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Just before Easter, we visited Charlotte for our third time, and we absolutely love both the people, and the city.
This might seem like an odd question, but here's what strikes me odd, about Charlotte:
The Fourth Ward, Dilworth, and Myers Park sections of Charlotte reflect a great deal of history. Yet here's the thing I can't get over: In older areas of like age, there's a 'main street' area, where people did the majority of their clothes, houseware, and food shopping. Yet no such thing exists in Charlotte, which begs the question: where did people do their shopping? Supermarkets and department stores came out in the mid to late 30's - after established neighborhoods like Dilworth came to be. Was downtown Charlotte once occupied by merchants?
Central Ave (Plaza Midwood) is but a few blocks long, and I am thinking of a Main Street shopping area like Greenville's Main Street, or Hendersonville's Main St.
My Mom's family is from Charlotte and while I was not born in the city, I have lived here 30+ years. To answer your question, the reason that you don't see these types of places is because downtown went through some really bad ideas of urban redevelopment since about the mid 60s. Basically it was all torn down. Here are some examples:
I-77 - This road cut a swath right though down town and separated it from 1920s to wwII and earlier neighborhoods to the west.
Brookshire Freeway. Same as above but it took out areas to the North. You can still see what it used to look like around Dalton Ave.
In 1974, there was the first big shot at building modern skyscrapers. Wachovia, First Union, and NCNB (first two are now Wells Fargo, latter is BofA) leveled a number of square blocks to build their first set of vanity HQ skyscraper towers. They are still there today.
Charlotte started building suburban malls in the 1970s (well actually before that) with Eastland and SouthPark. The downtown retailers moved to these locations and closed their dowtown stores. One of the Belk brothers is on a video where he clearly states that it is his desire to move to the suburbs.
The flagship Belk store and all the surrounding retail is torn down and replaced by another bank vanity skyscraper. In this case it is the current BofA tower and theatre next door. Iveys was closed and turned into condos. The bottom floor of it still exists as retail. Sears abandoned it's downtown store. Building is still there, but was/is government offices. County is supposed to be selling it.
Overstreet mall was created to allow people to shop without going outside. Put a lot of street level business out of business. Tax policy encourages land owners to tear down these buildings. Most are converted to parking lots.
First Union and BofA continue to build skyscrapers. These things look nice from the distance. At street level they create a lot of dead space.
In the late 1980s, when the NFL put a team here, the city leveled much of what was left of the West Morehead business area, and built the stadium. Mostly parking lots around it now. You can still see a little section of what it used to look like on Morehead as it approaches S. Tyron.
I-277. The part called John Belk Freeway that is. This final piece of the road leveled square miles of downtown buildings. Effectively downtown was surrounded by a big moat.
We continue to make such mistakes in the city as most of the stuff that has been constructed in the last 5-10 years continues to make the same mistakes of not having much to do or see at street level.
If you have specific questions, I will be glad to tell you what I know.
Mullman and lumbollo - thank you both, for your extremely helpful, and detailed, replies!
I hope that as Downtown Charlotte is redeveloped, it will include a lot more walkable useful shops (as opposed to boutiques). I love Main St Greenville, and would love to see that in Charlotte...
In the late 1980s, when the NFL put a team here, the city leveled much of what was left of the West Morehead business area, and built the stadium. Mostly parking lots around it now. You can still see a little section of what it used to look like on Morehead as it approaches S. Tyron.
For completeness sake...
It was the NBA that put a team here in the late 1980s.
The NFL didn't come until the mid 90s.
.....
It was the NBA that put a team here in the late 1980s.
The NFL didn't come until the mid 90s.
Forgive the bad information. I was mostly going by plans for the area that showed up in the Charlotte Observer about 1989 or so if something like this were to happen. This was before the team was officially awarded, but they showed where the stadium was going to go and where it would be placed in downtown. I do admit that over the decades it starts to run together a bit. I wrote the above from memory so it might off here and there a little bit.
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