Flyover Friday: Camp North End up close
Plus: CMS teachers and principals combat profane 'Zoom bombers'; Inside the offices of the future; RNC host committee plans to donate extra money locally; Rick Hendrick's luxury yacht scrutinized
Good morning! Today is Friday, August 21, 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 article talking with office-design experts at Gensler in Charlotte about what offices might look like when people start going back to work. It’s going to be different — and there are lots of creative ideas.
The full article on why the Charlotte host committee for the Republican National Convention sees a silver lining in the scaled-back event that’s being held on Monday.
Information on why NASCAR mogul Rick Hendrick’s 164-foot luxury yacht, which rents for $200,000 a week, is in the national media spotlight.
The Ledger is doing smart, honest journalism in Charlotte in an innovative new way. We can deliver features like Flyover Friday and other exclusive stories you won’t find anywhere else because of the support of paying subscribers, who receive full access to every edition by email and on our website, including the complete Wednesday and Friday issues. Details here. Join us.
View the 76-acre redevelopment outside uptown as you never have before — from the air
Just a couple miles north of uptown, a series of old industrial buildings is being given new life. There are murals and restaurants, office space and shops, live music and film festivals.
It’s Camp North End, Charlotte’s biggest and most ambitious example of redeveloping old buildings for new uses. Today, we’re taking you inside that transformation by ATCO Properties and Shorenstein Properties with our new weekly short-video series — “Flyover Friday.” The Ledger is bringing this independent editorial feature to you exclusively in collaboration with The 5 and 2 Project, a Charlotte video-production company.
And away we go:
And that’s a wrap!
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.
We’ve also created a dedicated webpage that will house each episode of “Flyover Friday” as it is released.
Here’s what Charlotte offices will look like post-Covid; Duke Energy shares its office changes
Moveable furniture and flexible walls, like the ones in this meeting space in the Charlotte office of Gensler, an architecture, design and planning firm, will be major features in post-Covid office design. (Photo by Devon Banks, courtesy of Gensler)
by Cristina Bolling
As many of us continue to toil away at our kitchen tables-turned-work desks, a revolution is happening in office design, as experts reassess how workplaces will need to change once employees are ready to return — and even if employees will be going back to offices at the same rates they once did.
Think about it: Would you feel OK with a desk in a wide-open office? Or sitting shoulder-to-shoulder around a conference room table? How about touching a turnstile that hundreds of others have gone through that day?
Companies are rethinking how their office design will work in a post-Covid world, and at the center of their plans sit two key words: “who” and “why,” explained Holly Christian, a design director in the Charlotte office of Gensler, a global architecture, design and planning firm with 50 locations worldwide.
“Who goes into work, and how often and why they go into work could be shifting,” Christian said. Designing offices around those shifts is key to both helping employees feel safe and making sure workplaces are set up to handle the changes in work culture.
Here are some of the big trends and changes in office design we can expect in the post-Covid world:
CMS working to stop ‘Zoom bombers’ from infiltrating online classes; Students report profanity, pornography
How’s this for a massive 2020 virtual learning headache?
School leaders are struggling with expletive-filled “Zoom bomb” attacks during live class instruction, where outsiders surreptitiously join a class Zoom and broadcast inappropriate videos or spout as much profanity as they can before a teacher can log them off.
The Ledger’s teen sources have reported a number of such incidents at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, such as one Ardrey Kell High School homeroom class disrupted two mornings in a row by a Zoom bomber who logged in (with the camera disabled) under the name of a student already logged into the class and repeatedly said the “n” word.
At Butler High School, a parent said her child witnessed a student mooning a class during a Zoom lesson.
And in a Myers Park High School class on Tuesday, several Zoom bombers screamed obscenities, played porn videos and cursed out the teacher, saying things like “Can you suck my d—?” a student said. They also filled the chat with inappropriate comments.
The teacher tried to mute them but they kept unmuting themselves, the student said. The teacher shut down the Zoom session and relaunched it four times, but the pranksters found a way to get in every time. Eventually, the teacher gave up.
During the next class, the teacher used a “waiting room” and verified that participants were on the roster before they joined the Zoom. That helped, the student said, but one prankster still managed to get in (probably by impersonating an enrolled student) and started playing pornographic videos. Fortunately, the teacher was able to hide/mute that student and continue teaching.
Brian Slattery, the new principal of Community House Middle School, issued a robocall to parents Wednesday night asking for their help:
Students are coming into class under false names and creating huge disruptions. The teachers are now taking some precautions in order for your students to be safe. They will only admit students who are using their first and last name into the Zoom. They will utilize a waiting room setting as well as controlling mute settings and chat settings. I would also appreciate it if our parents also discussed with their students the importance of not posting Zoom links on social media such as TikTok. It has created an unsafe environment and we want to make sure that all the students in our live Zoom classes attend Community House Middle School and belong in that class.
Ardrey Kell High School principal Jamie Brooks has been sitting in on the Zooms of classes that have been targeted in previous days, so she can take down information about the incidents, try to identify the bombers and alert administrators.
Asked about the CMS policy for disciplining Zoom bombers, a CMS spokeswoman told the Ledger on Thursday: “Students who are not adhering to appropriate behavior will be addressed by the school and appropriate disciplinary action will be issued.”
Zoom security is an issue worldwide, with many companies prohibiting employees from discussing company information on the platform because of fears that outsiders could be lurking. —CB
RNC host committee finds ‘silver lining’ in scaled-down convention
You might think that one of the casualties of dramatically scaling back next week’s Republican National Convention might be the lost chance for Charlotte to shine on a national stage. That was the rationale behind Charlotte agreeing to host the event … though a lot of people in town weren’t sorry to see the convention largely disappear.
John Lassiter, CEO of Charlotte’s RNC host committee, wants you to know that even though the convention is much smaller than envisioned, it is still benefiting Charlotte.
Email revelation: Mecklenburg health director supported school reopening (in private); ‘I think the kids need it’
Last month, Mecklenburg County health director Gibbie Harris stood before the school board and declined to provide an opinion on whether public schools in Charlotte should reopen. She talked generally about the benefits to children of returning to class, but the county’s top health official largely punted on the question and left it up to the board to decide.
At the time, The Ledger noted: “Her approach seemed hands-off. She reviewed the medical issues and trends and acknowledged that the future is hard to predict. … She didn’t really give a recommendation one way or the other. She seemed OK with whatever direction the board wanted to go.”
But that was in public. Now we know her private beliefs on the matter — thanks to some digging by WCNC’s Nate Morabito, who unearthed Harris’ emails from that time using public records laws. In an email to fellow health directors dated July 14, a day before the big meeting, Harris wrote:
I’ve been careful not to recommend how they do things but what the public health implications could be in given scenarios. Bottom line here, even with the high numbers, I am supportive of some level of children in the school setting with all of the protective/preventive methods solidly in place. I think the kids need it.
That might have been helpful information for the school board, whose members have almost zero background in public health but were placed in the position of playing epidemiologist.
Then again, Harris’ opinion might not have made much difference. The board also heard publicly from local medical doctors from Charlotte’s healthcare systems, who largely said they were OK with sending kids back to the classroom.
Board members, though, said there were too many unknowns and too many risks. —TM
In brief
Gym loophole discovered: Some Charlotte gyms have found a way to open despite state Covid mandates that they remain closed: Have their clients present a doctor’s note saying exercise is necessary. “The note can prescribe exercise for physical or mental health, and the staff at … Burn Boot Camp locations check members’ notes upon arrival to confirm their validity,” Queen City Nerve reported. Gyms in North Carolina have been closed since March under Gov. Roy Cooper’s orders, but state guidelines say they can open “to serve any people prescribed or directed to use those facilities by a medical or health care professional.” (Queen City Nerve)
Covid diagnosis for WBT host: WBT radio host Vince Coakley told listeners this week that he has recovered after testing positive for Covid. “Coakley says he was dining at a friend’s house and went to say goodbye with a hug. After the embrace, Vince noticed his friend was running a fever and asked to check his temperature— 102.5 F.” Coakley experienced slight fatigue but no other symptoms. He is a former news anchor at WSOC-TV who also ran for Congress. (WBT)
No internet access: About 16,000-18,000 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students are estimated to lack reliable wifi access needed to attend online classes, CMS’ chief technology officer said. The CMS Foundation is asking for donations to buy wifi hotspots. (Agenda)
SouthPark restaurants close: Several restaurants in the SouthPark area have permanently closed, including Brio, Pink Cactus, Tandur Indian Kitchen and American Burger Co. (Unpretentious Palate, subscriber-only)
American flights dropped: American Airlines is ending flights to Florence, S.C.; Greenville, N.C.; Huntington, W.Va., and 12 other cities in October. It said demand has declined during the coronavirus pandemic. (WFAE/AP)
N.C. State goes all-online: N.C. State is moving all classes online, the university said Thursday. More than 500 students are being quarantined because of Covid. Its dorms remain open. (WTVD)
Mask brawl: “A video posted on Twitter of two women wrestling over a mask on an American Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Charlotte has gone viral.” (WSOC, with video)
Light rail shooting: A person was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after being shot at a light-rail stop on Trade Street behind the Epicentre uptown. It happened about 11:45 a.m. on Thursday. (Observer)
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire; Reporting intern: David Griffith