Which area will be Charlotte's secondary skyline?

[CLTfanatic]

Most major cities have areas of secondary vertical growth, just curious where you think this may take place first in Charlotte? The 3 possibilities that I can think of right of hand are, the Southpark area, Ballentyne area and the old coliseum area. Any thoughts?

[Mobuchu]

Does southend count or is that too close?

If not there, then southpark. Its already going vertical along fairview...

[spectacle21]

I think Charlotte's secondary skyline will level off between the University Area and SouthPark. I'm not all too familiar with the Ballantyne landscape, but I do know that UnivCity and SouthPark hold some promising qualifications. Does Elizabeth/Midtown count as secondary?

[monsoon]

Do you mean Old Coliseum or Old Old Coliseum area? Some of us remember when Cricket arena was The Coliseum.

I guess that if you looked at Southpark, it would be an impressive downtown in most other cities in North Carolina. I do think however that resistance from the surrounding neighborhoods, and lack of any major highways will limit Southpark from growing much more. (and it is not on a transit corridor either)

The West Tyvola/Billy Graham area has the potential to grow into something significant, but its biggest problem is lack of residential development. Because it is so close to the airport, convincing people to invest in residential housing there is going to be difficult if not impossible. The opening of Piedmont's hub in the CLT airport in 1982 killed off most of the growth in West CLT due to noise from the jets. A transit corridor is planned for this area.

That leaves Ballentyne. I personally think this area is mostly the sprawly wrong kind of development that most of us here don't like, and as a result you won't see much tower development. Ballentyne is not on a transit corridor either.

It will be interesting to see what happens once the South LRT is opened. If the city is successful in TOD, then you may very well see the towers extended across 277 into South End and beyond.

[atlrvr]

metroiboi......I think your analysis is pretty much right on.......I think that Charlotte will be lucky in that almost all of it's high-rise will be downtown, and likely will continue to be.....I also agree that SouthEnd will see some addional high-rises......at the transit stops going south there is a fairly good chance that we will see some skyscrapers of at least some scale, with Tyvola being the most likely candidate in my opinion.

[Raintree21]

From what I've seen on this site and driving through the areas, I think that if South End would be the next logical area for "uptown/high rise" spread. It's on a transit corridor with the light rail and trolley line. It has many access points both regular roads leading back into the eastern parts of the city and fairly short distances to I-77 or I-277 in the northern portion of it. The sprawling warehouses that are there now and the neighborhoods on the west side of Tryon are ripe for redevelopment/reclaiming and add in the new Lowes, continued apartment/condo building, and the most likely/feasible spot for a baseball stadium, and you have a mini downtown.

Right now, I think SouthPark is the only "mini" high rise area we have since they have a couple of 5-10 story buildings but there is no room to grow there. The neighborhoods are very strong and highly opposed to any high density growth or development and have for the most part successfully fought off any "outrageous" plans by developers.

Ballantyne has the next best chance for growth due to the land available and the money that's already there. While it's not on a transit corridor with light rail or buses, it is still on I-485 which gives access to Independence, I-77, I-85, and NC 49 and has US 521 going right through it. So I think the argument on access doesn't really stand up very well on that area. It would be interesting to see if they could find some private money to build a south transit corridor maybe running from Pineville to Ballantyne to Matthews? Highly unlikely but still it would be interesting. Not sure if the elites of Ballantyne would want to to have vertical growth there or not.

I don't really see anywhere else sprouting upwards. Outwards yes, but not vertically.

[krazeeboi]

SouthPark, hands down. To me, it seems like SouthPark is to Charlotte what the Buckhead/Lennox area is to Atlanta.

[CLTfanatic]

^^ thats what I was thinking, but like everyone else has said, I don't see much more potential for the SouthPark area to go much higher. I'm curious to see what will be built once the coliseum is torn down.

[Raintree21]

I'm curious to see what will be built once the coliseum is torn down.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Forgot about that. What is the plan for the Coliseum (the old coliseum, not the old, old coliseum monsoon )? There is a lot of space there, multiple 4-5 story buildings, hotels, increasing number of condos/apartments, and access to major routes nearby. But I still don't see that as a high rise area.

[skysdalimit]

Actually, I believe that the SouthPark area will continue to grow upward. I think within the next 10 years they will demolish some of the mid-rise office buildings and replace them with new pedestrian oriented 20+ story buildings. Not to mention I'm sure there will be some new high-rise condos in that area, especially more towards Park Road.

[dubone]

I agree that southpark will likely continue to grow and be the secondary skyline (but, also that southend and midtown will grow taller, too, and grow into the uptown skyline).

I think there is already the critical mass of corporate offices, and as those grow, those companies will expand in that location. The heights of the buildings and growth in that area will not be greatly impacted by lack of transit line beyond busses (uptown doesn't have any transit besides busses, except the trolley). The lack of freeway will hurt a bit, though.

I really the view of uptown's skyline from southpark, such as from the top of the nordstrom deck.

i think uptown will continue to be charlotte's "buckhead" when it comes to nightlife, but southpark will be when it comes to fancy shopping, living, and namebrand secondary office market.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

southpark will become the secondary skyline and ballantyne the third. Ballantyne is already building two nice 18 story towers, I think the possibility is present for future highrise development there. The money is there. there and southpark.

[CLTfanatic]

Do you have any information on the ballantyne towers?

[atlrvr]

http://www.ballantynevillage.com

[archiham04]

I think the key to a secondary node at the scale we are talking about is transit. MARTA goes straight through Buckhead. In Charlotte, the city planners will use zoning will prevent highrises from going up anywhere other than along the light rail transit lines. I agree that, right now, SouthPark is our "Buckhead", and that if the market were leading things SouthPark would be our secondary skyline, but there is very little room to grow in that neighborhood. The infastructure is maxed out and the city definitely won't support it. They were hesitant to support the mall expansion, mainly b/c it was not along a transit line.

Once the Carolina Place Shopping Center goes dark (Big Box @ South Blvd and 485: Target, BB&B, World Market etc.) there will be an opportunity to put a large development that might include highrise. This is the current terminuous of the South lrt line.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

what does "goes dark" mean?

[archiham04]

Going dark refers to a recent trend in large scale retailers. They operate on volume, so when the sales floor becomes too small, or obselete for their needs they will abandon their stores and build a larger store (often times on the same street), further out of town. Big Boxes are currently "going dark" after about 7-10 years. Going dark is unique in that the retailers often hold the property for several years after they leave in order to prevent similar competitive retailers from moving in and the land lays in waste.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

oh okay thanks. I hate when that happens. Reogranization sounds like a much better plan then going bigger. Looking at most big box stores, they are very poorly organized. If they got rid of a lot of the crap products they sold there would also be more space.

[jb4563]

southpark will become the secondary skyline and ballantyne the third. Ballantyne is already building two nice 18 story towers, I think the possibility is present for future highrise development there. The money is there. there and southpark.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

SouthPark will NOT become a second skyline. There is NO way the residents of that area will allow skyscrapers to be built there.

Buckhead is not considered to be a second skyline. Like others have said, SouthPark is our equivalent to Buckhead.

South End will become our second skyline just like Midtown is Atlanta's second skyline. I think the South End skyline will shift away from Dilworth and go towards Tremont/Tryon though.

[jb4563]

  Big Boxes are currently "going dark" after about 7-10 years. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Target remodels stores about every 10 years. They just remodeled that store, and it is very busy. It isn't going anywhere.

[DigitalSky]

Once the Carolina Place Shopping Center goes dark (Big Box @ South Blvd and 485: Target, BB&B, World Market etc.) there will be an opportunity to put a large development that might include highrise.  This is the current terminuous of the South lrt line.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When do you think Carolina Pavillion will be going dark?

[rockhilljames]

I'm thinking that South End, Midtown and Morehead will become our "second" skylines.

Since they're so close together, I think we'll come to think of all of those areas as "downtown" over the next 50 years.

The folks in and around South Park don't want skyscrapers, and places like Ballentyne are too suburban to have a skyline feel, skyscrapers or not. I guess we could see something down there the way we see in Perimeter in Atlanta or the Galleria in Houston eventually, but I don't know that we'll view it as a second skyline.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

i think having morehead and midtown with skyscrapers would make for an awesome skyscraper tunnel through 277. It would truly be amazing.

[krazeeboi]

Yeah, redeveloping Midtown with some nice towers WOULD be cool. I'd see it more as an extension to the uptown skyline and not really as a secondary skyline. I think that would be good though, since it seems now that tower and high-rise development is restricted to the inside of I-277 (which is not necessarily bad; I like a more compact skyline).

[SmellyCat]

Going dark refers to a recent trend in large scale retailers.  They operate on volume, so when the sales floor becomes too small, or obselete for their needs they will abandon their stores and build a larger store (often times on the same street), further out of town.  Big Boxes are currently "going dark" after about 7-10 years.  Going dark is unique in that the retailers often hold the property for several years after they leave in order to prevent similar competitive retailers from moving in and the land lays in waste.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

FYI, this phenomena also happens a lot with anchored retail strip or power centers. Unfortunately, many of the smaller inline retail stores have provisions in their leases that allow them to immediately terminate their leases if the "big box" or anchor goes dark. This creates a gloomy domino effect of stores rapidly closing up once the anchor tenant vacates.