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Aw sweet bejesus this is hawt.


Kieran Timberlake/Gantt Huberman rendering

UNCC site uptown aims to be a catalyst
By Doug Smith

UNC Charlotte will break ground uptown this spring on an iconic, cantilevered classroom building that will reach out to the business community and launch development of an urban village in First Ward.

The 12-story, $50.4 million Center City Building is to open for classes in fall 2011 for students in MBA and other graduate programs.

Chancellor Philip Dubois said the university has built many academic buildings in the past few years, but this might be its most important.

“We are literally bringing our considerable intellectual resources to the heart of the Charlotte community,” he said.

The 143,000-square-foot building at the southwest corner of Brevard and Ninth streets will overlook a proposed 4-acre park within Levine Properties' planned 22-acre urban village.

Over time, the village also is to include parking garages and up to 2 million square feet of offices, apartments, condos, shops and restaurants.

The UNCC building “will be the first to break ground since we have been assembling land in First Ward,” said Daniel Levine, president of Levine Properties. “It's really critical to developing the momentum for what ultimately will occur there.”

Levine, who is collaborating with the university, the city and the county in the public-private venture, said the building should be finished about the same time the economy is recovering from the recession, setting the stage perhaps for him to start initial mixed-use development projects there.

Charlotte Center City Partners President Michael Smith said UNCC's initiative bolsters uptown's education base and emphasizes the need for a light-rail line connecting the university and the center city.

UNCC has had a center city presence since the mid-1990s. But Joseph Mazzola, dean of the Belk College of Business, said the new building changes the relationship by opening “a whole new realm of possibilities for Belk College students to interact with the business community.”

Graduate level programs will include the Belk College of Business MBA and a new MBA concentration in sports marketing and management.

Among graduate classes to be offered are engineering, health and human services, liberal arts and sciences and a new arts + architecture master's program in urban design. UNCC's urban design studio will be based there.

The cantilevered design was done by Philadelphia-based KieranTimberlake in partnership with Charlotte's Gantt Huberman Architects. KieranTimberlake's client list includes UNC Chapel Hill, Yale, Cornell and Princeton.

Harvey Gantt of Gantt Huberman said the Center City Building, close by ImaginOn and linked to the proposed First Ward Park and private development, “promises to offer to citizens a new and memorable place in the center city.”

University officials believe the building, which will have 25 classrooms, an 18,000-square-foot plaza, 7,000 square feet of ground floor reception and event space and a 300-seat auditorium, will become part of the cultural fabric of the central business district.

The auditorium, for example, will be made available for public events, and the lobby will be a public space with amenities such as an art and architecture gallery, a bookstore and a coffee shop.

Charlotte's Rodgers Builders will be construction manager of the project, which will seek Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver certification.

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