If you ever heard the adage, “Out of sight is out of mind,” you will appreciate University City Partners’ need to stay connected. UCP staff members devote a lot of time and energy to attending meetings, doing presentations and telling the University City story while tracking national trends to keep our area on the right path.
A few weeks ago, University City Partners had a booth at a Charlotte Region Commercial Board of Realtors event in Ballantyne where we educated brokers about available University City properties. Thanks to the help of consultants, access to listings and input from property owners and their brokers, we are accumulating data, much of which will be showcased in a second website devoted to economic development. We will talk about it in upcoming newsletters so you can road test it and give us your feedback.
DOWNLOADABLE BROCHURES CAPTURE CRUCIAL DATA, TOO
Because of the hard work by UCP staff members updating our brochures (click on the link at the top of this article to see our latest) we have been tracking restaurants, shops, services and other businesses for a number of years. The print versions of these downloadable on-line brochures are a hot commodity in our hotels, the hospital, on campus and in other places that host visitors. More importantly, collecting all that data alerts us to trends ranging from the large number of new restaurants opening here to the retail shifts we are seeing.
UNIVERSITY CITY SUCCESSES NO LONGER OUT OF SIGHT
We also attend a lot of real estate related events to learn what is going on in Charlotte and how that is influenced by national trends. While that insures that we understand how University City stacks up, our presence also serves to remind folks of all that is going on in the area. In the old days , we admit to being rather insistent on grabbing folks by their lapels to tell them about the area’s many assets. Now people we meet at these events recite who is coming to University City, what has been sold and what is undergoing renovation before we can even get started bragging. At literally every event we attend, we pick up another piece of good news.
OUR TRANSIT HAS BIG ROLE IN REGION’S FUTURE
We participated in the recent RealityCheck2050 event sponsored by ULI Charlotte (read more at realitycheck2050.org). Many of the 41 tables of participants chose to reshape the 14-county region along existing and proposed transit corridors by extending transit into adjacent counties. Remember this is a 50-year horizon. It was particularly gratifying to see the important growth they foresaw along the University City rail line.
While UCP’s role is to tell our success stories, that never means we fail to be concerned about anything that is sluggish. With the power of an active board that cares deeply about University City, we all stay aware of opportunities and challenges.
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