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atlrvr

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1 hour ago, JBS said:

Downtown Denver is indeed a fantastic city (and better than Uptown Charlotte today in a LOT of ways). I feel about San Diego the way Elrod appears to feel about Denver. But the progress made in Charlotte since I arrived in 2004 is extraordinary. And the financial incentives to live here and not there are huge. I LOVE Charlotte but recognize that it will never be 75 year round with beaches, mountains and great Mexican restaurants on every corner. I also revel in the many things Charlotte has that San Diego never will (including gorgeous fall weather like we've enjoyed this week). Every city has tradeoffs but I think Charlotte has a compelling package of amenities. That said, I'm all for constructive criticism of the city (that's what this board should be about).

Living in Oregon now for a little while... Your mentioning of Mexican restaurants reminds me of a conversation I keep having with strangers up here about Charlotte...and NC in general:  " Your BBQ is fantastic!  Can you recommend a place when we return??"   I met a couple on a plane heading back recently who were going to leave the airport and drive immediately up to Salisbury for some vinegar based BBQ.   They were jonesing that bad.

Edited by Windsurfer
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On 11/24/2021 at 9:38 PM, elrodvt said:

"the city has a thriving central business district (Uptown).

You agree with this?

it's all relative I guess but it's sure not thriving from a "living there"  perspective (imho).

Actually I totally agree. The heart of Uptown which is anything North/Northwest of the LYNX Blue Line is very busy 18-hours, 7 days a week. That's remarkably active for a city that had a practically undeveloped urban core about 2 decades ago. North Tryon and Church Streets are both very active on a street level 18 hours everyday.

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3 minutes ago, kayman said:

Actually I totally agree. The heart of Uptown which is anything North/Northwest of the LYNX Blue Line is very busy 18-hours, 7 days a week. That's remarkably active for a city that had a practically undeveloped urban core about 2 decades ago. North Tryon and Church Streets are both very active on a street level 18 hours everyday.

Do you live there? It's certainly not what I observed until we moved 2 years ago.

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18 minutes ago, elrodvt said:

Do you live there? It's certainly not what I observed until we moved 2 years ago.

No I live in a neighborhood adjacent to Uptown though. However, I bike, travel by foot, or via LYNX Blue Line  through Uptown although the day on a regular most days a week.  Honestly, I travel around the city often via bike. Uptown is thriving as early as 7AM most days and late as 2AM most nights in those aforementioned areas. 

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Charlotte is near the bottom of this global  list and that is a good thing for us.  JLL looks at the premier office submarkets in the country and of course NYC Midtown and Hong Kong central tie as the most expensive.  Charlotte is way near the bottom at $37 a sq ft.  less than Nashville at $38 Atlanta at $49 a foot, Miami at $80 a foot. Dallas at $56 a foot Denver at $49 a foot.

 NYC Midtown is $261 a foot ouch! 

Charlotte is literally down at the bottom few.

Premium Office Rent Tracker, 2021 (jll.com)  download the whole report.  

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24 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Charlotte is near the bottom of this global  list and that is a good thing for us.  JLL looks at the premier office submarkets in the country and of course NYC Midtown and Hong Kong central tie as the most expensive.  Charlotte is way near the bottom at $37 a sq ft.  less than Nashville at $38 Atlanta at $49 a foot, Miami at $80 a foot. Dallas at $56 a foot Denver at $49 a foot.

 NYC Midtown is $261 a foot ouch! 

Charlotte is literally down at the bottom few.

Premium Office Rent Tracker, 2021 (jll.com)  download the whole report.  

This isn't tracking just office space costs, but "premier" office space.  What would that be in Charlotte - is it everything in Charlotte that we classify as Class A space, or something else?  

Sure, it's good for some that we're a cheap date, but I suppose one could argue that a number of the cities on the list are priced where they are because they're so desirable and in demand.  Perhaps I'd rather have our desirability surge because we offer so many quality of life amenities and consequently our prices go up, than for us to keep our cheap date standing and the resulting price cap.

 

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The downside to the price per square foot being so low, is I'd assume this is a factor in value-engineering we see in Charlotte. Add a fancy crown, build a waterfall, awnings, brick facades, et.... doesn't necessarily mean you are going to be able to charge more for it so developers have to account for the building aligning to what market rents are.

Edited by CLT2014
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7 minutes ago, RANYC said:

This isn't tracking just office space costs, but "premier" office space.  What would that be in Charlotte - is it everything in Charlotte that we classify as Class A space, or something else?  

Sure, it's good for some that we're a cheap date, but I suppose one could argue that a number of the cities on the list are priced where they are because they're so desirable and in demand.  Perhaps I'd rather have our desirability surge because we offer so many quality of life amenities and consequently our prices go up, than for us to keep our cheap date standing and the resulting price cap.

 

they are talking Class AA towers the newest and best and buildings like BOAT, Ally, Duke Energy Center current,  BOFACC, Truist/Heart Tower,  300 South Tryon, 1 BAC those type of buildings.  Just looking at the US markets it does matter when you are trying to scale out a company or require lots of office workers that don't neccessarily need to be in Midtown Manhattan or in San Francisco.  For example Cambridge MA is really expensive with Harvard and MIT there but is constrained and not much new construction can happen.  Now many Cambridge based  biopharma and life sciences companies routinely expand to Raleigh Durham as it is much easier and of course cheaper.   Not too mention construction costs are considerably higher for any new building in NYC, California cities etc.  Property taxes are sky high in Texas cities so their rates are higher than ours and their markets are very desirable. 

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So Carillon was built spec by Hesta (now HPI).  It was built to the same quality as BofA Corp.  

Hesta lost a lot of money when they eventually sold to Shorenstein, because tenants in Charlotte weren't willing to pay premium rents.  The tenant who took the top 3 floors was Cadwalader, one of the highest billing rate corporate law firms in the country.

Now sure, this was 20+ years ago, but by and large, tenants in secondary markets are there because they don't think premium space is crucial.

Said differently, for professional services firms, cost of salaries and benefits is roughly 9x that firms real estate costs.  The reason firms expand to a city is labor pool and cost of labor first.  The quality of the real estate is a very distant second. 

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13 minutes ago, atlrvr said:

So Carillon was built spec by Hesta (now HPI).  It was built to the same quality as BofA Corp.  

Hesta lost a lot of money when they eventually sold to Shorenstein, because tenants in Charlotte weren't willing to pay premium rents.  The tenant who took the top 3 floors was Cadwalader, one of the highest billing rate corporate law firms in the country.

Now sure, this was 20+ years ago, but by and large, tenants in secondary markets are there because they don't think premium space is crucial.

Said differently, for professional services firms, cost of salaries and benefits is roughly 9x that firms real estate costs.  The reason firms expand to a city is labor pool and cost of labor first.  The quality of the real estate is a very distant second. 

Would refine this just a bit to say that a city (or area) is chosen because of skillset alignment.  Does the depth of qualifications and capabilities of the labor pool align with the requirements of what you need done?  If those requirements are highly technical and/or cognitively demanding, then you're likely to have to wage a bit of a battle in a competitive bid for that talent in nearly any city.  

Perhaps premium office space is in the arsenal for waging that battle?  Perhaps premium office space is also for hosting highly sophisticated clientele visiting your space to hash out or negotiate deals, and judging the sophistication of your operation based on the caliber of space occupied.  Suppose any of these factors and others might drive demand for premium space.

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3 hours ago, rancenc said:

Good news for the Film and Television industry in North Carolina.....

https://www.newsobserver.com/article256204782.

Th indeed great news . The importance of our TV and film industry to the states prestige and economy cannot be understated . Unfortunately for us we handed the bulk of it away fortunately for us North Carolina is just a better location with a greater diversity of filming locations than any of our competitors on the East Coast

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53 minutes ago, Phillydog said:

Th indeed great news . The importance of our TV and film industry to the states prestige and economy cannot be understated . Unfortunately for us we handed the bulk of it away fortunately for us North Carolina is just a better location with a greater diversity of filming locations than any of our competitors on the East Coast

GA has eaten our lunch. Atlanta's film studios rival any city in the world not names Los Angeles.

Georgia has relatively similar diversity (not as good) but slightly better year round weather (especially near Savannah).

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14 hours ago, CarolinaDaydreamin said:

GA has eaten our lunch. Atlanta's film studios rival any city in the world not names Los Angeles.

Georgia has relatively similar diversity (not as good) but slightly better year round weather (especially near Savannah).

The same things could be constructed in Charlotte and maybe Wilmington in addition to the Screen Gems Soundstage already there. It's all about investments into the film industry and soundstage campuses.  

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