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Jul. 11, 2004
Uptown Surge
Office development takes a break
DOUG SMITH
A half-billion dollars in new
construction -- fueled by schools,
sports, courts and condos -- is
changing the face of the center city.
Charlotte
's center city -- burgeoning with more than $500 million in construction
-- is experiencing its biggest building spree since the early 1990s.
But unlike the previous decade,
when corporate expansion triggered six new skyscrapers, this flurry of
concrete and steel is being fueled mainly by institutional and public
investment.
Johnson & Wales
University
's first classrooms are nearing completion on
Trade Street west
of The Square, and
Central
Piedmont
Community College
's expansion is under way on
Elizabeth Avenue east
of The Square.
Between them, the $200 million,
20,000-seat arena is going up on
East Trade Street
.
The county is constructing a
courthouse and parking garage on
East Fourth Street
, and ImaginOn, the children's learning center, is rising on
East Seventh Street
.
"Coming out of the post 9-11
economy, I think the momentum we've been able to build with things other
than office buildings is phenomenal," said Tim Newman, president of
Charlotte Center City Partners, which promotes development in the urban
core.
The construction is occurring at a
pivotal time in the center city, where new cultural attractions,
restaurants and urban dwellers are helping to dispel its image as a
deserted office park after 5 p.m.
The spike in development also is
raising hopes among center city supporters that public spending will spur
more private investment, including offices, homes, restaurants and shops.
On a small scale, that has begun.
Spectrum Properties is redeveloping the old convention center at Trade and
College streets as an entertainment and retail complex including a movie
theater, restaurants and bars.
It's to open across Trade from the
arena in fall 2005, about the same time the Charlotte Bobcats start
playing uptown. Private developers also plan to start work this summer on
two high-rise condominium projects near the arena.
Newman anticipates more
arena-inspired development over the next few years, including a proposed
urban village of shops, offices and homes in First Ward.
"A new
Mint
Museum
, a NASCAR museum -- lots of the amenities we've proposed could
crystallize and continue that weave of development," he said.
The long-anticipated Charlotte
Trolley began running in June, solidifying uptown's link with South End,
and light-rail passenger service from near Pineville to the center city is
to start in 2006.
A mass transit system, urban
planners say, is essential to developing a high-density urban core, and in
their eyes
Charlotte
is on the right course. Uptown has 8,500 residents now compared to about
5,500 in the mid-1990s.
Combining public and private
projects with transit, the planners say, could help animate streets, and
perhaps fill sidewalks with urban dwellers, students, workers, arts
patrons, tourists and entertainment seekers.
Charlotte
urban planner Michael Gallis believes much of the work under way is rooted
in the opening about eight years ago of Bank of
America
(formerly Ericsson) Stadium, which put
Charlotte
in the national spotlight as an NFL city.
The decision to locate the stadium
uptown underscored that the center city is the ideal place to bring
together a metropolitan audience, he said.
Gallis attributes the recent surge
in institutional and public investment uptown in large part to the vision
of retired Bank of America Corp. Chairman Hugh McColl Jr.
"I think we are reaping the
benefit of the McColl era in center city development," he said.
The bank under McColl's leadership
spearheaded the redevelopment of
North Tryon Street
, investing in museums and arts facilities. It also spurred the
revitalization of West Trade with the bank's
Gateway
Village
office campus.
"McColl's enormous
private-sector development really did attract a lot of attention from the
public sector to an area that once was considered a ghost town,"
Gallis said. "CPCC is now turning its campus into a real jewel ...
and Johnson & Wales is very connected to the
West Trade Street
strategy of the bank."
What happens next?
"My greatest fear -- if I
have a fear -- is this momentum will run out at some point," Gallis
said. "We don't have large-scale retail downtown, and that will be a
problem for downtown's continued evolution."
In cities such as
Chicago
and
New York
, he said, large concentrations of department stores and specialty shops
are stimulating development of residential high rises for urban dwellers.
Buyers are embracing uptown's
planned condo towers: Courtside, 16 stories, 104-units, and The Park, 21
stories, 107 units. Following their announcement about two months ago, the
housing authority, teaming with a private developer, disclosed plans for
The Renwick, an 85-unit, four-story condo project three blocks from the
arena.
Real estate salespeople say other
developers have since expressed interest in sites for center city
residential development.
Newman believes greater population
density in the core eventually will pique the interest of major retailers.
Earlier attempts to redevelop the
old convention center as an urban mall with department store anchors
failed, but plans to redevelop
Midtown Square
near uptown are progressing.
Also missing from today's
construction boom: office building development, uptown's growth engine
since the 1970s.
The hometown banks' huge appetite
for space helped uptown blossom during the '90s into an employment hub of
55,000.
But in a corporate climate of
downsizing and consolidation, the office needs of Bank of America and
Wachovia Corp. have waned in recent years.
Wachovia is considering a 25-story
South Tryon Street
building that might combine a business school, performance theater,
offices and condos. But the project is still in the design and exploratory
stage.
Bank of America completed the
46-story
Hearst
Tower
-- the city's second tallest skyscraper behind the 60-story Bank of
America Corporate Center -- about two years ago.
Real estate experts, citing
oversupply and weak demand, say they'd be surprised to see another
building of such size before the end of the decade.
As the city's economy improves,
Newman said, office development "will return -- we are not at that
point in the cycle yet."
Gallis wonders, given the nature
of the center city's rise during the '90s as a financial center.
"What you see is lawyers and
other service providers seeking to be near the banks and the large
corporations," he said. "That has really been the market."
Now, Gallis said, "You have
to look at what the next era is going to be -- what is going to attract
people to the center city?"
Doug Smith
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