Charlotte NC Real Estate News

It's conventional wisdom to believe today's Charlotte is a creation of titans -- the likes of Hugh McColl and D.A. Tompkins, the Big Guys, who have Big Money and wield Big Power and leave Big Footprints.

But in truth cities are more complex than that. Other people with less fame, less power and a lot less money leave important footprints, too.

Warren Burgess, who Tuesday died unexpectedly and far, far too soon at age 56, was never powerful, never famous and most definitely never rich -- at least not in money. He'll probably never get his due in any history books on Charlotte . But Burgess left his fingerprints all over this city, in the plans he drew, the enduring vision he had for his city and the people and places he touched.

Cities need catalysts, and Warren was a catalyst. He was always putting one person in touch with just the right other person, and dropping a good idea in just the right place, and in doing so altering the course of the planet.

I met him almost 11 years ago. I had written a column lamenting the lack of community gathering places in most Charlotte neighborhoods.

A few weeks later the phone rang and some guy said he was a city planner and he had my column posted on the wall of his office and would I like to have lunch? I figured it wouldn't hurt to know a city planner, especially someone who liked my columns.

He was one of the thinnest people I had ever met, walked with a limp and handed me a book he had bought for me on a hunch -- Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" -- which fed my curiosity about cities and pretty much changed the course of my career.

We shared an interest in art and cities, in mountain streams (he loved fly fishing for trout) and, most important, in neighborhoods and how their buildings and streets shape the lives of the people who live there. He was a planner who understood that real places and people are always more important than theories and statistics.

He was an urbanist, rare for a late 20th-century, Southern city. He filled notebook after notebook with drawings of neighborhoods where he did plans. He would walk the streets in a wide-brimmed straw hat, talk to people and just hang out until he absorbed a sense of the place into those thin bones of his.

That's one reason dozens -- no, hundreds -- of Charlotteans met Burgess over the decades and treasured his friendship. I was forever finding out that friends of mine had already known him for years. He lived his life like a one-man community center, always getting people together in his own quiet way.

And though Burgess' feet may have been planted on city sidewalks, his imagination was soaring. On the wall at my desk is his pen and ink version of North Davidson Street , looking toward the towers of uptown. But it differs subtly from reality. Burgess, in his drawing, buried the power lines, as he did in most of his sketches. He once drew a plan for a European-style boulevard along N.C. 49 at UNC Charlotte.

Next time you go down West Trade Street near Johnson & Wales University , look around. In the 1990s Burgess was the city's urban designer for a Third Ward Plan that -- to its everlasting credit -- Bank of America pretty much followed in developing Gateway Center . The low-scale buildings with stores below and homes above, hiding the parking decks, those were Warren 's vision.

Another of his visions is the drawing shown here, part of the 2001 Central Avenue Streetscape Plan. Notice how the Central Avenue bridge over Briar Creek has become something beautiful, reminiscent of Rome or Paris , with flags, a stone balustrade and an arch over the creek. On the creekside greenway is a bicyclist.

Burgess suffered from arthritis and had walked with a cane ever since I had met him. Look closely at his drawings, and almost always you see someone with a cane.

In the bridge drawing, a thin figure in a wide-brimmed hat appears to stand in the creek, holding a cane in one hand and what looks like a fishing rod in the other. Miraculously, if you know Briar Creek, he is landing what can only be a trout. Talk about the power of dreaming.

Mary Newsom

Longtime city planner brought passion to job

56-year-old who died Tuesday worked for Charlotte, Davidson

MICHELLE CROUCH

Staff Writer

Maybe you remember seeing him, a lanky beanpole of a man trudging down Wilkinson Boulevard with his cane, or motoring his scooter through a city neighborhood, always a spiral notebook in hand.

A self-taught artist and a visionary who loved talking to people, Warren Burgess wasn't what most people picture when they think of a city planner.

But that's what made him so good at his job.

Burgess, a longtime Charlotte planner and former Davidson planning director, died suddenly Tuesday of complications from surgery. He was 56.

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

During his 21-year tenure as a city planner, Burgess helped dozens of neighborhoods articulate their dreams in city plans. He influenced projects ranging from the design of Gateway Village uptown to the unique layout of the Prosperity Church Road/I-485 interchange. Always, his colleagues said, he focused on strong design and preserving an area's unique character.

" Warren had his fingerprints on just about every place in the community," said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Director Debra Campbell.

Burgess had so much conviction, Campbell said, that he often seemed to risk his job by pushing other city departments to do what he believed was right.

" Warren would push that envelope so far -- right to the edge," Campbell said. "And he would do it time after time after time because he was just so passionate about what he believes."

Then there were his drawings. Burgess was constantly using pen and ink and watercolor drawings to turn complex ideas into simple images people could relate to, his colleagues said.

He also befriended developers and neighborhood leaders alike.

In September 2000, Burgess became Davidson's planning director. During his three years there, he helped develop the town's controversial new planning ordinance, recognized as a national model.

After retiring from Davidson for health reasons, Burgess came out of retirement to work for Neighboring Concepts, a Charlotte architectural and planning firm. He continued fighting for neighborhoods even after quadruple heart bypass surgery and other health problems, said Darrel Williams, who worked with Burgess at Neighboring Concepts.

Most recently, Williams said, Burgess persuaded transportation officials not to put a highway through a black neighborhood in High Point , arguing that the road would destroy the community's character.

Burgess would know, Williams said, after spending hours talking to residents and motoring through on his scooter.

Got, Alotta, Charlotte!

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