Charlotte Center City Partners' Vision Awards highlight most notable leaders, projects - Charlotte Business Journal
Charlotte is not lacking in influential and transformative people, projects and businesses. These five stood above the rest. Charlotte Center City Partners' Vision Awards recognized five influential individuals and projects at its annual dinner. The awards were presented at the Charlotte Convention Center in uptown, with attendees including Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, Bill Rogers, and George Dunlap. The City Builder Awards went to three entities that have significant impacts on the physical and cultural evolution of the city's urban core, including One Independence Center and One South. The Trailblazer Award was given to the Visual and Performing Arts Center, which was founded in 2021 to give artists and creative entrepreneurs a space to thrive. The evening ended with the 2024 Vision Award honoree, Gene Woods, president and CEO of Atrium Health.
Published : a month ago by Elise Franco in Business
Charlotte is not lacking in influential and transformative people, projects and businesses. But for Charlotte Center City Partners, five stood above the rest.
That organization recognized four local entities and one individual during last night's annual Vision Awards dinner at the Charlotte Convention Center in uptown. The awards "recognize the contributions of individuals, businesses and organizations that are making the Center City more vibrant and extraordinary."
Hundreds attended the dinner, including Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles; Bill Rogers, chairman and CEO of Truist Financial Corp. (NYSE: TFC); and Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners Chairman George Dunlap.
This year's City Builder Awards went to three entities that have had significant impacts on the physical and cultural evolution of city's urban core — One of the region's most successful mixed-use office developments in recent years, the city's most important pedestrian thoroughfare and two vintage office towers that are helping to revitalize uptown.
Office and retail tenants flocked to Spectrum Cos.' $300 million mixed-use development when its first spaces delivered in 2021, and they never stopped. The two 11-story office towers totaling 635,000 square feet are 100% occupied as of December. Its proximity to South End and uptown, Class A amenities and a unique mix of ground-floor restaurant tenants made Vantage a top choice for users throughout the city.
What began as a functional access path from nearby streets to four rapid transit stations has evolved into an 11-mile pedestrian and bike path along the Lynx Blue Line. David Longo, chairman and CEO of CBI Workplace Solutions, described the rail trail as being a symbolic part of South End. "The versatility of it, the planned and guerrilla public art, the murals, the dogs, the people, the bikes — it thrives. But it wasn't always that way. it was just a dull (stretch) of concrete until great creative minds and city joined forces."
One Independence Center and One South
Over the last handful of years, Crescent Communities and Tourmaline Capital Partners have invested tens of millions of dollars in an effort to revitalize not only their respective buildings, but the streets around them. Take a walk to the corner of Trade and Tryon streets, and it's clear they succeeded. Fully amenitized tenant floors, renovated fitness centers and move-in-ready spec suites made these properties attractive to companies looking for office space. And enhancements to the ground-floor spaces — the Monarch Market food hall, for example — serve to draw in the public.
This year's Trailblazer Award, reserved for those that have been key community pioneers in the history of city center, was given to the Visual and Performing Arts Center. VAPA was founded in 2021 to give artists and creative entrepreneurs a space to thrive. The founders, along with county representatives, worked together to identify underused space at 700 N. Tryon St., which has become the organization's home base.
The evening wrapped with the 2024 Vision Award honoree, Gene Woods, who has spent the last eight years at the helm of Atrium Health. Lyles, who introduced Woods to a crowd of hundreds, said he was chosen for his leadership and dedication from day one. Woods is president and CEO of Advocate Health.
"From the day Gene came to Charlotte, we knew he would ... embrace the values that we have around innovation, creativity and celebration," she said. "Gene arrived as president and CEO of Atrium Health with a vision — for Atrium to become a national leader in clinical innovation, health outcomes, customer experience and value-based care. He's acted on that vision every day."
Woods has been a driving force behind The Pearl Innovation District, which is under construction now in midtown and expected to open next year. He also helped facilitate a merger between Atrium and Milwaukee-based Advocate Aurora Health to create Advocate Health in 2022. It is now now the third-largest nonprofit health-care system in the country.
"In my 35 years in this field, I've been in many cities, and this was the fastest I have felt at home in any city I've been to," he said. "Charlotte is a city on the rise, redefining what it means to be a progressive Southern city, a vibrant hub of diversity, economic growth and opportunity."
Woods said last night that for Charlotte to reach its full potential as a model city for the country, several things must happen — solving homelessness, improving and expanding transportation infrastructure, and continued investment in all levels of education.