Queen Charlotte, Christmas tree influencer
Plus: Uptown office building sold for cheap; New resort casino 2 hours away; Reader question on Park Road Shopping Center; Providence Road rezoning; John Spratt dies; UNC argyle hoodies
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How the city of Charlotte's namesake helped spark the global love of Christmas trees
You probably didn’t know this, but Queen Charlotte, the city’s namesake, played an important role in the popularization of Christmas trees. (Photo of Queen Charlotte statue courtesy of Charlotte Douglas International Airport)
by John Short
Charlotte is not normally the city most folks think of when it comes to beloved Christmas traditions. Since 1880, Charlotte has experienced only four White Christmases, and you’re more likely to go on a bike ride than a sleigh ride on Dec. 24.
But for those willing to look a little deeper, Charlotte can boast a few yuletide bona fides. Down the road in Gastonia (just past McAdenville, also known as “Christmastown USA”) sat what at one time was the biggest Christmas ornament factory in the world. Charlotte’s “Singing Christmas Tree” was the first production of its kind in the United States when it began and celebrated its 70th anniversary this year.
However, Charlotte’s history with Christmas trees goes back centuries. The city’s namesake, Queen Charlotte, is credited with bringing the tradition of Christmas tree decoration to the royal court in England, where it flourished into the tradition celebrated around the globe today.
In 1761, Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Streilitz in Germany became Queen Charlotte, wife to King George III. Charlotte brought many traditions and interests from her home country to the English court, including music (hosting an 8-year-old Mozart in 1764), as well as botany (the bird of paradise flower was named Strelitzia reginae after the Queen in 1788).
Decades into her reign, in 1800, these interests in plants and German traditions came together when she made the decision to bring the German tradition of decorating a “yew” branch to the Queen’s Lodge at Windsor.
In the decades prior to Queen Charlotte’s move to England, a popular tradition in southern Germany was to illuminate trees by candlelight. More specifically, in Charlotte’s home region of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the tradition included decorating a single, large branch of a yew tree.
While a yew is not quite the towering evergreen or fir trees we consider traditional Christmas trees today, the act of bringing a live plant into the court was revolutionary enough. Especially given that at this time, few in Britain were aware of the German tradition of tree decoration, and even the celebration of Christmas itself was rarely mentioned in the English press of the time.
But Queen Charlotte chose the Christmas season of 1800 to place a yew tree in a large tub in one of the drawing rooms at Kew Palace (a refuge of King George III), as part of a Christmas lunch she hosted for children of the royals, to which she had also invited 60 poor families from the area.
One of the gentlemen in attendance, Dr. John Watkins, wrote of the occasion:
Sixty poor families had a substantial dinner given them and in the evening the children of the principal families in the neighbourhood were invited to an entertainment at the Lodge. Here, among other amusing objects for the gratification of the juvenile visitors, in the middle of the room stood an immense tub with a yew tree placed in it, from the branches of which hung bunches of sweetmeats, almonds and raisins in papers, fruits and toys most tastefully arranged and the whole illuminated by small wax candles.
The tradition was well-received, and the queen would continue to stand up trees at royal residences. The tradition was beloved enough by the royal family to continue on after her death in 1818. The tradition of the trees made an impression on one particular granddaughter of Queen Charlotte’s, Princess Victoria, who wrote in her diary of her fondness for the Christmas trees at her home at Kensington Palace as a teenager.
This formative impression on the future Queen Victoria would be a key catalyst for the Christmas tree tradition still celebrated today around the world.
Queen Victoria, the granddaughter of Queen Charlotte, depicted around a decorated Christmas tree with Prince Albert and their children in December 1848. Queen Victoria helped popularize the German tradition of decorating trees after having fond memories of the practice that Queen Charlotte had instituted at royal residences. (Public domain image from the Webster Museum/Wikimedia Commons)
By 1840, when the now-Queen Victoria married Prince Albert — himself originally from Southern Germany — public interest in the young couple’s personal lives was at a fever pitch. British royal watchers were attentive to every detail of the life of the young couple, and when the young prince requested that fir trees from his native Germany be delivered to the court as Christmas trees, the English public began to mimic the practice, placing trees in their own homes. A tradition was born.
So this Christmas, don’t bemoan the non-white Christmas of temperate weather. Think instead of Charlotte’s connection to the origins of one of the most iconic traditions of the season.
John Short is a freelance writer and co-host of The Charlotte Podcast who loves digging up Charlotte’s past and pondering its future. Say hey when you see him on the streetcar.
Today’s supporting sponsor is Landon A. Dunn, attorney-at-law in Matthews:
Big discount: A nearly empty uptown office building sells for 1/2 of previous price — and 1/4 of tax value
One of uptown Charlotte’s most vacant office buildings has been sold — and at a price that’s half as much as it sold for in the 2010s.
The Wake Forest University Charlotte Center building on North College Street was sold on Friday for $32.7M, according to the county register of deeds office. It previously sold for $72.5M in two transactions in 2013 and 2018.
The sales price is about 1/4 of the $133M that the tax assessor’s office figured that the building was worth in 2023.
This example illustrates how much the value of older office buildings has fallen — and how one of the downsides of this nationwide phenomenon could be a huge drop in tax revenue for local governments. The problem is that if the actual market sales prices are dramatically below the estimated tax values, the tax values and the taxes owners pay will plunge. That will leave residential taxpayers shouldering more of the tax burden.
The Ledger has reported that there are at least 10 office buildings uptown that are more than half-empty. The citywide office vacancy rate is estimated at more than 20%, or more than double the typical rate, as work-from-home and hybrid arrangements have persisted after Covid.
We’re only at the early stages of seeing how this will play out, because there have been few recent sales of office buildings to be able to understand how much those values have dropped. Until Friday, that is.
The Wake Forest University Charlotte Center building is a 5-story brick structure that tax records say was built in 1988.
SOLD: The Wake Forest University Charlotte Center office building sold for $32.7M on Friday, far below its previous sale price and its tax value. It is more than 90% empty.
Although it carries the Wake Forest name, the building was primarily office space for Bank of America, until the bank’s lease expired in February 2023, with workers moving to the new Bank of America Tower at Legacy Union. Wake Forest leases only about 7% of the 458,000 s.f. building.
With the space mostly vacant and hardly anybody paying rent last year, the owner — connected to Philadelphia-area real estate company Alliance HP — defaulted on a $37M loan, and lenders led by Wells Fargo sued to have a receiver appointed, court documents say. At the time, it was 92% vacant, and the building owner owed $35M on the loan and had stopped paying, court documents say.
The court appointed a receiver, who took control of the property and started making moves to fix it up for sale, to pay back the lenders.
The property consists of four taxable parcels. In 2018, the office building and parking deck had sold for a combined $54.5M. The land that the block sits on had sold for $12.5M in 2013. (There’s also a hotel — the DoubleTree by Hilton Charlotte City Center — but it’s not a part of these sales.)
Earlier in 2023, county tax assessors calculated that the offices, parking deck and land were worth a combined $132.9M, based on formulas and comparable sales from recent years. As the result of appeals, the assessed value was reduced to $114.6M.
In the spring of this year, before the property went on the market, a buyer called AH Real Estate Holdings indicated it was interested in buying the property, and the receiver and the company negotiated a sales price: $32.7M, or about $71 per square foot. In court documents, the receiver called the amount a “fair market price for the Real Property in its current condition.”
It's unclear what will happen to the property now. The contact for AH Real Estate Holdings is listed as a Dallas businessman with a background in hospitality technology.
As part of the closing, the deal presumably included paying the outstanding property tax bills for the site, which total $907,000 for 2024. If it were taxed on the amount it actually sold for, as opposed to the assessed value, the taxes would be just $259,000. Now imagine if you applied similar drops to a whole bunch of other commercial parcels.
Emerging trend? We’re starting to see a trend of office buildings selling for far less than previous sales prices — like, 40-50% less — which are also far less than their assessed property tax values. The Johnston Building on South Tryon Street sold in 2019 for $32.25M, then sold again in May for $19.3M (or $112 per square foot) — a 40% reduction. Its tax value had been assessed in 2023 at $45.4M (reduced to $37.4M on appeal).
As we wrote last week, it’s being turned into a hotel. —Tony Mecia
Related Ledger articles:
“Whoa: At least 10 uptown office towers are more than 50% empty” (June 5, 2023)
“How much is a half-empty uptown office tower worth? Owner of Trade and Tryon building requests 41% reduction from 2019 sales price” (🔒, June 30, 2023)
“Charlotte’s slumping office market sounds alarms” (🔒, Dec. 6, 2023)
Vegas on the Dan River: New ‘Caesars Virginia’ opens this week, becoming the closest resort casino to Charlotte
A new casino operated by Caesars Entertainment is opening this week in Danville, Va., and it will be the closest resort casino to Charlotte.
Called “Caesars Virginia,” the $750M casino complex will open Tuesday at noon following a parade of race cars through the town of Danville led by former NBA star Dennis Rodman.
It is being billed as “Roman luxury meets Southern charm” and will have a full-service spa, pool, upscale bars and lounges and a restaurant from celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. The casino also has plenty of gambling options, including slots, live table games and a sportsbook. Photos from local publications of the construction show ornate statues, Doric columns, crystal chandeliers and celestial murals.
Danville, a former textile mill town north of Greensboro, is about a 2-hour drive from Charlotte, so the opening of Caesars Virginia will dethrone Harrah’s Cherokee Casino as the closest resort casino to Charlotte. The N.C. town of Cherokee is about a 3-hour drive from Charlotte. Both are operated in partnership with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
There’s also the Catawba Two Kings Casino in Kings Mountain, about 40 minutes west of Charlotte, but it is in a temporary facility with no resort amenities.
Room rates at Caesars Virginia in January start at $299 mid-week and can start as high as $799 on weekends.
Danville officials have touted the benefits of the casino, such as millions in new tax revenue, jobs for 1,200 people and increased tourism. Fearful of money going over the state line into Virginia, North Carolina’s legislature briefly considered legalizing casinos in a handful of rural areas in 2023, but the proposal went nowhere. —Tony Mecia
You Ask, We Answer: What’s going on with the Park Road Shopping Center post office?
Welcome to the latest installment of You Ask, We Answer, the helpdesk-esque feature where we, the journalists, aim to tackle the vexing and curious observations and questions of you, the citizenry, in regards to civic life.
Today, we have one of our favorite types of submissions: one that came with a photo! It came from reader Chris M.:
I went to the post office at Park Road Shopping Center on Sunday to buy stamps from the self-service kiosk, but the doors were locked and this sign was posted:
Typically, post office lobbies are open beyond post office business hours, so that people who rent post office boxes can access them anytime. But apparently that’s not the case right now at Park Road Shopping Center.
Here’s what a spokesman with the U.S. Postal Service had to say about what’s going on at that location:
The safety of our customers is a priority for the Postal Service. The Park Road Post Office closed its lobby after business hours due to vandalism, which caused unsafe and unsanitary conditions. We have notified local officials about the situation. We thank customers for their understanding.
There you have it! —Cristina Bolling
Do you have a pressing question you’d like our talented reporting staff to try to answer? Email us.
You might be interested in these Charlotte events
Events submitted by readers to The Ledger’s events board:
TODAY: “Tosco Music Holiday Party.” 7:30-10:30 p.m., Knight Theater, 430 S. Tryon St. Celebrate the season with this local tradition that transforms Knight Theater into Charlotte’s living room for the holidays, gathering 1,200 friends & neighbors for holiday songs and singalongs with diverse acts & a variety of music styles! Fun for all ages! Cost: $22.50 - $56.50 with 10% discount for groups of 10+.
TODAY: “Selfies with Santa at AK,” 6-8 p.m., Ardrey Kell High School parking lot, 10220 Ardrey Kell Road. Santa’s stopping by Ardrey Kell High School to show his support for the Mighty Knight Bands. Bring the kids for your own selfie. Enjoy live music. Detour Coffeebar will be on hand with hot cocoa and coffee. Free (donations welcome).
WEDNESDAY: “2025 Media Outlook,” 5-6:30 p.m., Innovation Barn, 932 Seigle Ave. Take part in an engaging discussion hosted by the Charlotte Area Chamber of Commerce as we recap Charlotte’s major stories from 2024 and explore what’s on the horizon for 2025. Our panel features some of the city’s most trusted voices in journalism: Tony Mecia of The Charlotte Ledger, Mary Ramsey of The Charlotte Observer and David Mildenberg of Business North Carolina. Free.
SIGN UP NOW: YWCA Orange Crush Swim Team, YWCA Central Carolinas, 3420 Park Road. YWCA’s Orange Crush swim team seeks to promote each swimmer’s personal best in a team-oriented and fun environment. Our coaches are committed to developing strong swimmers through quality instruction while encouraging each child to improve at their own level. Winter season starts Jan. 13. Price varies.
➡️ List your event on the Ledger events board.
In brief:
11-year-old killed crossing the street: An 11-year-old boy was struck by a pickup truck and killed on Friday morning in northwest Charlotte. The victim was identified as Hendrix Truesdale, a 6th-grader at nearby Coulwood STEM Academy. Police said he crossed Gum Branch Road by Summerville Drive “outside of a marked crosswalk when he was struck.” (WSOC)
Approval expected of big Providence Road rezonings: The Charlotte City Council is expected to approve three rezoning petitions tonight that would allow about 2,200 additional apartments and townhouses around the Providence Square area along Providence Road. Some neighbors have objected to the size of the project and say it will clog Providence Road with traffic, but city staff and a planning commission panel support the plans.
In memoriam: John Spratt, a moderate former Democratic congressman who represented York County, S.C., from 1983 to 2011, died Saturday at age 82. He passed away at home surrounded by family, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease, his daughter wrote on Facebook. (Associated Press)
Local news + tabloid merger: Charlotte Observer parent company McClatchy announced that it has completed its merger with Accelerate360, the owner of publications Us Weekly, In Touch Weekly and Soap Opera Digest. McClatchy said the merger uniting local newspapers with “lifestyle and entertainment” brands establishes the combined entity as a “dynamic digital publishing platform with high-quality, relevant content” that reaches 100 million unique website visitors a month. Both are owned by New Jersey-based hedge fund Chatham Asset Management.
West Charlotte advances to state football championship: West Charlotte High School will play for the 3A state championship in football on Saturday against Seventy-First High School of Fayetteville. It’s West Charlotte’s first appearance in a title game since 2006. Monroe High School will play for the championship in the 2A division against Northeastern of Elizabeth City.
Snow unlikely: It’s too soon to know if there will be snow on Christmas in Charlotte, but it seems very unlikely, WCNC meteorologist Brad Panovich says. (WCNC)
Argyle hoodies on the way at UNC: Alexander Julian, the clothing designer who introduced diamond-style argyle patterns into UNC Chapel Hill sports uniforms, said he is working to develop a Carolina argyle hoodie following UNC’s hiring of new football coach Bill Belichick, who is known for wearing hoodies on the sidelines — sometimes with the sleeves cut off. “We’ll have them soon,” Julian tells North Carolina Rabbit Hole.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Business manager: Brie Chrisman