$1M campaign launched to enhance uptown's image

Campaign aims to portray uptown Charlotte as a dynamic destination for businesses and residents

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‘Get On Up’: New $1M marketing campaign designed to boost ‘dragged down’ perception of uptown

Uptown advocacy group Charlotte Center City Partners says it is launching a $1M marketing campaign in March to try to improve the perception of uptown.

At a Center City Partners board meeting on Thursday, CEO Michael Smith said the marketing campaign is one of several tactics that’s part of an “Uptown Vibrancy Collaborative” designed to support the idea that uptown is a dynamic and thriving destination that attracts top businesses and workers.

He said the perception of uptown has been “dragged down for the last three years,” an apparent reference to post-Covid attention on empty office towers, the persistence of hybrid work and residents’ concerns about crime and vagrancy. Uptown leaders prefer to portray the center city as the energy-packed heart of Charlotte that buzzes with cultural and sporting events and dining options and surpasses competing cities as a place to work, live and play.