My Own "Learning From Charlotte"

[simms3]

So I am at the Starbucks in Southpark currently, getting ready to head back to Atlanta.  I figured I would type this while I let my camera charge up and my body charge up.

I got to Charlotte about 10:30 this morning and parked on N. Tryon Street.  I then proceded to walk around most of the Center City for about 2 hours.  Then I drove through Dilworth and Myers Park on down to Southpark.  From Southpark I went back through Myers Park (love me some nice houses) and then back to downtown to follow Lynx and check out the TODs.  I made a partial loop around the city, headed to the north to check out the suburbs and some highway infrastructure, and then headed back to Atlanta.

Some basic observations:

1) Spartanburg is what you would call "Bible Belt".  Rural GA, Jax, and other areas you may think of as Bible Belt don't compare.  I have not seen such a high concentration of churches/"Christians" and such a large swath of poverty (they couldn't even support Waffle House, it was Mr. Waffle).

2) Charlotte focused intensely on making 1 street in Uptown the spine (Tryon Street).  The other streets are nowhere near as aesthetically pleasing, but since Tryon is so nice, it's not bad being a couple blocks away.  Jacksonville should do the same and focus on just 1 or 2 “spines” and let the rest work off of these spines.

3) Tryon Street has super wide sidewalks, lots of pocket parks/plazas, tons and tons of benches up and down on both sides, tree coverage, signage like crazy, bike racks every 50 ft (even if they aren’t used they serve their purpose), and high high security.

4) Maybe because there is a strong corporate presence that generates a lot of wealth and presents a security risk, but in Uptown Charlotte there are corporate plazas EVERYWHERE and lots of fully armed police and troopers EVERYWHERE.  Just like in DC, it is impossible to feel unsafe there, at least during the day and I am sure at night because there are officers and security guards every 50 ft.

5) There is A LOT of public art/sculpture.  Almost none of it was particularly appealing, but it did add a presence.

6) Charlotte has so many workers in Uptown that even at 10:30 in the morning the sidewalks were full.  There is a higher concentration of restaurants in Uptown than almost if not any other place I have ever been.  Name a nice steakhouse chain or a nice restaurant chain and it is there, in addition to local eateries, bars, and lounges every which way.

7) Parking is super super easy.  Every garage is labeled well with LED enter and exit signs, and I easily found a spot right on the busiest thoroughfare and paid $2 to park for 2 hours.  I did not need quarters because they have those solar powered electronic machines that take coins, cash, and cards (Atlanta has had these for a while, they are much faster in Atlanta).

I noticed probably 6 homeless blatantly digging through trash cans right in the center of town while I was there, but I didn’t care because they weren’t asking me for money (I didn’t notice any panhandling, probably because of the strong police presence).  They were also almost “invisible” in the corporate crowds walking about.  I do think Charlotte has a small homeless population, though, compared to most cities of similar size, at least in the south.

9) Epicenter is packed full of “stuff” ranging from Suite and Whiskey River and Blackfinn (all three we now have at the SJTC) to Walgreens, a movie theater, a bowling alley, and tons of other restaurants, bars, and clubs, and shops.  The thing is though, I doubt it pulls in the crowds it needs to to generate a positive net cash flow for the whole property.  More on this later.

10) The layout is very similar to Atlanta (with a similar look and feel).  The streets are winding and change names.  Nothing connects.

11) Charlotte is very very “new”.

12) What old that Charlotte has whether in Uptown or Myers Park or wherever is beautifully restored and in top notch condition.  I did not see one decrepit old building.

13) While because of the road layout and the newness of Charlotte, single family residential is a lot more spread out than in Jacksonville, there is A LOT of infill going up all over the place.  Charlotte overall is less dense than Jacksonville, but all of the new developments going up address the street, even in inner suburbs, and they are building up, not out (well probably out, too, but I didn’t go out that far).

A theme I picked up on was that Charlotte tries very very hard.  It almost seems like it tries too hard.  It is trying sooo hard to be a big city, but it is working.  I doubt Charlotte’s Uptown or even the suburbs can support the kind of retail and developments they have gotten, BUT the chains and homegrown retailers (and condo developers I guess…haven’t heard of very many foreclosures there yet) are willing to plop down an investment because clearly Charlotte is doing something to show them that they are committed to helping them be profitable.  Either that or every company has pre-empted Charlotte’s growth and potential and are just sitting around watching it all unfold.  It is easy to figure out why so many people are moving there from all over the country and from abroad.  It is actually fairly international, too.  Lots of Asians and Indians.

I think with Jacksonville’s layout, old fabric, and current growth rate we can be a better, more cosmopolitan city than Charlotte.  What we need to do is literally copy whatever Charlotte is doing, though.  I even saw a few signs up saying “Vote for City Bonds: We Need More [insert progressive amenity here like rail]”.  The whole city seems to have the mentality of “let’s try to be a big city like Atlanta”.  Even though Atlanta’s not a great poster child for urbanity, Charlotte is trying to match what Atlanta’s doing on as much the same scale as possible, even though Charlotte is 1/3 the size.

I will post a few photos, too.  I took over 200.

[KenFSU]

Great report.

Looking forward to seeing your photos!

[jcjohnpaint]

I very much agree with your assessment.  It is as if Charlotte is trying to be NY and maybe it won't become NY, but it is going to  be something so great just trying so hard.  I am from the northeast and Jacksonville has that kind of feel, much more than Charlotte.  I really think the city of Jax just needs to try and be the best in the country and if unable it is destined to become something much greater than it is.  

[finehoe]

The whole city seems to have the mentality of “let’s try to be a big city like Atlanta”.

I think this is the key.  Jacksonville has the mentality of "let's try to be a small town no matter how physically big we get".

[vicupstate]

Going paragraph by paragraph ...


1 ) Spartanburg has a dozen Waffle Houses and while it is certainly Bible Belt, their First Baptist doesn't own the city any more than Jacksonville's does.  Poverty is no more rampant there than the South generally, probably less.

2)  Trade Street is the E-W spine that intersects Tryon and divides the Downtown into Wards (1,2,3,4).  Likewise it has the best streetscaping of the E-W streets.

3)  I agree Tryon is a well done streetscape that is an excellent example to follow EXCEPT for the lack of historic architecture. 

4) While I'm sure there are security guards in the lobby of the major buildings, your description is VERY misleading.  I have never noticed an obvious 'armed guard' presence out of doors.

5 thru agreed. 

9) Epicentre seems to draw good crowds to me, not sure what you are basing this on.

10) DT is a grid, so it has good connections.  Otherwise, I am in agreement.

11) Definitely agree.  That is one area where JAX COULD really outshine Charlotte.  If the historic buildings can be saved in JAx, it would present a new blend of new and old that Charlotte could never do.

12)  The bulldozer leveled so much, it actually makes Jax seem like Savanah by comparison. 

13) Infill has totally revived several areas of Charlotte for the better.  Lots to learn from them on that. 

[CS Foltz]

Pictures will be nice, I am sure! But would kill to see that kind of "Big City mentality" take place here in Jacksonville! But that won't happend until the next administration take over............come on election time! We need a plan, we need some kind of vision and some idea on how to fund something that we all would agree COJ could be rather than what we are now!

[Singejoufflue]

It occurs to me that Charlotte doesn't mind being held accountable to the goals that have been set.  The same can't be said for Jacksonville.  Additionally, looking through the documentation in this report and the Center City website, they seem to have broad long term goals, but set very accessible short term goals.  Small measures of progress maintain and build trust...

http://files.charlottecentercity.org/CCCP-State-of-Center-City.pdf

[thelakelander]

Good recap.  My impression of Charlotte and her leaders are that they have a vision of what they want to be and are very progressive in doing the things today to achieve that vision tomorrow.  That community is the complete opposite of Jacksonville and it's showing in the areas of quality-of-life and economic development.  I've always wondered how successful they would be if they were blessed with our natural, historic and physical assets.

[CS Foltz]

How successful do you think they would be with an administration and political machine like we have here lake? No vision, no plan and no means to fund anything other than .......lets raise taxes or we need more Fee's mentality! We have no long or short term anything and it shows! Past time for a new administration with some kind of vision beyond what we currently have!

[simms3]

Went to Charlotte this past weekend and made a small trip out of it by exploring the city as thoroughly as possible on Monday from about 11-4 before heading back to Atl.

Overall I had a good impression of Uptown and the citizenry.  I was underwhelmed by the metro area as a whole because everyone keeps trying to compare Charlotte to Atlanta.   I was expecting a little more out of the metro as whole (like a larger Southpark and 20 lane highways, LoL).   Uptown, however, has quite a bit to teach larger cities like Atlanta and peer cities like Nashville and Jacksonville.  I was surprised how close the mountains were to the metro.  I was also impressed by “metro” amenities like the Lowes Motor Speedway (not called that anymore?), Paramount Carowinds, Charlotte Douglas Int’l Airport, and UNCC.

Here is a recap of some of my favorite pictures.  2 areas I got to see but didn’t get to photograph were Dilworth and Myers Park.  These are the two coolest areas of the city outside of Uptown.  Southpark wasn’t quite as much as it has been made out to be.  Don’t get me wrong, some developers have the right ideas and some creative projects in the area, but Southpark is not “huge”, nor is it the next Buckhead.  It is also difficult to get to because no one major road leads directly to it from Uptown or the beltway and no highways go by it.

A couple things to note about Charlotte:
-Uptown has a security presence like none I have seen outside of D.C. or Lower Manhattan.

-Uptown has more people on the streets walking about than any other downtown I have been to bar New York, Chicago, Philly, Boston, and D.C.  It also has more restaurants on any given block in Uptown than any other downtown I have ever seen.

-Charlotte has some beautiful old buildings and homes, but not that many.  It is a very new city.  Atlanta and Jacksonville (in the words of a poster on MetroJacksonville) are like Savannah compared to Charlotte.  The newness helps Charlotte in many ways, but because Charlotte was planned and built after the automobile it has less to work with in terms of a grid and general character.

-All new developments in the inner neighborhoods and in Uptown address the street and are meant to act as a component in a walkable urban environment.  The rest of the city is still a complete unplanned mess.  I think city leaders/MPO let whatever happens outside of a 5 mile radius from downtown to happen and they incentivize and control what happens within that boundary.

-Charlotte’s light rail is impressive.  I wouldn’t say it’s a crowd getting on the train, but it gets used.  There is also an impressive amount of TOD development along the first 4-5 miles of the rail line and park and rides beyond that.

Pictures are in order of how they were taken.


Starting off at the Hearst Tower.


This place filled up by lunch.






Tryon Street (the backbone of Uptown) had these nice phone booths, easy parking, benches every 20 ft, lots of trash recepticles, and nicely done bus stations, as well as good tree coverage, plazas, and public art.  It should serve as a model for Peachtree St as well as Laura/Bay St in Jax.


This is a hotel.






Charlotte’s tallest.  Caesar Pelli design from 1992.


1 hour later this scene would have included 200+ workers.  The sidewalks in Uptown get super crowded, even though they are wide on Tryon.




Lots of plazas in Charlotte.  Normally the same amount of plazas is what separates a suburban office district from a downtown, but in Charlotte’s case it just makes downtown more user friendly.




Seamless connection.












One of the only pieces of public art I actually liked.  All of the public art adds a bit of unreality to the city.  I don’t even want to venture a guess as to why and where they are getting all of these sculptures and putting them up everywhere.  Every building has its own piece of art.
































The Bechtler Museum of Contemporary Art


The Knight Theater






Mint Museum








Large gap to be filled between the Gant AA Cutural Center and the rest of Uptown.  In fact, Duke Energy Center as a whole seems kind of isolated and on its own.








Parking Lots that need to be filled.


Convention center is in the center of town.


Towards the start of Dilworth.  Lots of Green Space in the “1st” ward.






New Nascar HQ and exhibition center, connected to the convention center.


Lynx runs right in front of the Westin in this photo.




There’s a Wild Wing Café in this photo.


Towards Government Center.


Charlotte’s “Berkman”.  It looks like work has stopped on these dorms.








Lots of garages beneath buildings.












Looking at Epicenter for which the next few photos are taken.  The final component, a ~600 ft. residential tower never was built.






Our Blackfinn is in the suburbs at Markets at Town Center.  Go figure.




Our Whiskey River is in the suburbs at Markets at Town Center.  Go figure.












New crosswalk from buildings in preceding photo to Epicenter.


New crosswalk from BofA Plaza to the new BofA building not yet opened.


Suite which is opening at Markets at Town Center in the suburbs.  Go figure.

[simms3]

Trade Street


Ritz Carlton with new BofA offices behind it.  The development is LEED gold certified.








Buckhead Saloon: Must…Copy…Atlanta…


The base of the new BofA tower.


Looking up.










Another parking lot to fill








This church was very cut off from all street interaction and had a private driveway in front of it.  It was all walled in.


See above.


Carillon’s public art.






This building is actually new.






More ugly art.


The Vue, very tall residential.




Infill in the 4th ward near Vue.


















What the hell is this?


Speaking of modern.  Modern mixed very well with old.




Back on N. Tryon


Garage near Time Warner Center






Sky gardens in the new BofA building

Now on to the suburbs:










Taco Mac!













Now on to Lynx/TODs:






























Notice how far away Duke Energy Center/Wells area is from the BofA cluster.




The end.  Sunset from Greenville, SC highway.

[simms3]

1 ) Spartanburg has a dozen Waffle Houses and while it is certainly Bible Belt, their First Baptist doesn't own the city any more than Jacksonville's does.  Poverty is no more rampant there than the South generally, probably less.

4) While I'm sure there are security guards in the lobby of the major buildings, your description is VERY misleading.  I have never noticed an obvious 'armed guard' presence out of doors.

9) Epicentre seems to draw good crowds to me, not sure what you are basing this on.

1) Spartanburg Spartanburg.  What can I say?  I just disagree.  Underwhelmed completely by Greenville, too, though its downtown isn't bad.  BMW plant is the only thing that caught my eye in a positive way in the whole 85 corridor in South Carolina, well and King Mountain near Charlotte.

4) Maybe it was a fluke day, but I certainly noticed them.  I am shocked my camera wasn't confiscated or that I wasn't questioned.  I avoided the cop/trooper presence as much as possible, but even with that they showed up in 2 of my pictures.  They also made the area seem really really safe.  Jacksonville seems kind of "forgotten" in comparison.  The high tech security for the buildings is strong, too.  I would feel very safe from crazies working in one of the buildings.  Jacksonville's security/tech is almost missing in comparison.

9) Going on a hunch, I really don't know.

[jcjohnpaint]

great pics. 
Looking at these pics was like watching the Jags game last night.  Pretty hard to look at!

[CS Foltz]

Nice pictures simms3! Something I did notice was no overflowing trash cans and not a whole lot of litter in the streets..............only one picture showed anything on the ground and that was the Harris Tweeters or whatever that food store was! We should be so lucky to have the same enviroment here!!

[rainfrog]

Good recap.  My impression of Charlotte and her leaders are that they have a vision of what they want to be and are very progressive in doing the things today to achieve that vision tomorrow.  That community is the complete opposite of Jacksonville and it's showing in the areas of quality-of-life and economic development.  I've always wondered how successful they would be if they were blessed with our natural, historic and physical assets.

I wonder if that at all plays into its success versus Jacksonville's struggles? I'm just throwing around thoughts here, but if you have more of a clean slate than a landscape that incubates a sort of protective mindset, maybe more just gets done. A lot of people attribute the migration from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West to the weather and climate, but how much of it is about a clean sheet of paper? You look at the more successful cities in the Midwest right now, like Indianapolis and Columbus, and they're ahead of the game within their own region compared to the considerably older Cincinnati, Louisville, etc., which have had a lot of history played out already, making a future-focus more complicated. And if you cross the threshold of that protective mindset, when there's actually a great deal to protect, and it becomes a lucrative thing in its own right -- like Savannah, or New Orleans -- then that's a very good thing. But Jax is just kind of the in-between. Not enough of a clean slate in its region for a very future-focused outlook, yet also not having quite enough worth protecting to attract a tourism industry compared to other corners of its region. So things here are just... complicated. Some eyes on the past, some eyes on the future, but little bringing the two together.