Metropolitan, Midtown Redevelopment

[cinco]

^ it ain't perfect... but, it sure as hell beats having to drive out to the 'burbs to get something you want/need from target. the metropolitian is very convienient for many people. while i have experienced some traffic clogging in the area - again, not as bad as the traffic i've experienced in the self contained, one way in - one way out, suburban strip malls.

[Andyc545]

^ it ain't perfect... but, it sure as hell beats having to drive out to the 'burbs to get something you want/need from target. the metropolitian is very convienient for many people. while i have experienced some traffic clogging in the area - again, not as bad as the traffic i've experienced in the self contained, one way in - one way out, suburban strip malls.

I agree. Everything can't just be small boxed, small business. People need a variety to choose from. That's how we benefit from a mixed economy, mix raced, central enviornment afterall. The traffic jams I saw were more with the Kings/Charlottetown intersection. The blame for that is the construction work and limiting lanes at the moment, and I'd expect as this project finishes, there will be less chaos. Yes- there will be a lot of traffic, there is not enough of projects like this to help people depend on walking by foot. In some of the other areas of our uptown, it's simply to far for one to walk to this. With more growth of urban style retail, such as this attempt, spread out to reach all of the wards and surrounding neighborhoods, then we will see more foot traffic and less cars. Right now, which realistically this is the first of these projects for Charlotte, there's a very limiting amount of people that can walk to this at the present moment. With the completion of the greenway and other pedestrian oriented cooridors and upgrades to our streets, then we will see more pedestrian envolvement with this project.

Afterall, the majority of the foot traffic that you see currently at our cities center are from people that drove there... You just don't see them driving the car b/c it is parked in a parking garage well walking. Metropolitian is going to give a similar stance. People will drive, park, then walk around the development once completed. Like I said, until there are more projects such as this accessibly by foot/bike/transit around uptown and neighborhoods, this will be heavily used and depended on by the people of these areas.

Edited October 29, 2007 by Andyc545

[monsoon]

Nobody ever said there wasn't cars in cities. The reason for my post was in reference to the claims made for this place that it would lead to a lot of pedestrian oriented activity which hasn't happened. It was a collosal failure on the city council, which made public money available for the project to 1. allow this kind of development in the first place, and 2. allowing it off the transit lines. (which they once said they wouldn't do)

There isn't anything to like about the met, unless you are someone living close by who misses the suburban life especially shopping in big box retail. Basically it boils down to that. This is why nobody in the suburbs cares much for downtown because it's doing it's best to remake itself, as I said before, into an office park with expensive condos, surrounded by chain store retail.

[Andyc545]

Nobody ever said there wasn't cars in cities. The reason for my post was in reference to the claims made for this place that it would lead to a lot of pedestrian oriented activity which hasn't happened.

But the Met isn't even open yet. Hard to expect pedestrian activity when all of the activites, condos, offices, and shops aren't even opened yet. I wouldn't expect to see pedestrian activity until this is complete, or at least until there are some paths paved. The master plan of this project, after all, is to incorporate everything that is under construction with the Target and HD. I am very optimistic about this project once it is completed as well as the greenway that this will be filled with a mixture of 'traffics', and that mixture is what's essential to an urban project.

Edited October 29, 2007 by Andyc545

[monsoon]

^I laid out my case months ago earlier in this topic when the plans first came out on why this is such a bad development. The only thing that seemed to excite you about it was the fact that one can get an $8000 refrigerator there. That isn't much to crow about in the urban planning dept., but I am willing to be corrected. So far the predictions I and some others made are holding true, but lets see where it is 6 months to a year from now.

[Justadude]

Can't speak to the foot traffic problem yet, because as has already been pointed out this project will not "fail" until it opens.

But I can say that it is a huge pain in the rear to live uptown and suddenly need a can of paint or a power saw. You can only get so much from the grocery stores, after that your next shopping option used to be the Wal-mart out on Wilkinson. The Met might not be accessible by rail (wish it had been), but at least it's in the same general area. That's a major livability factor, and if it helps people decide to move uptown rather than to the fringes, then I'm all for it.

If nothing else, this project will prove to be a barometer by which we can measure other attempts, hopefully leading to improvements over what was screwed up.

[Andyc545]

^I laid out my case months ago earlier in this topic when the plans first came out on why this is such a bad development. The only thing that seemed to excite you about it was the fact that one can get an $8000 refrigerator there. That isn't much to crow about in the urban planning dept., but I am willing to be corrected. So far the predictions I and some others made are holding true, but lets see where it is 6 months to a year from now.

Yes- let's see where it is 6 months from now...

I wasn't excited about the 8000 dollar refrigerator like you're making this into a huge deal. I have no need for one or the funds to spend that amount of money. I was surprised to see a high end line of products that catered to something different than the typical HD, aka- a refrigerator that is used for restraunts vs. the home. I for one was glad to walk into something that wasn't like walking into another HD, it was different, and that is what excited me. I expected to walk into a warehouse feeling filled with plywood. It was refreshing to see something different for a project that ultimately is "different for Charlotte."

[NCN8ive]

I've been there 3 times now. Once I walked from Center City and the other two times I drove there, used their free deck to park in, and walked from there to Center City. Does that mean I've just proven there is foot traffic? Def. as much as one visit by someone else in a car has proven there isn't any and that traffic will be bad. Pretty bad logic from what I can tell.

[Durhamite]

I've been there 3 times now. Once I walked from Center City and the other two times I drove there, used their free deck to park in, and walked from there to Center City. Does that mean I've just proven there is foot traffic? Def. as much as one visit by someone else in a car has proven there isn't any and that traffic will be bad. Pretty bad logic from what I can tell.

I was going to stop by there the other day but ran out of time. Traffic seemed to be minimal or manageable. Having lived in DC (in the CITY and suburbs) and many other larger city's...you call this traffic?

[jednc]

I was going to stop by there the other day but ran out of time. Traffic seemed to be minimal or manageable. Having lived in DC (in the CITY and suburbs) and many other larger city's...you call this traffic?

I agree with you on that one. That's a WHOLE other story too. As it relates to this one...so far I haven't seen bad traffic here. I also haven't been there at all hours on all days, but I just doubt it's any big deal.

[dubone]

So far, I have walked to this project three times, ridden there twice, and driven there twice. On a few of these cases, the money and shopping would have been done online but in two cases, I would have had to drive out 20 miles round trip to a Target in the suburbs.

While I have long agreed with some of the criticism, I don't really care what the it-should-not-have-been-built people say at this point, as it is already built. To me, while I'm not thrilled about the auto-centric nature of 99% of the people in this city, the fact that there is traffic is a good sign now, as it means that there are people coming into town to shop, creating a baseline of support that allows for the downtown/midtown retail market to grow. That market is needed to support national retail to come here, and for boutiques and mom&pops to take a risk and get loans to open up.

I must say that there is at least one problem with the people who are used to going out to 485 for their big box shopping. They are not used to seeing human beings outside their 4 ton armor. TWO times that I walked there, I used Stonewall rather than 3rd to go under Belk Freeway. BOTH times while crossing the entrance to one of the on-ramps, while already on the crosswalk, I had people do very dangerous and rude things that put me at risk.

The first time, a middle aged woman in a minivan decided to screech around the corner and come within 2 foot of me (no joke). I slapped the back window, but I'm sure that woman will not think twice in the future about risking another human being's life or limb.

The other time, on Saturday, I was 3 or 4 feet into the crosswalk, and a woman in an Expedition who apparently was going WAY too fast on Stonewall had to stop fast. Get this, instead of feeling sorry for being a risky driver and going too fast in areas with pedestrians, she revved past me and laid on the horn. Therefore, my new mortal enemy is a fudgeardly overweight middle-aged fake blonde woman with a white Expedition.

I think that there is truly a belief that unless there is a light, drivers do not need to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. The same thing happens at 6th and Pine in front of the Teeter. It doesn't matter if you are in the middle of the street in the crosswalk, cars will still zoom around you angrily as though you are jaywalking. Seriously, what is wrong with people that they forget their own humanity when behind the wheel.

[Raintree21]

Once the newness wears off, I'm sure the traffic will die down some. Even though the other stores aren't open yet and when they do, they'll attract even more traffic, but when they open, so will additional streets and parking options, allowing more traffic flow. Also, pedestrian traffic is probably low due to all of the construction and sidewalks being closed. When they open up and the greenway is finished, the area should be teeming with activity. Add in the residential component and the redevelopment of the Cherry neighborhood and whenever the Elizabeth redevelopment takes place and all the pieces will fall into place. Just give it time.

[voyager12]

I have walked a few times from Dilworth when purchasing smaller items from Tarjay. When I do drive I park along Charlottetowne alongside the garage or opposite and walk in. There always seem to be spaces and that way I don't have to battle the garage madness. In general Charlotteans are horrible to pedestrians. Everyone makes mistakes behind the wheel regarding walkers including myself but it seems worse here than other places I have lived. My running route down East Blvd is an obstacle course of dodging speeding soccer moms in mammoth SUVS and workaholic stressed out bankers in beemers

Edited October 30, 2007 by voyager12

[thateasta]

Hello everyone. Can someone elaborate on the supposedly "2nd Phase" of this project? I browsed through the history of this thread, and read somewhere that the 2nd phase would include more retail. Mainly a Best Buy.

[Guest]

Hello everyone. Can someone elaborate on the supposedly "2nd Phase" of this project? I browsed through the history of this thread, and read somewhere that the 2nd phase would include more retail. Mainly a Best Buy.

First of all the additional retail is not a "supposed second phase" as u called it. The Second Phase is actually 20 story condo tower, with more retail. Best Buy, Marshalls, and numerous other restaurants and retail options, refer to previous posts, this is where all ur questions can be answered.

[dubone]

The first phase is what is open, the second phase is what is under construction and the third phase is a condo tower that is not yet under construction.

The second phase is the section between Charlottetowne Ave and the old Baxter Bridge, which includes the office tower almost complete, a number of residential projects (MetLofts and MetTerraces) which have been for sale for a year or more. It includes a large number of street retailers that will likely be a mixture of boutiques and national retailers like Birkdale and Philipps place. They will face a new pedestrian oriented street, Metropolitan Avenue, which will connect a rerouted Baxter to Charlottetowne Avenue to add more grid connectivity in the area. A Best Buy, a Staples and either Marshalls or TJ Maxx (owned by the same company, so the brand used will be up to TJX Corp, similar to how Home Depot chose 'Home Depot Design Center' brand rather than a Home Depot or Expo Design Center) will be built in the large building under construction at Kings and Charlottetowne. They will be in 2 stories, which I suspect will have Best Buy on the upper floor, as they are building a lot of windows into the ground level of the building.

Read through the thread for more of how that has evolved, and more details, but that is the summary of where we stand now. I suspect much of phase 2 will open next year.

Most of the renderings on http://www.metmidtown.com are of phase 2.

[Norm2]

So.....is southbound Kings being turned into one lane!?

[dubone]

They are going to turn Baxters across that random triangular plot to connect it in with their roundabout at Metropolitan Avenue. I believe they are shifting Kings east a bit as part of that. It will remain two lanes per direction, but what you are seeing is the process for doing all that reconfiguration.

[Andyc545]

There is now a flythrough video posted on this project. It's not as nice as the NASCAR Parcel one, but it is good to see some perspective animations on this project and what we can somewhat expect. It's fairly detailed, but I warn you, it took me a few tries before getting the buffered video to play through...

http://www.collett.biz/Properties/Met-Video.aspx

EDIT: Had trouble playing it in Firefox, but works in IE

Edited November 14, 2007 by Andyc545

[New Name]

Looks great. Makes me even more mad that this place isn't actually inside the loop.

[orulz]

The flythrough video is pretty cool. I'm still having a hard time telling where the entrance to Best Buy and the other anchors will be. Will there be any entrances on the corner facing Charlottetowne, or will that be where the loading docks, etc. are found?

[dubone]

In the commercial insert for this weekend's CBJ, there was an article about big box retailers returning to central Charlotte. Midtown obviously was the chief subject of the article. It doesn't appear to be online, so I'll add some points mentioned in the article.

Some points that I found interesting were that the Target alone is expectin 6000 customers per day. If they are beating expectations (as someone mentioned earlier here), then I wonder how much more that number is. I went twice this weekend (I walked once, but even if I drove both times, I'd still have ~8 more trips to do to equal one trip to the U-City Target ), and it had a decent number of people in there. I also saw a beggar out front today, which was a nice charm.

The Metropolitan project as a whole is expecting 10-15k visitors per day. I bet that many of those will be for trips that people currently take out to 485 areas to go to those retailers, so even if all of them drove (which won't be the case), that is a pretty significant drop in vehicle miles traveled.

What I found most interesting in the article is that FMW is hinting more about what retailers they are likely to attract to their 52,000 sf retail project across King's from Target. They are pursuing retailers in the standard mix that were not included in the original Metropolitan project. The article mentioned bookstore, sporting goods, shoe stores and furniture stores, although it is just an oblique reference, and not necessarily a hint of what is coming. They did imply that there were some retailers that were not able to get into Metropolitan, so it seems there might be some lined up already.

I think there is a very strong case for extending the Red Gold Rush line to Kings or Charlottetowne to provide a good transit connection there from downtown, although it doesn't run on evening and weekends. I think it would, however, provide a great connection for uptown visitors and workers to hop on the trolley bus to pick up a couple of things they need at the stores.

The last thing I'll mention is what we already know, but it repeats the fact that Best Buy, Marshalls and Trader Joes are going in there.

[atlrvr]

^ I know you were mentioning what was confirmed in the CBJ, but I want to add that also we KNOW that Harper's and Staples are coming too.

As far as what would good to the FMW project, I would speculate a Bed Bath & Beyond....beyond that, I'm not sure who else. Whole Foods might be interested if they are still looking for an intown site, and are done with Grubb. I'm sure they would be happy to go to a more suburban-style location as the FMW project is sure to be.

[ontap]

Has Chili's been confirmed as tenant? I noticed in the Collett Associates fly-thru that the Chili's logo is used on the restaurant spot to the right of the center fountain. All the other retail/restaurant spaces just had a generic "diner", "restaurant", "ice cream" placeholder. The only other logos I noticed were for Staples, Marshalls, and Best Buy.

[voyager12]

I am really beginning to doubt early buzz about local restaurants and stores locating in Met. Unique retail would give the place some character.