Because of a strong banking/financial presence and lack of a completed outerbelt, Charlotte's CBD boasts just over 50% of the county's 20 million square feet of multi-tenant office space, an unusually high proportion by national standards. On the drawing board are another five million square feet. Adding the single-tenant financial headquarters buildings (BankAmerica, First Union, Wachovia Bank, etc.) and government buildings, we have a downtown approaching 20 million square feet of office space in the next five years. This total is within the minimum threshold necessary for a CBD to support a regional light rail system. Rail lines converge in the heart of downtown, adjacent to a bus terminal, setting a good stage for a public transit hub (Figure 3).
The corridors and centers vision, is being sorely tested by prevailing real estate trends. Charlotte, like most US southern cities, has relatively low densities. The core of the CBD and the southwestern and southeastern corridors have some concentrations of employment and housing, as does the University and its business parks in the northeast (Figure 4).
Figure 3: Public Transit Hub
