NCDOT Spending $4.15 Million To Build North Carolina’s First ‘Catamaran-Style’ Ferry

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NCDOT Spending $4.15 Million To Build North Carolina’s First ‘Catamaran-Style’ Ferry

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Today the NCDOT officially awarded a $4.15 million contract to Armstrong Marine Inc. for the construction of a 98-passenger catamaran-style ferry vessel.

This will be North Carolina’s first state-funded passenger ferry, giving residents and tourists to North Carolina’s isolated Ocracoke Village an alternative mode of transportation.

“Although we’ve been laying the groundwork for quite some time now, this contract officially puts the passenger ferry project on the public’s radar,” said Interim Ferry Division Director Jed Dixon. “We are hoping that by this time next year, direct passenger ferry service to Ocracoke Village will be up and running.”

The new high-end ship will make on-demand trips between Hatteras and Silver Lake Harbor, allowing passengers to conveniently step off the boat into heart of Ocracoke Village. From there, they can traverse the village on foot, bicycle or golf cart, or catch a new NCDOT-funded shuttle service that will be built in conjunction with the new ferry.

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The new catamaran-style ferry will add to the existing fleet of commercial ships and car ferries that already travel to and from Ocracoke Island on a daily basis, ideally lessening the traffic during peak hours.

Under the terms of the new NCDOT contract, Armstrong Marine Inc. has agreed to have the new ship completed and delivered in less than a year – by April 28, 2018.

This contract was just one of 14 other road, bridge and ferry projects that NCDOT recently awarded across the state, which totaled $186.8 million.

What do you think of North Carolina’s first state-funded passenger ferry?

CMPD Asking For Public’s Help In Finding Murder Suspect On The Loose

Charlotte Stories
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CMPD Asking For Public’s Help In Finding Murder Suspect On The Loose

charlotte-murder-suspect-on-the-loose

Charlotte Police are now asking for help to find a man wanted for the murder of 34-year-old Lucas Baldwin.

According to CMPD, 34-year-old Lucas Baldwin was declared dead at about 4:00 pm this past Sunday afternoon after being shot outside of an apartment complex in North Charlotte.

William Medlin is now the primary suspect in the killing. Medlin was last seen driving on Wynbrook Way in a silver Range Rover with a 30-day temporary tag.

If you have any information about where Medlin might be, please call 911.

This is now the 37th homicide in Charlotte for 2017 – about double the number we saw this time last year.

We will update this article as we receive new information.

Corning Optical Building $38 Million Headquarters in Charlotte – Bringing 650 New Jobs

Steve
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Corning Optical Building $38 Million Headquarters in Charlotte – Bringing 650 New Jobs

corning new plant in charlotteCorning Optical Communications recently announced that it will build its new $38 million headquarters near the Northlake Mall off 485, at the intersection of Brookshire Boulevard and Mount Holly-Huntersville Road.

Mecklenburg county commissioners approved an incentives package for the company worth $748,303, including massive property tax rebates. That’s part of a state and local package of incentives that could be worth up to $2.35 million, according to state officials.

The new headquarters will move about 400 jobs to Charlotte from the current headquarters in Hickory, and the company promised the state that they will also add 150 new jobs in Mecklenburg County. All 650 workers will earn an average salary of nearly $91,000, according to the Mecklenburg County Commission.

Corning Optical, a division of New York-based Corning Inc., wanted a more centralized location, as well as easy access to one of the South-East’s largest airports.

You can now browse all available openings at Corning Optical on their career site here.

South Carolina Was Just Ranked The 47th Safest State in America

Steve
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South Carolina Was Just Ranked The 47th Safest State in America

south-carolina-least-safest-stateThe State of South Carolina was just ranked the 47th Safest State in America by financial website WalletHub.

Analysts with the site evaluated all 50 states using 37 metrics across five key dimensions, including; Personal & Residential Safety, Financial Safety, Road Safety, Workplace Safety, and Emergency Preparedness.

Vermont was ranked as the #1 safest state and Mississippi was ranked as the #50 safest state. North Carolina was ranked toward the top of the list at #17.

Source: WalletHub

 

One major factor that drove down the Palmetto State’s rankings was vehicle accidents. South Carolina ranked 50th for the ‘Most Fatalities per 100 Million Vehicle Miles of Travel’.

You can find about all of Wallethub’s methodology and metrics on their article here.

Charlotte’s Center City Marriott Was Just Sold For Over $152 Million

Steve
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Charlotte’s Center City Marriott Was Just Sold For Over $152 Million

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Charlotte’s Center City Marriott has just been sold for a little over $152 million.

The 446-room hotel at 100 W. Trade St. was sold by Marriott Hotel Services Inc. to CWI 2 Charlotte Hotel LP, a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) of W.P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) – a company that focuses on buying an holding high-end and unique hotel properties around the country (WPC currently owns over $1.5 billion worth of properties in mostly southern states).

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The property was purchased by Marriott Hotel Services for $111 million in 2013.

Over the past year they undertook an extensive $40 million renovation and upgrade to the property, overhauling the rooms and amenities, and adding some truly unique features, including;

Charlotte’s now popular Coco and The Director:

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The new Stoke Restaurant and Lounge:

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and the exclusive M Club Lounge for Marriott gold and platinum members:

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According to Talib McDowell, Director of Guest Experiences, “the unprecedented renovations at the Center City Marriott, have made the hotel one of brand’s flagship properties, as well as a prototype for many one-of-a-kind technological concepts, including Marriott’s first automated check-in process”:

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all photos were taken by Scott Jensen

Charlotte Residents March in Protest Against New Topgolf Facility

Steve
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Charlotte Residents March in Protest Against New Topgolf Facility

The streets of University City were lined this past weekend with protesters holding picket signs and chanting “No Topgolf”.

Saturday’s protest was in response to a new rezoning petition that has been submitted by Topgolf to build a new facility near the intersection of West Mallard Creek Church Road and Interstate 85.

Dozens of residents from several surrounding neighborhoods walked up and down their streets to publicly demonstrate how much they are against rezoning petition 2016-139.

The protesters have even created a Change.org petition against the request, citing an increase in traffic as their primary concern.

The petition reads, “We, the undersigned, are concerned citizens who urge our leaders to act now to firmly reject the aforementioned rezoning petition. Planned development of this area as presented by Charter Properties would not at all benefit local residents in the immediate area but would certainly be a detriment to all area communities by adding more strain to the local infrastructure (police, fire department and other first responders). It would worsen an already terrible “E” rated traffic pattern and increase accidents at one of the most dangerous intersection in Charlotte less than ¼ from the proposed site etc.”

Topgolf’s request would rezone the 65.7 acres of land off West Mallard Creek Church Rd., which is currently zoned ‘research, conditional,’ and ‘single family residential’ – rezoning it to ‘mixed used development, optional’ and ‘multi-family residential, conditional.’

The proposed development would be the second Topgolf facility in the Charlotte area.

Their first SouthWest Charlotte facility has already generated a tremendous amount of excitement, especially over the past couple months in anticipation of this week’s grand opening.

Topgolf is a “golf entertainment complex” offering targeted games where players hit ‘microchipped’ balls as close to various targets and special zones as possible. The balls individually record their location before and after they are hit, and give individual scores for each player.

They will also feature a full food and drink menu – catering to golfers and non-golfers of all skill levels.

The high-tech golf company now has 30 facilities around the U.S. and 3 in the U.K., and their currently expanding to 14 new facilities in the US, Mexico, and Australia.

Would you like to see Topgolf build a new facility in University City?

Panther’s Center Ryan Kalil Just Made A Hilarious Parody Of Cam’s ‘Birthday Video’

Steve
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Panther’s Center Ryan Kalil Just Made A Hilarious Parody Of Cam’s ‘Birthday Video’

Panthers’ legendary center Ryan Kalil just made a hilarious parody of Cam Newton’s ‘birthday video’ and posted it to his new Instagram account ‘ryankalil67‘.

The new video features side-by-side shots of both videos with the original song playing over both (with a couple timely edits).

Watch it here:

Cam forgot to invite us to his birthday getaway so we didn’t invite him on our camping trip. #WeHadMoreFun

A post shared by Ryan Kalil (@ryankalil67) on

Cam originally posted his now infamous ‘birthday video’ on his Facebook page May 11th with the caption:

į THÅNK GØD för thįš DÅŸ❕
»Ł1VË x ŁØVË x ₽RÅŸ« (rëpëât)
#iWmW -1OVE
#šhįñëTHRŪthëŠHÅDË
#27wâšÅmâjörŠTËPför28

(translation:
Thank God for this day
Live x Love x Pray (repeat)
#iWmW – 1 Love
#ShineThruTheShade
#27WasAMajorStepFor28)

Davidson Just Beat #2 Ranked UNC In First NCAA Tournament Appearance In School’s History

Steve
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Davidson Just Beat #2 Ranked UNC In First NCAA Tournament Appearance In School’s History

The Davidson Wildcats baseball team just made history on Sunday night by taking down UNC, the #2 ranked team in the nation.

In their first NCAA Baseball Tournament appearance in the school’s 115 year history, the Wildcats first beat UNC on Friday night, then Florida Gulf Coast on Saturday, then UNC again this past Sunday night in the NCAA regional final at Boshamer Stadium.

Davidson College has now made history in 3 ways – their first Atlantic 10 Championship, their first NCAA Baseball Tournament appearance, and their first NCAA Baseball Tournament Regional Championship.

They will now be heading to a best-of-3 super regional later this week at Texas A&M or Houston.

The final eight teams remaining after the super regionals will earn a trip to the College World Series in Omaha.

GO WILDCATS!! 

Massive Fire At Concord Substation Cuts Out Power To Thousands of Homes

Steve
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Massive Fire At Concord Substation Cuts Out Power To Thousands of Homes

Several storms around the Charlotte region knocked out power for thousands of residents last night.

According to Duke Energy, over 15,000 outages were spread throughout Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties.

power-out-in-downtown-concordThe City of Concord reported that over 13,500 residents were without power due to a major fire at a substation, which started at around 7:19 p.m.

Over 2,000 additional outages were seen throughout Mint Hill and Mountain Island due to fallen trees which damaged overhead power lines. Most Mint Hill and Mountain Island Lake outages were restored late last night.

Duke Energy is still working at the Concord substation to restore energy to its residents.

The City of Concord released the following statement late last night:

“There is currently a widespread power outage in the northern part of the Concord Electric Systems service area. This is due to a fire at a delivery point, causing significant damage to both City and Duke Energy equipment. Crews are on the scene, and working to restore power. There is currently no time estimate on this restoration but signficant repairs are necessary. The City’s phone system was temporarily affected by this outage so calling Customer Care is not recommended at this time. Please visit concordnc.gov/info for updates.”

According to residents, power was restored at about 1:15am last night, but then cut off again at about 5am this morning.

We will update this article as we receive new information about the outages.

UPDATE 6/5/2017 1:00pm: Emergency crews have just finished installing the replacement equipment and have stated that power should now be restored to all Concord area homes.

Lake Norman Just Launched A Photo Contest With Over $400 In Prizes #CaptureLKN

Steve
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Lake Norman Just Launched A Photo Contest With Over $400 In Prizes #CaptureLKN

In celebration of the summer and to find a cover image for their new magazine, Visit Lake Norman recently launched their annual “Capture Lake Norman” photo contest.

The contest is open to anyone with a camera (or smartphone) and a social media account – simply snap a shot of your favorite Lake Norman spot and tag it with #CaptureLKN on Instagram, FB and Twitter to enter.

Prizes will include:

• Grand prize winner: $200 VISA Gift Card and Oakley sunglasses.

• Second place winner: $100 VISA Gift Card and Oakley backpack.

• Third place winner: $50 VISA Gift Card and 4 Carolina Renaissance Festival tickets.

• Cover photo winner: My Aloha Paddle & Surf paddle board lesson for two for 90 minutes.

Here are some of my favorite posts so far:

Happy posting everyone!

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