UNC Charlotte Uptown Building Renderings

UNC Charlotte reveals uptown building design
Charlotte Business Journal - by Will Boye Staff Writer
NC Charlotte has unveiled plans for an eye-catching, cantilevered building in uptown Charlotte that the school says marks its commitment to the citys business district.
The $50.4 million Center City Building will be constructed at Ninth and Brevard streets. It will feature 143,000 square feet of classrooms, public space and faculty offices. The building was designed by architectural firm Kieran Timberlake in partnership with Charlotte-based Gantt Huberman Architects.
Construction starts this spring, with the building slated to open in fall 2011.
It makes a bold statement about the university, says Michael Smith, president of Charlotte Center City Partners. It lets you know that this is the public university for this region.
Smith says academia has become an important component of uptown development. The UNC Charlotte building adds to a growing portfolio of institutions such as Johnson & Wales University and Wake Forest University that have established a presence uptown or plan to.
During the design process, UNC Charlotte settled on a basic building shape that it termed the stack of books, says UNC Charlotte Chancellor Phillip Dubois.
We thought that was a nice metaphor for an academic building, he says. We wanted to be distinctive. We just didnt want to be another bank building. We didnt want to be another office tower. We wanted to be a little different, and I think we got that.
The Center City Building will house the schools MBA program and Urban Design Studio. Students also will be able to attend graduate-level courses in the colleges of engineering, health and human services, liberal arts and sciences, and the college of arts and architectures new masters program in urban design.
The building, which will include 25 classrooms, will replace the schools 15,000-square-foot branch in the Mint Museum of Craft + Design on North Tryon Street.
The facility will be adjacent to a new, 4-acre city park, and the two will be connected by an 18,000-square-foot plaza. An underground parking garage will be built beneath part of the park. It will contain 600 parking spaces, 300 of which will be available for the school.
The building also will feature a 300-seat auditorium that will be available for public events, along with 7,000 square feet of space on the first two floors for public receptions and events.
State lawmakers approved $45.8 million in public funds for construction. Other costs are covered by a capital allocation from the university and support from the UNC Charlotte Foundation.
Dubois says the Center City Building is the most important facility in the schools history because it will finally connect the university to uptown and help the city to take greater ownership of the school.
This will be the game changer, he says. We had to get this one right.
UNC Charlotte is the fourth-largest campus of the 17 institutions in the UNC System. Fall enrollment totaled 23,300, including nearly 5,000 graduate students. The university expects to have 25,000 students by 2012 and as many as 35,000 by 2020.
charlotte.bizjournals.com/char...
Video courtesy UNCC www.uncc.edu/

[@sunshineunc]

thats going to be so cool, wow, I wonder if they have started on it.

[@twinz2008]

they're gonna have a light rail up in around 2015 too

[@Quasifonix]

Engineers are already working on the light rail extension now. I surveyed the job. They'll be starting on it this year. It'll run all the way to UNCC.

[@Pondscapes]

it is done now

[@vbatth]

009 Sound System - Dreamscape

[@cheezcola]

what is that song again?

[@vbatth]

does anybody know the cost of this building?