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[ BellSouth]
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[ Itinerary ]
[ Tour Guide ]
[ Related Sites ]
[ BellSouth]
[ Business Tour ]
[ Directions ]
[ ]
Originally intended to be the former Charlotte Apparel Center this building completed a 2-1/2-year conversion to general offices that gives it a personality much like the uptown towers.
In fact, the biggest tenant at the Charlotte International Trade Center, as it's now called, isn't apparel related - it's NationsBank.
Apparel sales representatives, who once filled four floors - 90 percent of the building's leasable space - were consolidated on the top floor of the five-story building as their numbers dwindled.
With the old showrooms now converted to glass-walled offices, the building has the look and feel of its uptown neighbors, with people milling in the lobby, riding escalators and scurrying between offices.
The location at 200 N. College St. doesn't hurt either. It has become an activity hub with the Cityfair shopping complex, the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, Founders Hall and the library within a stone's throw.
This change was anticipated long before the center opened for business in 1989.
The apparel industry wanted a big box with no natural light. For some reason they don't like natural light in their showrooms. They wanted another building like the old Carolina Trade Mart.
That 175,000-square-foot windowless structure, built in 1971, was demolished 20 years later to make way for the new convention center under construction at Stonewall and College streets.
No one expected to see it happen this soon.
``We were thinking in the 20-year time frame, not in the less-than-10-year time frame,'' Merrifield said.
But by 1991 many of the building's tenants - women's apparel representatives of the Carolina-Virginia Fashion Exhibitors - were becoming ensnared in the nation's economic downturn.
Retailers downsized and restructured distribution systems, cutting out apparel representatives. Many small clothing stores - the bread and butter of apparel representatives - went out of business.
Our phone service is furnished by BellSouth. Let's visit the BellSouth building.
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The above tour information was adapted from an article written by Doug Smith and appeared in the Charlotte Observer Monday, September 12, 1994 You can visit the Charlotte Observer and their new online service, Charlotte.Com, at the link below.
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