Big frickin’ surprise.
The Charlotte Business Journal reports that the former Charlotte mayor’s firm will help design the $46m. Uptown building for UNCC, state funds for which were secured by former Speaker and convicted felon Jim Black. More:
The center city campus building will house classrooms, lecture halls, a 300-seat auditorium, faculty offices, an art gallery, an outdoor plaza, a small bookstore and a coffee shop.
Rodgers Builders Inc. of Charlotte will serve as the project’s construction manager. The school is targeting a fall 2010 opening.
Classes planned for the building include the MBA program, continuing education classes, professional/career development seminars in several disciplines and an urban architecture studio. All colleges of the university will teach classes there.
Rodgers Builders, recall, was responsible for turning the $25m. Uptown public library into the $46m. ImaginOn. The UNCC building will be next door to ImaginOn, at Ninth and Brevard, so I guess that makes it OK.
There are hollers in Kentucky with more diverse gene-pools than Charlotte’s business elite.
Bonus Observation: Remember that Gantt filmed a save-the-transit tax TV ad, the transit tax that UNCC needs for Phil Dubois to get his train line between his new Uptown Gantt-designed building and UNCC’s Harrisburg campus.
