Getting more retailers to locate uptown could require creative incentives for “pioneers” and stricter requirements to include ground-level retail in new buildings, an economic developer told Charlotte Center City Partners on Thursday.
Those were two of the ideas Christopher Hemans presented at the CCCP board meeting. Hemans was named the group’s director of retail in August, tasked with leading efforts to grow uptown’s retail scene beyond bars and restaurants.
“We really want to create an authentic street experience,” said Hemans, praising walkable cities such as Asheville and Charleston known for their retail scenes. “We have a very different built environment, but how can we replicate that here?”
You really can’t make this level of ignorance and arrogance up. How can you replicate Asheville here? You can’t. And to even use a city with a tenth the population of Charlotte as a comp is simply absurd. And then there’s that Asheville and Charleston are both major tourist destinations. Uptown Charlotte, except in the mind of perhaps Christopher Hemans or some other CCCP type, is not.
The CCCP can’t have it both ways. The core issue is that Uptown land is very expensive. Retail is space intense, so Uptown stores would have to sell a ton of stuff to simply pay the rent — and currently they can’t. To use public money to subsidize retail in certain locations is simply government trying to picking winners and losers at its worst. And given the underlying economics, it’s a move that’s almost certain to fail.
Bonus thought: Requiring ground-level retail makes new construction in Uptown less likely.