The Bad News Report

[elrodvt]

National story discussing drinking water pollution in NC and the probable impact of massive cuts to the NC DOE. 

 

[Scribe]

5 hours ago, CLT2014 said:

Campbell Soups (Camden, NJ)

Wondering how many of their execs would love to get out of NJ... could be a way to move HQ without making huge waves...

[KJHburg]

view from New Jersey about Synder Lance purchase.  Sounds like Campbell Soup will get half their sales from snack foods now with this purchase so who knows their will be some job shuffling but I wonder if in the end more jobs are headed this way.  Would you move to Camden NJ across from Philly?  I am speaking from experience I lived in Camden County and with NJ's high corporate taxes, high income taxes I just can't see how many jobs would move that way but I can easily see how jobs could grow this way.   http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/local/south-jersey/2017/12/18/campbell-soup-snyders-lance-acquisition/961114001/

I hate we have lost Synder Lance as a corporate headquarters but maybe just maybe the "New" company will come south.  Campbell Soup has a huge plant in Maxton NC east of Charlotte in Robeson County.  

[cjd5050]

13 hours ago, KJHburg said:

view from New Jersey about Synder Lance purchase.  Sounds like Campbell Soup will get half their sales from snack foods now with this purchase so who knows their will be some job shuffling but I wonder if in the end more jobs are headed this way.  Would you move to Camden NJ across from Philly?  I am speaking from experience I lived in Camden County and with NJ's high corporate taxes, high income taxes I just can't see how many jobs would move that way but I can easily see how jobs could grow this way.   http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/local/south-jersey/2017/12/18/campbell-soup-snyders-lance-acquisition/961114001/

I hate we have lost Synder Lance as a corporate headquarters but maybe just maybe the "New" company will come south.  Campbell Soup has a huge plant in Maxton NC east of Charlotte in Robeson County.  

2

Just being really wishful at this point but I really hope Campbell Soup looked at Synder Lance as a way to move from the high taxes in NJ under the cover of a merger.  

[CLT2014]

1 hour ago, cjd5050 said:

Just being really wishful at this point but I really hope Campbell Soup looked at Synder Lance as a way to move from the high taxes in NJ under the cover of a merger.  

Campbell Soup's effective corporate tax rate in New Jersey is only 2.2%, so they don't have that heavy of a tax burden based off the loop holes available to them. 

The merger is certainly part of their transformation from a soup company (stagnant) to a snack based company (with a healthy snack portfolio). Past acquisitions of companies like Pepperidge Farm show this is where they see growth. 

They operate a decentralized business model though so will likely to continue to operate an office in Charlotte. 

Edited December 19, 2017 by CLT2014

[KJHburg]

^^^ Corporate taxes may be lower but not the income and property taxes for the execs of Campbell.  In NJ they are sky high!  I am glad to hear they are decentralized and maybe someday they will move here to shake the soup image as a new reinvented company like SealedAir did. 

[CarolinaDaydreamin]

MLS is going to Nashville. Reflects poorly on Marcus Smith. Hope we can mount a better attempt in the future. Panthers need better leadership than him in the future. 

[QClifer]

1 hour ago, CarolinaDaydreamin said:

MLS is going to Nashville. Reflects poorly on Marcus Smith. Hope we can mount a better attempt in the future. Panthers need better leadership than him in the future. 

Agreed.  The Smith family will milk the tax payers for every penny they can get to pay for the team,stadium, parking etc.  Marcus wanted the city/county to give him everything for the team. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, CarolinaDaydreamin said:

MLS is going to Nashville. Reflects poorly on Marcus Smith. Hope we can mount a better attempt in the future. Panthers need better leadership than him in the future. 

Speaking that the MLS was willing to hand us a team, he really fudgeed it up.

[JoshuaDrown]

18 hours ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

Speaking that the MLS was willing to hand us a team, he really fudgeed it up.

Yes, it was one of the worst kept secrets of MLS expansion... the league was going to find a regional rival for Atlanta, and they wanted the Charlotte market and the natural ATLvsCLT rivalry that already exists.

Nashville just wanted it more. 

From an entertainment perspective, Nashville is bringing it, and becoming one of the star cities of the Southeast. 

[cltbwimob]

In all honesty, I was glad the MLS bid fell through when it happened because I wanted the city to focus on the long term prospect of bringing an MLB team to market, and I feel that  MLS would have hurt our chances of getting an MLB team 10 years down the road due to potential oversaturation in the market (I believe that Charlotte is big enough to be a 3 team town and I wanted the 3rd team to be the grand prize-MLB).  

Now with the situation unfolding with the Panthers, I am happier than ever that the city didn't touch MLS.  Although I believe there is not a good business case to be made to move the team, but I still find myself nervous as hell that they might move, and I want the city to be able to mobilize all resources (within reason) at its disposal to keep them.  I feel that if the city  had gone through with the soccer proposal and we were awarded a team, that the city would not be in position to work with the Panthers should new ownership begin a shakedown.  

As much as I hate the thought of public subsidies for stadiums in principle, I hate the thought of losing the Panthers much much more. And I believe that the overwhelming majority of people in the city would rather have their public dollars going to ensuring the Panthers stay versus a major league soccer team. 

[JoshuaDrown]

21 hours ago, cltbwimob said:

In all honesty, I was glad the MLS bid fell through when it happened because I wanted the city to focus on the long term prospect of bringing an MLB team to market, and I feel that  MLS would have hurt our chances of getting an MLB team 10 years down the road due to potential oversaturation in the market (I believe that Charlotte is big enough to be a 3 team town and I wanted the 3rd team to be the grand prize-MLB).  

Now with the situation unfolding with the Panthers, I am happier than ever that the city didn't touch MLS. 

I hear this, but I still think this is small town thinking.

Charlotte is one of the largest cities in the Southeast, and one of the fastest growing in the country, in both population and  economy... at some point we have to stop being an Either/Or city and start being a Both/And city. 

This means yes to MLS. Yes to MLB. Yes to the NFL. 

The economics and public subsidies of the stadiums is another conversation, and sometimes we just won’t be able to make a deal work (Marcus Smith and MLS), but we should be having the conversation.

[Cadi40]

Glad Nashville got it, Who knows if something goes wrong or we have an economic crash while constructing the stadium. Nashville is still smaller than Charlotte and I don’t think that MLS is going to do a lot for the city other than maybe boost the economy some and spark a few projects near the stadium, It’s going to be a traffic nightmare added to a already happening traffic nightmare. Charlotte can and will focus on their transportation unlike Nashville.

[cjd5050]

1 hour ago, JoshuaDrown said:

I hear this, but I still think this is small town thinking.

Charlotte is one of the largest cities in the Southeast, and one of the fastest growing in the country, in both population and  economy... at some point we have to stop being an Either/Or city and start being a Both/And city. 

This means yes to MLS. Yes to MLB. Yes to the NFL. 

The economics and public subsidies of the stadiums is another conversation, and sometimes we just won’t be able to make a deal work (Marcus Smith and MLS), but we should be having the conversation.

I really don't think this was a case of Charlotte getting cold feet.  I think this had everything to do with a crappy owner and elected people not wanting to get into bed with Smith.  Look at George Shinn and the Hornets.  The people in Charlotte disliked him so much they were willing to let the team go to avoid building him a new arena.  Just a few years later a new owner comes along and they broke ground on the arena.  I think Charlotte dodged a bullet in having a professional team owned by the Smith family.  

What's interesting to me is I just looked at MLS attendance figures and the Columbus Crew/Mapfre Stadium jumped out.  It's an 18-year-old stadium in 33rd largest metro area and less than 2.5 miles from Ohio State.   If the MLS as a league proves to be a viable league is it that crazy to think that relocations would not happen in 10 years or so?  That would put the Columbus stadium close to 30 years old.   Maybe looking for an expansion team is not the only option to landing a team.  

 

[SouthEndCLT811]

Columbus is in the midst of relocation rumors to Austin actually.  So sadly for the first team announced in MLS they look to be playing their last season in Columbus in 2018 if the ownership has their way.

[elrodvt]

2 hours ago, JoshuaDrown said:

I hear this, but I still think this is small town thinking.

Charlotte is one of the largest cities in the Southeast, and one of the fastest growing in the country, in both population and  economy... at some point we have to stop being an Either/Or city and start being a Both/And city. 

This means yes to MLS. Yes to MLB. Yes to the NFL. 

The economics and public subsidies of the stadiums is another conversation, and sometimes we just won’t be able to make a deal work (Marcus Smith and MLS), but we should be having the conversation.

you nailed it. there is a lot of small town thinking and defeatism (we could never do that! maybe in 50 years...).

[KJHburg]

Interesting that Nashville's new MLS stadium is not downtown uptown whatever you call it it is located at the fairgrounds a couple miles away from downtown .  So I guess they were not really that concerned for a downtown site. 

[CLT2014]

4 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Interesting that Nashville's new MLS stadium is not downtown uptown whatever you call it it is located at the fairgrounds a couple miles away from downtown .  So I guess they were not really that concerned for a downtown site. 

Beggars can't be choosers. The MLS didn't have many viable options. While ideally they wanted a stadium in a downtown, they picked the cities that had the right ownership and were closest to being shovel ready for construction of a stadium. Most of the cities were excluded, like Charlotte, simply because the stadium plan wasn't far enough along and there was too much risk of a stadium not getting built. 

[SentioVenia]

1 hour ago, CLT2014 said:

Beggars can't be choosers. The MLS didn't have many viable options. While ideally they wanted a stadium in a downtown, they picked the cities that had the right ownership and were closest to being shovel ready for construction of a stadium. Most of the cities were excluded, like Charlotte, simply because the stadium plan wasn't far enough along and there was too much risk of a stadium not getting built. 

This exactly.  The MLS paid lip service to a lot of criteria that - in the end - weren't going to be completely fulfilled by all the bids.  

[CarolinaDaydreamin]

2 hours ago, CLT2014 said:

Beggars can't be choosers. The MLS didn't have many viable options. While ideally they wanted a stadium in a downtown, they picked the cities that had the right ownership and were closest to being shovel ready for construction of a stadium. Most of the cities were excluded, like Charlotte, simply because the stadium plan wasn't far enough along and there was too much risk of a stadium not getting built. 

The county got $33m scrapped together pretty quick for an oversized HS stadium. Poor planning from city/county and NO leadership from Marcus Smith. 

[kermit]

There have been rumblings for a while about the bleak future for large gas turbine manufacturers (e.g. what Siemans does down on Westinghouse) due to the rise of renewables.

https://www.ft.com/content/fc1467b8-c601-11e7-b2bb-322b2cb39656

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article185072568.html

The press on this subject was somewhat oblique back in November ('something may happen in the new year'). Unfortunately, over the holidays I did speak with a couple of folks who work on the floor at Siemans and they agreed that the writing is on the wall for either a dramatic donwsizing and sale (or possibly a total shutdown) for the Siemans turbine facilities in Charlotte. This isn't the word from the top, but lots of bad data points are starting to align.

I don't know a ton about the facility but I am under the impression that Siemans makes up a significant portion of the precision manufacturing employment in town (about 1,700 workers in total). I hope that the ED folks in town are working on a way to retain that talent -- something roughly equivalent to our fintech strategy that was crafted (?) in response to the financial meltdown. 

[KJHburg]

This is really sad news great Atlanta architect John Portman has died. He designed both the Westin and 615 South College buildings in Charlotte.  http://jcp-legacy.com/

[DMann]

Talented man!

[Cadi40]

Both one of my favorites in the city.

[Dale]

Interesting how Portman used to be persona non grata among urban types, They said he built cold fortresses.