DEVELOPMENT

Nowhere in Charlotte embodies the city’s awkward and aspirational transition from car-centric Sun Belt suburbia to denser, walkable urbanism quite like a pair of fried chicken restaurants in Cotswold. Located next to each other near the intersection of Randolph and Sharon Amity roads, Bojangles and Chick-fil-A have both filed rezoning requests to demolish their existing […]

The pandemic has transformed so much about the world, including how we work, where we work, and how we commute. As a result of these shifts, Charlotte area transit use has fallen to less than 50% of pre-pandemic levels. And while debates continue on whether these effects are permanent or temporary, city planners are pushing […]

In Part 1 of this series, I showed that there was a sharp increase in development since construction began on the Blue Line Extension in 2013. Since then, there has been nearly $1 billion in new construction and 7,400 new residential units alongside the line. And despite the pandemic, demand for new construction has remained […]

Charlotte has a reputation as a shiny new city, one that tears down grand old buildings to replace them with bland new apartments and historic marker plaques. But that’s not the whole truth, and the guests on this episode of “Future Charlotte” are devoted to preserving and promoting more of Charlotte’s history. Historian Dan Morill, […]

There are, broadly, two big worlds that overlap in the planning and development realm: The dirty, hands-on physical world of building and construction, and the wonky, alphabet-soup-of-jargon world of zoning, regulation and land use policy. Right now, Charlotte’s in the heat of the wonky phase. Although it’s drawn far less attention than the contentious debate […]

Charlotte is a city that’s often criticized for tearing down its history. But some of the most significant demolitions of the past few decades haven’t been historic structures, but rather buildings that didn’t make it to middle age — or even puberty. In a fast-growing city, plenty of change is to be expected. The built […]

Charlotte’s growth rests, in the end, on the people who actually build our city: The construction industry. In this episode of the “Future Charlotte” podcast, general contractor Myers & Chapman CEO Marcus Rabun talks about the near-term challenges facing the industry such as covid-19, material and labor shortages. Rabun also discusses what might be an […]

“The key to its success will be for residents and leaders to dare to dream big ,” Chris Beynon, Center City Vision Plan team leader, MIG consultants, Charlotte Business Journal, August 9, 2019. “We will see our major employers on a timeline to restore the use of office space. It depends on the workforce coming […]

When it comes to growth, Charlotte continues to add not just people, but land. Unlike many other large cities landlocked by either political borders, rivers or oceans, Charlotte is still surrounded by thousands of acres of unincorporated land that can be brought into the city limits. In fall of 2019, a quick analysis showed that […]

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared on Mary Newsom’s blog The Naked City. The first three paragraphs are from Newsom. I stood in line two hours today to order chicken from Price’s Chicken Coop, the iconic fried chicken takeout joint on Camden Road in South End that had just announced it will close in two […]