Been waiting on this for years. I hope it comes together. Our university sorely lacks a central off campus social area. I just hope they create more of a walker friendly downtown looking area and less strip shopping center look to drive to.
Doesn’t matter. The people who think guns are the answer to every little problem will show up and destroy whatever is created, like they’ve done at Northlake and many other places like peaceful neighborhoods and streets in general.
Hopefully tied in with the upgrades to University Place - which includes the relocation of the U City regional library - the area will get the long needed facelift it needs.
CATS has been completely mismanaged. Trains derailed in May 2022 only to be reported months later. Light rail trains have not been properly serviced so now they can only travel at 35 mph causing trip times to take longer. Almost all of CATS leadership has left recently which I guess is a good thing. It will cost loads of money to service the existing trains and get things running in proper order again. This is addition to CATS bus drivers striking in recent years over safety concerns and ridership numbers being way down since the pandemic.
Another article:
Love this idea in theory. The problem with these areas has always been students are broke / not enough of them. We probably have enough of them now, but their buying power doesn’t compare to the people that support NoDa / Southend / etc.
I’d love to see it succeed though. It’s badly missing for this campus.
UT has The Strip which isn’t any kind of formal setup. It’s just a ton of student and weekend visitor alumni oriented restaurants, bars, a hotel, and a few shops on Cumberland avenue which cuts through one side of campus and continues west. There is no reason we couldn’t have something like that. But alumni would have to support it in a big way.
As we have seen the challenge is cheap attracts unsavory crowd and scares students away. Absolutely a challenge.
Agreed. Have to strike that balance. Still UT actually has an enrollment 2-3k smaller than ours. But that damn Days Inn or whatever it is currently fills up every home game weekend and for graduation etc. (I passed out drunk in their “ballroom” one time). And the bars are overfull with alumni for game days and pretty busy other weekends too.
Have to make sure it is clean and safe. Otherwise you’re going to get a rehash of the crap happening at Northlake Mall.
Yep, every time there is a good drink special in town, as soon as it is discovered by non students the bar goes to shit.
Even beyond just behavioral/safety issues that inevitably arise, you end up with poor people that come in and buy 1 or 2 $2 beers and linger around all night. Restaurants can’t stay in business with an establishment full of people spending $2-$4 and hanging around for hours while they nurse their beers, or sneak in liquor to get wasted on while they nurse cheap beers/cocktails.
Students dig food trucks
I like the idea but this plan seems to be lacking in details. Unfortunately, I think that the best chance for success might be if the University get directly involved, similar to the hotel project. The city has done an absolutely shameful job with the zoning and regulation of the area around the U. It’s not on the South side, so they don’t care.
University City could use less cheap eats places and more trendy type of restaurants that will attract upper middle class folks that have real money. For a University City downtown district to work you will probably need the university to be directly involved and university police closely watching the area. Anything new in Charlotte will initially attract a crowd during the honeymoon phase but after the honeymoon phase things can go downhill fast like the Epicentre.
Thats a good point - college towns are often supported by both the students and the university community which includes professors and families. Gotta hit that sweet spot where it is nice enough for one crowd but cheap enough for the other crowd while keeping the riff raff out.
Student discounts, must show ID.
Everyone else, regular price.
That is The Way.
After people start living here, the first thing they’ll do is complain about jet noise and ask: why’d they put that airport near our new neighborhood? 
That’s exactly how shuffletown drag strip got shut down 