Charlotte has been one of the fastest-growing cities in the country in recent years—a vibrant and desirable city to live in. MIG has partnered with the City and Charlotte Center City Partners many times to develop visionary vision and implementation plans that are now transforming the downtown heart of this exciting City. (The Charlotte Future 2040 and Area Plans are transforming the entire City.)

Center City 2020 Vision Plan 

Completed in 2011, the Plan includes detailed concepts for development and redevelopment in several key focus areas. It set the stage for the transformation of the Third Ward with new mixed-use and residential development oriented around two new community amenities: a new minor league ballpark and Romare Bearden Park, which honors the Charlotte-born African-American artist, author and songwriter. 

North Tryon Vision and Implementation Plan 

Downtown Charlotte’s North Tryon area is the heart of the dynamic city center, with 50 square blocks of the greatest concentration of arts and cultural institutions in the entire region. But it was also underutilized and underdeveloped. The Plan created a catalytic urban design and development framework for linking existing neighborhoods and cultural facilities, activating the public realm, improving the visitor experience, and creating more amenities and a range of housing options for potential residents. The Plan includes elements like land use, building form, pedestrian linkages, street connectors and integrating great urban spaces, as well as catalyst sites and focus areas. It also included a concept for the now-constructed First Ward Park, framed by UNC-Charlotte’s Uptown Campus, a combined children’s museum and library, the Levine Museum of the New South and Charlotte’s public market. Large scale digital modeling and illustrative planning and photosimulations captured impact of the catalyst sites and brought them to life for the community.

Center City 2040 Vision Plan

Building on the goals and policies of Charlotte Future 2040, the 2040 Center City Vision Plan updates the prior 2020 Plan, re-envisioning Uptown and the larger Center City as a gathering place and activity center for all Charlotte residents—all cultures and ethnicities, all incomes, and all ages and abilities. The Plan includes conceptual public space design for a variety of parks, flexible streets and plazas.