to do at 401 South College St. and 526 South Church St.

[KJHburg]

from the Biz Journal about Dukes Bunker building at 526 S Church.  Plans slightly revised but this is the current plan. 

""Phase one now includes the adaptive reuse and conversion of the 13-story office building into 450 multifamily units with 60,000 square feet of activated ground-floor retail and a separate retail building at the corner of Brooklyn Village Avenue and South Church Street that Sullivan said will be a focal point.

The redevelopment will span 1.5 million square feet and is estimated to cost about $280 million, according to an MRP project outline.  MRP is taking a multi-phased approach that could eventually include office space, more apartment units, additional retail and green space. The developer is partnering with Charlotte-based Asana Partners on the retail aspect of the project.""

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2022/12/16/duke-enery-closes-sales-uptown-properties-cre.html

[carolinaboy]

28 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

from the Biz Journal about Dukes Bunker building at 526 S Church.  Plans slightly revised but this is the current plan. 

""Phase one now includes the adaptive reuse and conversion of the 13-story office building into 450 multifamily units with 60,000 square feet of activated ground-floor retail and a separate retail building at the corner of Brooklyn Village Avenue and South Church Street that Sullivan said will be a focal point.

The redevelopment will span 1.5 million square feet and is estimated to cost about $280 million, according to an MRP project outline.  MRP is taking a multi-phased approach that could eventually include office space, more apartment units, additional retail and green space. The developer is partnering with Charlotte-based Asana Partners on the retail aspect of the project.""

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2022/12/16/duke-enery-closes-sales-uptown-properties-cre.html

Could this spur development across the street (Brooklyn Village Ave) of the second Honeywell tower or other development?

[15895]

1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

from the Biz Journal about Dukes Bunker building at 526 S Church.  Plans slightly revised but this is the current plan. 

""Phase one now includes the adaptive reuse and conversion of the 13-story office building into 450 multifamily units with 60,000 square feet of activated ground-floor retail and a separate retail building at the corner of Brooklyn Village Avenue and South Church Street that Sullivan said will be a focal point.

The redevelopment will span 1.5 million square feet and is estimated to cost about $280 million, according to an MRP project outline.  MRP is taking a multi-phased approach that could eventually include office space, more apartment units, additional retail and green space. The developer is partnering with Charlotte-based Asana Partners on the retail aspect of the project.""

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2022/12/16/duke-enery-closes-sales-uptown-properties-cre.html

Finally. It’s been a while since there was a project uptown that had an interesting ground level. This side at least. 

Some restaurants/bars & a bi-level CVS maybe a smaller format grocery store would be nice in that thing. 

Whatever is in the there, these are neighborhood type amenities uptown needs to be a better place to live. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by AirNostrumMAD

[SouthEndCLT811]

8 minutes ago, AirNostrumMAD said:

Finally. It’s been a while since there was a project uptown that had an interesting ground level. This side at least. 

Some restaurants/bars & a bi-level CVS maybe a smaller format grocery store would be nice in that thing. 

Whatever is in the there, these are neighborhood type amenities uptown needs to be a better place to live. 

Despite being our new big box overlords an Amazon Go would be kind of cool for this space.  My wife and I were just in Europe and comparably the Carrefour City's were nice to pop in and get some basics for the apartment.  Amazon Go is the first thing I thought of but I'm sure there are others.  Not much different dry goods wise then a CVS but they seemed to have more produce and standard grocery store options.

Edited December 16, 2022 by SouthEndCLT811

[kermit]

This portion of Third Ward really needs to develop more of a Southend vibe in order to keep the office space attractive in the post-pandemic world. This project will help, as would transforming the Dog House into something open more than 10 days a year. Its really a shame that Legacy Union failed to blossom into anything more than a vertical suburban office park. If Lincoln Harris were smart they would start bankrolling more entertainment / retail / restaurant development in their ‘hood’.

Edited December 19, 2022 by kermit

[CLT2014]

Just goes to show with a little bit of vision and creativity, you can transform a 40+ year old building that looks like it is from Belarus into something more interesting, engaging, and attractive than a completely brand new  cheap structure inspired by people that are dull pencil pushers (COUGH COUGH LEGACY UNION). 

I won't be surprised if Legacy Union reacts to the new excitement across the street by building a new parking garage on the remaining parcel... That way they can keep leaning into their current motto of "We'll always have room for you your 4Runner"

Edited December 16, 2022 by CLT2014

[CharlotteWkndBuzz]

Love the separate retail dedicated structure! I may be wrong on this but did someone mention a long time ago that the old duke building was built to accommodate a tower above it? Also, that empty parking lot beside this would be prime for a hotel/residential tower. The more ppl we can get living in the area, the better retail that we all want will come. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by CharlotteWkndBuzz

[15895]

4 minutes ago, CLT2014 said:

Just goes to show with a little bit of vision and creativity, you can transform a 40+ year old building that looks like it is from Belarus into something more interesting, engaging, and attractive than a completely brand new  cheap structure built from scratch (COUGH COUGH LEGACY UNION). 

Yeah. 
 

I also just noticed the direction this retail will be facing. From Ink & Ivey’s to “Brooklyn Village Blvd” could have great synergy all around. Rhino Market, Latta Arcade, Catalyst Apartments retail, this thing.

Let’s hope Legacy Union gets the last parcel right and maybe snaking from Whole Foods to Ink & Ivey’s there’s fairly robust retail/restaurants. Not too hopeful but there’s yuge potential. At very least, this area of uptown will start to have a mass of things. 

[KJHburg]

6 hours ago, carolinaboy said:

Could this spur development across the street (Brooklyn Village Ave) of the second Honeywell tower or other development?

It will provide more retail options and with apartments there more customers.  and maybe Legacy will include the hotel they promised.   Could spur them to do a residential project.  

Edited December 17, 2022 by KJHburg

[DMann]

Third Ward Intrigue?

 

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-charlotte

[RANYC]

49 minutes ago, DMann said:

Third Ward Intrigue?

 

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-charlotte

This was up for sale last year and then pulled from the market after getting no takers.  In the current interest rate environment with pools of capital overextended in real estate and private market assets, could a tiny plot with a hot dog shop be more appealing now than it was during the buying and prospecting mania last year, all while keeping the same listed price as the one last year that wrought them no takers?  Will be fun to monitor…

[CLTProductions]

3 hours ago, RANYC said:

This was up for sale last year and then pulled from the market after getting no takers.  In the current interest rate environment with pools of capital overextended in real estate and private market assets, could a tiny plot with a hot dog shop be more appealing now than it was during the buying and prospecting mania last year, all while keeping the same listed price as the one last year that wrought them no takers?  Will be fun to monitor…

even more expensive now! It was $2.5m last year i thought? $3m now.

[tozmervo]

21 minutes ago, CLTProductions said:

even more expensive now! It was $2.5m last year i thought? $3m now.

Inflation has been high. The value went from 769,231 Green's hot dogs to 923,077 Green's hot dogs. 

[Reverie39]

On 12/16/2022 at 12:43 PM, CLT2014 said:

Many young people are waking up to the reality that some college degrees don't hold any more weight with employers than a high school diploma, other than loading you up with thousands in debt. It is getting even more competitive to get into the elite or well known schools, but small universities are suffering as people consider if trade school or just directly entering the workforce is better than a school that an employer looks at on a resume and goes "what's that?"

I think this is probably close to the main reason. People are seeing that the student debt crisis is unfortunately heavily fueled by students getting expensive degrees in fields that cannot provide them the salaries to pay those debts. 

[kermit]

2 hours ago, Reverie39 said:

I think this is probably close to the main reason. People are seeing that the student debt crisis is unfortunately heavily fueled by students getting expensive degrees in fields that cannot provide them the salaries to pay those debts. 

At the risk of being even more pedantic than usual, I'll point out that the tuition paid for bachelors degrees (from public universities after adjusting for inflation) is not much higher than it used to be in terms of total costs.  The tuition paid by students is much higher because the public subsidy for higher education has been substantially reduced over the past three decades. Back in the quaint world of the 1980s, even republicans believed that there was a societal benefit to helping people get degrees in things like teaching, nursing and pharmacy so the state of NC payed 80% of of the cost of Bachelors degrees in the UNC System at one point. Now every student is expected to pay nearly the full cost of this training.  This consumer cost increase (i.e. reduction in public subsidy) comes despite Article IX of the NC Constitution saying the following:

Quote

Sec. 9.  Benefits of public institutions of higher education.

The General Assembly shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense. [emphasis added]

When I see 25 years of declining relative incomes in North Carolina I generally view our changing attitudes towards higher education as one of several causes. There is certainly a temporal correlation and some logical causal connections but it is hard to statistically verify due to lots of confounding variables.

Edited December 22, 2022 by kermit

[rancenc]

Follow up article to @KJHburg's December 16 posting of the proposed redevelopment of Duke Energy's old offices.

https://rebusinessonline.com/mrp-asana-plan-mixed-use-redevelopment-of-duke-energy-headquarters-in-charlotte/

[KJHburg]

Okay this popped up while I was not looking and is already topped out.  the new Charlotte Rescue Mission.

Don't give to people on the street (unless food) but support this organization.

https://charlotterescuemission.org/

https://miracleatcedarstreet.org/

 

[RANYC]

Wow, imagine the parking decks along Church Street adapted to look like this deck.

 

[midtownclt]

Building permits posted on door of Amelie's.  A peek inside and it appears major renovation taking place.

 

[Norm2]

50 minutes ago, midtownclt said:

Building permits posted on door of Amelie's.  A peek inside and it appears major renovation taking place.

 

Hopefully the new exhaust system will prove useful

[turbocraig]

Wells is vacating One and Two WF altogether, according to the O today.  Consolidating everyone in Three WF and the old DEC.  I'm sure that tower will be re-branded soon.  From the O:

"The bank will move employees out of the One and Two Wells Fargo Center buildings, according to a memo sent to Charlotte-area employees on Tuesday morning. Offices will be consolidated, with workers moving to the Three Wells Fargo Center and 550 S. Tryon Street, the former Duke Energy building. That tower on S. Tryon Street will effectively become the bank’s new Charlotte headquarters. By the end of this year, Wells Fargo will occupy 95% of the office space at 550 S. Tryon, the memo said. The bank already owned the building."

Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/banking/article271848872.html#storylink=cpy

[CLT2014]

1 hour ago, turbocraig said:

Wells is vacating One and Two WF altogether, according to the O today.  Consolidating everyone in Three WF and the old DEC.  I'm sure that tower will be re-branded soon.  From the O:

"The bank will move employees out of the One and Two Wells Fargo Center buildings, according to a memo sent to Charlotte-area employees on Tuesday morning. Offices will be consolidated, with workers moving to the Three Wells Fargo Center and 550 S. Tryon Street, the former Duke Energy building. That tower on S. Tryon Street will effectively become the bank’s new Charlotte headquarters. By the end of this year, Wells Fargo will occupy 95% of the office space at 550 S. Tryon, the memo said. The bank already owned the building."

Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/banking/article271848872.html#storylink=cpy

Is WF moving towards shared workstations as employees work hybrid schedules? How much of Two Wells Fargo was occupied by Wells Fargo? That building seems like it will be devastated, but maybe they aren't as big a tenant as the naming rights suggest. 

Edited January 31, 2023 by CLT2014