Retail Coming to Uptown, Finally

Retail Coming to Uptown, Finally

Skyscrapers, a football stadium, and some of the largest banks in the world are all located in the beautiful Uptown area.  It astonishes me that with the amount of foot traffic going through the city that there is absolutely NO retail.  Well this is all about to change now that there are several marketplaces developing enormous amounts of retail to breathe life into the city.  The Metropolitan will soon be the premiere location for Retail and the first retail complex to compliment the uptown scene.   The area is marketing itself as an “Urban Marketplace” with Retail, Commercial Office, and Condominiums for the area.  Residents have already moved in and are entertaining the thoughts that soon they will be able to stroll down to specialist grocery stores such as Trader Joes.  They will also soon be able to enjoy stores such as Target, Best Buy, Staples, Marshalls, and a Home Depot Design Center.  Additionally, a William Sonoma concept called West Elm will be opening on Oct. 15^th.

The Metropolitan is a joint venture between Birmingham based Colonial Property Trust and Charlotte’s Pappas Properties and Collett & Associates.  The property was developed based on a 2007 Survey which stated that to improve the retail situation of the city that it would be important to focus on 3 types of retail to integrate in to the city.  The three agreements were for soft goods stores that cater to office workers.  Convenient neighborhood stores such as grocery and hardware stores.  Additionally large corporate stores like Best Buy and Target who are scheduled to move in.  All of this could be good business and additional local tax revenue for local government. 

Surprisingly, with the upturn of real estate in uptown, Pappas and Associates has reported that they’re retail space is currently 70% occupied.  This means that competition will have some difficulty finding space in what will soon be a very popular part of local culture.  Even the CATS system is getting involved by providing direct bus service to the Metropolitan community.  This will also increase the amount of potential traffic to the area which will hopefully entice more retail shops to satisfy the public’s need for retail.  All and all I believe that there is nothing else that could help more that this project to attract a different crowd to the uptown scene.