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The annual parade hosts thousands of participants and spectators in Uptown Charlotte, coming together to honor our nation's heroes.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Veterans Day is on Monday, Nov. 11, but the celebration of our nation's heroes begins this weekend in Uptown Charlotte.

The 2024 Salute to Veterans Parade is happening this Saturday, Nov. 9, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The annual parade is put on by the Carolinas Freedom Foundation with more than 2,000 participants expected to gather to honor those who have served in the United States Armed Forces.

The parade will start at Tryon and Ninth Street before heading south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Whether you're planning to attend or want to avoid traffic impacts on Saturday, here are the road closures you need to know about in the morning and early afternoon.

Closures start as early as 8am at the set-up area (between 11th and 9th on Tryon) and on N Tryon St to MLK Jr. Blvd.Closer to parade time, side streets along the parade route will close all the way down to Brooklyn Village Ave.Everything should be open again by 2pm. @wcnc pic.twitter.com/t2thajDCar

— WCNC Traffic (@WCNCTraffic) November 8, 2024

The CATS Gold Line service will also be suspended between CTC and French St. stations for the parade between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 9.

According to CATS, the Gold Line will continue to operate between Sunnyside and CTC stations on a 20-minute headway and a bus bridge will be in place to supplement service between CTC and French St. during the parade.

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Cousins Properties is under contract to purchase Vantage South End, a 639,000-square-foot office complex in Charlotte, N.C., for $328.5 million. The deal is expected to close next month and is subject to customary closing conditions.

A joint venture between Invesco Real Estate and The Spectrum Cos. currently owns the two-building property, according to CommercialEdge information.

The duo completed the campus in 2021 and 2022 with help from general contractor Rodgers Buildings and design firm LS3P Associates. Initial plans for the property also included an 11-story, 200-key boutique hotel.

Vantage South End comprises two 11-story, LEED-certified buildings with floorplates ranging from 21,400 to 31,400 square feet, according to CommercialEdge information.

READ ALSO: Office Vacancy on the Rise in Charlotte

The campus features 45,000 square feet of retail space, a 1-acre park, 18 outdoor terraces, several fitness and conference centers, as well as multiple on-site dining options. In addition, the property has a parking ratio of 3 spaces per 1,000 square feet.

The office complex is 97.4 percent leased with a weighted average lease term of more than nine years. Tenants include CBRE, LendingTree, Alston & Bird and Hartford Insurance.

Located at 1415 Vantage Park Drive and 1120 S. Tryon St., the property is in Charlotte’s South End neighborhood, 1 mile from the city’s downtown. The Charlotte Douglas International Airport is 6 miles northwest.

Charlotte’s office sector faces headwinds

Charlotte’s office investment volume year-to-date as of September amounted to $193 million, according to the latest CommercialEdge office report. Assets in the metro changed hands for $150 per square foot on average, below the $171 national figure. The market’s vacancy rate at the end of the same month was 18.3 percent, 220 basis points higher year-over-year.

In one of the metro’s largest sales through September, Vanguard acquired Centene’s former office complex in Charlotte for $117 million. The financial services company will use the 700,000-square-foot space as the new site for its regional/satellite office. The 91-acre campus is scheduled to open next year.

Other notable deals included KHP Capital Partners’ purchase of The Johnston Building. Spaulding & Slyle Investments sold the 172,382-square-foot asset for $19.3 million in May.

The city of Charlotte can’t say how much it will spend to send multiple elected officials and staff members to Germany for an economic development trip that coincides with a Carolina Panthers game in the European country.

The trip — which will also include representatives from Mecklenburg County, the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance and the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority — could cost tens of thousands.

The delegation is scheduled to be in Germany through the weekend. The Panthers are slated to play the New York Giants at Allianz Arena in Munich Sunday.

Charlotte’s delegation includes the majority of City Council, city spokesman Lawrence Corley said: Mayor Pro Tem Dante Anderson and Council members Ed Driggs, Marjorie Molina, Renee Johnson, Tariq Bokhari, Malcolm Graham, LaWana Mayfield and Victoria Watlington. An additional six city staffers will also make the trip.

Leaders this week touted the business ties between Charlotte and Germany when discussing the trip.

“It makes sense for a wide variety of reasons … To some of our friends in the media, we can’t be acting like we’re Mayberry,” Graham said at Monday’s meeting of the city council’s economic development committee.

After repeated questions from The Charlotte Observer about the cost of the trip, Corley said Thursday the city won’t know “the exact total cost” of the trip until some council members “submit reimbursement forms after the trip.”

The city will pay for attendees’ plane tickets, hotel and meals “that are not provided as part of the urban exchange or economic development events,” Corley said.

An itinerary for the trip provided by the city lists hotel options as the Platzl Hotel or Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski at an average cost per night of $825. The Platzl is a 4-star hotel, and the Kempinski is a 5-star hotel, according to their websites.

At that rate, accommodations alone for the 14-person city delegation across multiple days would cost tens of thousands. The city is paying “for the minimum number of nights required to conduct the assigned city business,” Corley said, and will not reimburse “amenity charges” such as in-room movie rentals and laundry fees.

Flights will be reimbursed “at no more than the main cabin coach fare rate.”

The itinerary lists the cost of game tickets for the Panthers as $150 to $175 a person. WCNC, which first reported the trip, reported via a public records request the City Attorney’s Office had ruled council members would have to pay for their own game tickets.

Members of Charlotte’s delegation were scheduled to arrive in Germany Thursday or Friday and return home Tuesday, according to the itinerary provided by the city.

Thursday’s agenda included staff meeting with a German housing cooperative and a reception for 150 guests including “a mix of those traveling to Munich from Charlotte, existing German businesses and prospective German businesses.”

On Friday, the group is slated to participate in “expert exchanges” with Munich city staff and officials to discuss economic development, affordable housing, mobility and strategic planning. The delegation will then go to an evening event hosted by the consul general, who leads the U.S. Consulate in Munich, also attended by “NFL representatives, team owners, athletes and Munich VIPs.”

On Saturday morning, the group will take a transit tour then tour a “social housing and sustainability site.” There’s another reception Saturday night — this time with “government offices from the City of Munich, State of Bavaria and other VIPs.”

Sunday’s agenda only includes the Panthers game.

On Monday, the final day on the ground, the delegation is scheduled to attend a lunch with MSXTEC, a German company with operations in Charlotte. The group will then attend a business recruitment seminar followed by a reception with German business leaders.

A total of 215 German companies have nearly 20,000 employees in the Charlotte area, the CLT Alliance said in a report released Thursday. That’s the most of any foreign country, according to the study.

Mecklenburg County will send representatives on the trip, too: County Commissioner Susan Rodriguez-McDowell, who chairs the commission’s Economic Development Committee, and Roger Johnson, director of the county’s Office of Economic Development.

The county expects to pay approximately $6,000 per person for the trip, spokeswoman Britt Clampitt told the Observer.

Rodriguez-McDowell and Johnsons’ itinerary includes “an investment seminar, meeting Bavarian government officials and touring a manufacturing plant,” Clampitt said.

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November 08, 2024 8:19 AM

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With Donald Trump returning to the White House, Charlotte business leaders are looking at how his potential policies will affect various sectors, and how quickly.

Some of the major policies businesses are assessing are looser banking regulations, a possible extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, tariff increases and immigration reform.

Let’s get into the details.

Charlotte is a banking capital and Trump’s return to office bodes well for the sector in terms of potentially looser regulations.

“The banking regulations and the capital requirements for banks are going to go down,” said Matthew Metzgar, a clinical professor of economics at UNC Charlotte. “In the short term banks will benefit and I think Charlotte will benefit from that as well.”

One of the biggest impacts will be on the possible decrease in capital requirement. This means what percentage of funds banks must have on hold versus how much they loan out. That minimum is currently about 4.5%, according to the Federal Reserve Board.

Many of the banking regulations Trump proposes to change were put in place by former President Barack Obama in 2010. Obama implemented stricter rules to prevent another financial crisis seen in 2008.

These rules are another balancing act similar to the tax cuts, Metzgar said.

There is some sort of optimal amount of regulation,” Metzgar said. “If regulations are too loose, banks could engage in risky behavior and end up needing bailouts. But if it’s too tight, then it constrains their growth and their ability to compete.”

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, enacted in 2018 and better known as the Trump tax cuts, was a major reform of the tax code that, in short, reduced tax rates for people and businesses.

Some portions of the act have already ended, while others were set to expire at the end of 2025.

Since it was a Trump enacted policy, it’s likely the policy will be reinstated with some changes.

“It’ll probably be modified to cut taxes in a number of different areas,” Metzgar said. “The exact details of the plan will obviously get fleshed out but it seems to be a big priority. As far as beneficiaries, businesses and potentially workers can benefit from that… In general and through basic economic theory, if you cut taxes then you tend to have economic growth.”

Two portions of the act that are on the minds of Charlotte business leaders are the domestic research and development tax credits and the corporate tax rate, according to Joe Bost, the chief advocacy officer at the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance.

Businesses were allowed to fully deduct domestic research and development investment costs prior to the tax act, meaning any costs associated with business innovations could be written off immediately.

The tax act required companies to amortize, or gradually write off those development costs, leading to more upfront costs for companies looking into business improvements.

Businesses are hoping for a shift back to full expense capabilities.

“Whether you’re a big business, small business, it gave you the opportunity to see…where you could try to improve your business,” Bost said. “It’s a business friendly provision that helps small businesses more than big businesses. If you’re a smaller business and you are doing research and development, that immediate expensing means a lot more to you than it does a larger business.”

As for the corporate tax rate, Trump has proposed decreasing the rate from the flat 21%, which was part of the tax act, to 15%.

The initial shift to 21% from a fluctuating rate brought a competitive edge to Charlotte-based businesses, Bost said. And as Metzgar said, decreasing taxes can increase economic growth.

However, Metzgar cautioned that a lower tax rate could increase national debt.

The initial tax act has already added about $1 to $2 trillion to the federal debt, according to The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan public policy institute.

If Trump’s plan is enacted, as is, it could add about $7 trillion to the federal debt, according to The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan and non-profit organization that informs the public on fiscal policies.

The current federal debt is $35.9 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury fiscal data site.

“[Trump’s plan] can increase economic growth, but you also have to fund all these government services and if you have less money coming in the way the U.S. does, it has to borrow the money,” Metzgar said. “You have to balance that. It may increase short term economic growth but as this debt grows larger and larger, at some point that’s going to become a problem for future generations.”

Trump backs tariffs, or taxes put on imported and exported international goods, and has proposed enacting a number of tariff increases. A 10% to 20% “universal” tariff on foreign products is possible, along with a 60% tariff on goods from China, as reported by The New York Times.

Those proposed tariffs could offset the potential economic growth from his tax cut policies but could increase federal revenue, possibly limiting increases to the federal debt, according to a report released by Wells Fargo.

Most economists don’t favor tariffs, Metzgar said.

“Tariffs raise prices for consumers and increase the cost of buying a basket of goods,” Metzgar said. “If you look at general trends in trade over the last 50 years, everything’s been moving towards lower tariffs and that tends to coincide with more economic growth.”

In Trump’s previous term, trade disputes led to increased tariffs put on American goods. For example, a 25% tariff was put on American whiskey by the European Union in 2018, leading to a decline in sales, news outlets previously reported.

But Trump’s tariff plans aren’t set in stone. Bost said the business alliance is keeping an eye on possible enactments and what that means for both big and small businesses in Charlotte.

“It’s too early to tell what trade and tariff policy could look like and what it could mean to Charlotte area businesses,” Bost said.

While it’s unclear what Trump’s final policies will look like or when they will occur, he has said his Day 1 priority will focus on immigration that includes mass deportations, the removal of birthright citizenship, ending Temporary Protected Status and curbing legal immigration.

All of these are just proposals. However, Trump’s previous term did see a reduction in legal immigration and that reduction was a slight burden on the labor force, according to multiple policy institutes.

In North Carolina, about 68% of “foreign-born” individuals participate in the labor force, according to a 2023 report from the North Carolina Department of Commerce. That’s more than the 59.8% of “native-born” North Carolinians.

Charlotte businesses are concerned about how newcomers receive employment authorization, Bost said.

“The immigration system by which you come to the U.S. to work needs improvement,” Bost said. “If we are going to be able to supply our employers with the talent that they need to have thriving businesses in the Charlotte region, we have to have a strong immigration system that works so that people who are capable of filling the jobs, fill the jobs.”

The Charlotte Observer

Desiree Mathurin covers growth and development for The Charlotte Observer. The native New Yorker returned to the East Coast after covering neighborhood news in Denver at Denverite and Colorado Public Radio. She’s also reported on high school sports at Newsday and southern-regional news for AP. Desiree is exploring Charlotte and the Carolinas, and is looking forward to taking readers along for the ride. Send tips and coffee shop recommendations.