Flyover Friday: All the action in South End (free version)
Flyover Friday: All the action in South End (free version)
Plus: Mert's customers evaporate as uptown empties; Why CMS is waiting 4 months to send high schoolers back; Library renovations; Union win in Asheville; Local man proposes in front of Wienermobile
Good morning! Today is Friday, September 18, 2020. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
Editor’s note: This is a shorter, free version of The Charlotte Ledger sent to people on our free sign-up list. The complete version for paying subscribers went out 15 minutes ago. It included:
The full explanation from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools on why the new reopening plan won’t return high school students to campus for four months.
The full article on Mert’s Heart & Soul, an uptown Charlotte fixture for the last 22 years, which is struggling with the disappearance of diners.
The full update on renovations to the South County Regional Library, with photos.
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It’s Charlotte’s fastest-growing and most intriguing part of town. Check out South End as you’ve never seen it before.
There’s no more dynamic spot in Charlotte than South End, and today’s installment of Flyover Friday takes you there. And you don’t even have to hunt for parking.
Once an area filled with mills and warehouses, South End today is known for its luxury apartments, hip restaurants and breweries and an increasing number of office towers. Throw in millennials zipping along the Rail Trail on e-scooters, Instagrammable murals, light rail and imaginative retail shops, and you have one of the more fascinating areas in the whole Southeastern U.S.
And it has all happened quickly: South End’s population density has increased by 22 times since 2000, according to figures from Charlotte Center City Partners. It’s expected to increase again by 60% in the next six years.
Each week, our Flyover Friday short videos have been taking you inside and above a single development. But with South End, there are so many buildings rising that we needed a different approach — one that lets us show you a lot more of what’s going on.
So we enlisted the help of Clayton Sealey, widely known on social media as CLT Development, to guide us through where South End has been … and where it’s going.
We touch on a number of developments, including:
The RailYard by Beacon Partners, twin 8-story office buildings and retail
The adjacent Centro Railyard by Centro Cityworks and Ascent Real Estate Capital, a mix of micro-apartments with small ground-floor retail
The Square at South End by Beacon Partners, a 10-story office tower with retail, apartments and a park
The Design Center Tower by Childress Klein and Ram Realty Advisors, a 23-story office building that will be home to Lowe’s new tech hub plus retail
2151 Hawkins by Portman Holdings, a 16-story office tower with retail, a food hall and Sycamore Brewing on the ground floor
The Hawk by Ram Realty Advisors, a 13-story luxury apartment building
The Fulcrum by development company Fulcrum, 45 condos in a four-story building
Vantage South End by Spectrum Cos., a pair of 9-story office towers that will house LendingTree’s new headquarters, plus retail and a hotel
This is a fun one. Let’s do this:
And if you want to see where all this is …
(Photo illustration of South End developments courtesy of Clayton Sealey)
And there you have it! Many thanks to Clayton for his insights.
About this video series: Flyover Friday is The Ledger’s weekly short-video series brought to you in collaboration with The 5 and 2 Project, a Charlotte video production company. We’ll roll out each new episode in this newsletter on Fridays to our full list of subscribers, so if you have friends who might be interested, tell them to sign up:
And check out more great work by The 5 and 2 Project on social media channels at @The5and2Project or website The5and2Project.com, or follow the company on YouTube.
Catch earlier episodes: If you want to catch up on earlier episodes of our independently produced drone-video series — featuring looks at Camp North End, the new Ally Charlotte Center bank tower uptown and Apex SouthPark — head to our dedicated Flyover Friday webpage that houses each installment as it is released:
Beloved Business: With uptown empty, Mert’s Heart & Soul struggles to find customers
James Bazelle (left, shown here with his granddaughter, Nia Glenn) has been serving up soul food at Mert’s Heart & Soul restaurant on North College Street for 22 years. With few people venturing uptown during the pandemic, the restaurant has seen a sharp drop in business.
Beloved Business is an occasional Ledger series checking in with some of the Charlotte area’s best-known local companies.
James Bazelle wanted to give people a taste of his native Georgia with Mert’s Heart & Soul restaurant, serving up soul food that reminded him of home. For 22 years, he has done just that, feeding off of the bustling day-to-day activity of museums, bars, events and work lunches at his North College Street restaurant in uptown.
But the coronavirus pandemic sent uptown workers home and eliminated the visitors almost completely. Restaurants like Mert’s Heart & Soul were left with no one to feed.
Answered: Why CMS is waiting 4 months to bring back high school students
Almost as soon as the school board voted Wednesday night to start returning students to classes, we started hearing from the parents of high school students who wondered: Why is my kid not going back to school for 4 months?
Pre-K students return Oct. 12, elementary school students start returning on Nov. 2 and middle school students on Nov. 23.
But high school students? They’re going to be shuffling around the house full-time until next semester, with start dates staggered between Jan. 5 and Jan. 18.
It’s like somebody at CMS has been watching too many of those Morris-Jenkins commercials: We’re going to bring the high school students back geeeeeeently.
We put the question of why so long for high school students to board chair Elyse Dashew — who voted for the plan and pointed out that she happens to be the mother of a high school senior. She explained:
Loading up a plane, but with no passengers
American Airlines operated its first cargo-only flight between Charlotte and Munich last week, part of a larger effort by the airline to tap into surging demand for shipping during the pandemic. “American’s local cargo operation has played a crucial role in shipping health care supplies and PPE in the midst of the pandemic, but has also historically flown automotive parts, flowers, clothing and exotic animals such as white tigers,” the airline said. (Photos courtesy of American Airlines)
What’s up with the renovations in South County Regional Library?
South Charlotte’s bibliophiles are no doubt missing South County Regional Library, which has been closed since Nov. 3 to undergo a massive renovation.
The $11M project won’t be done until early 2021, but library officials recently released a peek at what’s happening inside.
In brief
Economic development increase: North Carolina officials who work to attract out-of-state companies say business has been up the last few months. The number of new deals put together by the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina fell 30% in March, April and May but has since rebounded and was up 10-20% in June, July and August. “Economic development professionals around the state said they … are starting to see renewed interest despite the continuing pandemic,” Carolina Public Press reported. (Carolina Public Press)
Screen-time relief on the way: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools says it’s developing standards to limit instructional screen time, following complaints from parents that students shouldn’t be in front of computers for hours a day. Some schools already are offering print alternatives to online work. “We want to make sure that we’re minimizing screen time as much as possible,” the district’s chief academic officer told the school board on Wednesday. (WFAE)
SouthPark Duckworth’s: Duckworth’s Grill & Taphouse plans to move into the old two-story TacoMac space in Piedmont Row in SouthPark. It will be a traditional Duckworth’s sports bar on the first floor and a “new craft cocktail concept” on the second level. No word on when it might open. (Biz Journal)
Banktown: Bank branches are opening at some high-profile Charlotte intersections, even as the number of people visiting branches is declining. (Agenda)
Asheville hospital union win: Nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville voted this week to approve a union, the first time that has happened at a North Carolina hospital. The labor group National Nurses United said it believes it’s the “largest union election win in the South in a dozen years.” More than 70% of the 1,400 people who voted favored a union. (Carolina Public Press)
‘Fantasy pick’: Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey is the subject of a long and annoyingly written profile in the October issue of GQ, which also features nearly a dozen shirtless photos of him wearing things like a $495 Paul Stuart bathrobe, $1,100 Gucci pants and a $72 “kerchief slider.” (GQ)
Loves me some internet: Wiener marriage proposal
South Charlotte Weekly reports that Zach Chatham of Indian Land, S.C., proposed to girlfriend Hannah Fogus at Yellowstone National Park last month — in front of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile that he drives:
While in a picturesque spot in the park, Chatham got down on one knee in front of the Wienermobile and asked her to marry him.
“It’s such an American icon that I knew it’d be extremely memorable to her and something she’d never forget,” Chatham said.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Reporting intern: David Griffith