By DOUG SMITH
Uptown Charlotte seems to be groping for direction in the five
months since voters rejected a $342 million spending package that
bundled a new arena with several cultural improvement proposals.
Public and private projects, ranging from a 700-room convention
hotel to the 46-story Hearst Tower, are in the construction
pipeline.
Still, you have to wonder what will happen in the center city
when they are completed.
Consensus on the next high-impact project seems to be lacking
among government agencies with projects simmering on the back
burner.
For example, why would the state in planning a transportation
center for West Trade Street consider - even as an option - moving
the Greyhound bus station off transportation officials' preferred
development site to Fourth Ward?
That would go against the wishes of planners, uptown leaders and
residents. It also would dump bus traffic into a re-emerging
residential hub, counteracting every housing initiative instituted
in the center city over the past 20 years.
Fourth Ward residents are rallying to contest it. Again, you have
to ask: Who ultimately will decide where the transportation center
goes and whose interests it serves?
And then there's the trolley. Business owners, encouraged to
invest along the proposed line from South End through the center
city, learned last month of a serious problem.
Instead of opening in 2002 as promised, the line serving uptown
could be delayed for up to three years, city officials said, because
of modifications needed to get both the trolley and the light-rail
line through the convention center.
Uh oh, now what?
And speaking of government coordination, what about Charlotte's
answer to New York's Central Park?
Our Mecklenburg County commissioners voted to pay $24 million for
7.8 acres the city earmarked initially for the uptown arena. The
county will develop it instead as a public park.
The park could host big events and community gatherings, but some
uptown supporters wonder if its location between Mint and Graham
streets in Third Ward is too far from The Square and the largest
concentrations of residents and office workers.
Some tiny little voices in the wilderness are asking: Why not
focus first on a park in First Ward, which is seeing an influx of
new families?
County officials, nevertheless, are forging ahead with plans for
the big park, whose estimated $30 million development cost would be
financed from private donations.
Other decisions are hanging in the balance, too. What about that
urban village planned for North Tryon Street? Do we still need a new
arena? And what happens to the deteriorating old convention center?
Here's a radical idea: maybe all the stakeholders in the center
city could get together, discuss priorities and decide what's most
important for its continuing vitality.
Back in the old days, the Charlotte Uptown Development Corp., the
forerunner of Charlotte Center City Partners, used to sponsor an
event called the "Uptown Summit."
Maybe it's time to resurrect the concept and see if we can get
planners, elected officials, property owners and uptown residents on
the same page.
