City thrives on dramatic growth and the chance to talk about it
DOUG SMITH
The things big cities take for granted, such as the arrival of a Ritz-Carlton, is huge news in Charlotte.
The day after Bank of America's Wednesday announcement that it would develop a $60 million, 150-room Ritz-Carlton next to its uptown headquarters, the city was still atwitter.
Attracting the lodging industry's biggest name in luxury puts Charlotte among the world's elite cities.
As Bank of America Chairman Ken Lewis put it: "The arrival of Ritz-Carlton is one more step in Charlotte's emergence as a primary destination for American business and tourism."
At rates in the $300-a-night range, not many working stiffs will ever set foot in a hotel whose name is synonymous with extravagance.
But in Charlotte, they cheer, they gloat, they go gaga.
This must seem like strange behavior to transplants from larger cities, but we natives understand completely.
This is about image, civic pride and ambition.
Charlotte is a city on the rise. Relocation advisory firms often list it among the best places to live and conduct business.
That rapid ascent over the past 15 years -- and the cheering that accompanies it -- is as much a part of the narrative of this place as the stories of growth, schools and politics.
Combine Ritz-Carlton with other firsts -- a 60-story skyscraper, the NBA, the NFL, an uptown culinary and business university -- and you have something concrete to illustrate Charlotte's dynamism.
They are trophies that help outsiders see what we've bagged, and we like to display them prominently.
It's difficult to imagine the Ritz-Carlton having any effect on our efforts to improve public schools, unclog traffic or retrain laid-off workers.
Pondering those weighty issues -- for most of us -- is too much like doing homework and too complicated to discuss in a breezy phone chat with cousin Susie in Ohio.
So she and others are going to hear about the pending arrival of Ritz-Carlton uptown, a Whole Foods Market in Elizabeth and Neiman Marcus at SouthPark.
Charlotteans are so eager to show off their city that newcomers sometimes wonder whether they were born with a boosterism gene.
Suburbanites will grumble that uptown has little to offer them, but on weekends we see them driving around, proudly pointing out skyscrapers to their out-of-town guests.
Decision makers at the companies the Charlotte Chamber recruits are always impressed with what they refer to as Charlotte's "can-do spirit."
That was a deciding factor in December 2001, when then Charlotte Center City Partners Chairman Jim Palermo was helping recruit Johnson & Wales University.
University President Jack Yena recalled that he was in the final stages of signing a deal in Charleston when he toured uptown Charlotte.
Palermo called after the tour and asked him to wait 60 days for Charlotte's proposal for a new campus. "I'll never forget the enthusiasm in his voice," Yena said. "I was trying to thank him for the interest and tell him no, but he wouldn't let me."
On the prestige scale, bagging Johnson & Wales, Ritz-Carlton and Neiman Marcus is big.
But will we ever be so big that these trophies don't make front-page news? Probably not. We enjoy the hoopla. And we enjoy the chase.
Charlotte is a second-tier city. I can live with that. You can still get to work without a two-hour commute and still eat in a nice restaurant without a reservation.
Besides, even the biggest booster would have to admit first-tier cities such as New York, San Francisco and Chicago are too far ahead for us to catch.
Of course, that hasn't stopped us from chasing the next big trophy -- the NASCAR Hall of Fame. NASCAR is expected to choose from among five competing cities by the end of the year.
But why stop there?
Charlotte doesn't have a major-league baseball team -- yet.
The city has hosted the men's and women's Final Four college basketball tournaments, but unlike arch-rival Atlanta, we've never hosted the Olympic Games.
Now, that would be something to talk about.
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