There are no rain clouds big enough to keep Tom Fennimore, a banking consultant, from going to work at the big offices in Uptown Charlotte.
That dedicated to his job? Nah, he just doesn’t have an excuse. The 55-year-old urban pioneer lives about 10 blocks from his office at Wachovia Corp. He’s spent the better part of the last 25 years walking the 1-mile trip to and from work daily, stopping off at the library, shopping at a nearby grocer and eating at neighborhood restaurants.
He loves his life. There’s only one small catch — everything is so close. It’s as easy to stroll into work while out on a Saturday afternoon as it is to stop by the park. Fennimore is among a growing number of residents who live, work and play within Charlotte’s maturing urban grid. The compact lifestyle offers convenience and a certain chic, even as it compels some to work more, blurring the line between living to work and working to live.
Sociologists suspect city dwellers who live blocks from the office work more hours because of proximity, but definitive studies are few and far between.
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“One of the drawbacks about living so close,” Fennimore said, “is with a snowstorm, you can work.” Fennimore said he doesn’t mind. But that’s the thing about the hot new urban lifestyle that has spurred a more than 34 percent population growth in central Charlotte since 1995: It puts workers incredibly close to their jobs.
There’s no 30-minute drive as a means to decompress on the way home and no chance of using the old “car trouble” excuse for being late to work.
After helping the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce tally the latest Uptown analysis, Cheryl Ramsaur Roberts at the Urban Institute of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte said people who live close to work tend to work more hours. But, she warned, there is no empirical evidence showing everyone Uptown was consumed with working. Roberts said the 7,390 people who live Uptown — which is what Charlotte calls its downtown — fall into three categories.
– Career-oriented people who want to eliminate commuting to work.
– Lower-income people who are unable to move and have problems with transportation.
– Retired people and young people who want to live in a trendy area.
The area that locals call Uptown, defined as within the Brookshire Freeway loop, has changed drastically during the last 20 years. New restaurants have opened, evening events have increased and home building has exploded.
All this new development was enough to convince Vicki Bates, 32, to buy a condo in the First Ward earlier this year. While she loves the look and style of her new home, its proximity to work, church and friends that makes it the perfect spot.
“Convenience,” said Bates, who works for Bank of America. “It is absolutely the convenience.”
Wachovia and Bank of America, both based in Charlotte and among the city’s largest employers Uptown, have pumped millions of dollars over the years into the planning and development of the downtown area. The two companies also own much of the land.
Bank of America, which has more than 11,000 employees who work Uptown, created Gateway Village — a mixed-use development of offices, residences, parking and shops — and funded other residential developments over the years.
“It’s great to have offices in center city, but if you want to have a successful environment, you’ve got to blend in people who are there 24 hours [a day],” said Jim Palermo, a Bank of America executive and an active center city promoter.
Palermo, who moved with his wife to Uptown Charlotte in 1994, said choosing to live in the center city does not have to be related to working Uptown. It’s more about picking a way of life.
“I work more hours because I don’t have to spend an hour and a half going home,” Palermo said. “I am in the office at 7:30 when before perhaps I would be in at 8:30. I can leave at 6 o’clock and be home by 6:05.”
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Pat Mumford, senior vice president of corporate real estate with Wachovia, said living near the office affords workers more control and choices in their lives. For one thing, they don’t have to battle traffic to get to work. “We realized as we were maturing as a company and attracting people from other urban areas, people like to live downtown,” said Mumford, while recuperating from knee surgery in his home in the Dilworth neighborhood, which borders the central city.
Being away from his desk didn’t mean Mumford was working less. He had a laptop connected to the office: “Work is no longer defined as going to the office.”
Michael Hout, professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, has been studying workplace issues the last year and has observed that many people will find any way to be close to work. “Phones and gizmos facilitate a 24/7 work schedule and so does living near work,” Hout said. “In fact, if you’re right there near the office it’s just that much easier…. I think that’s part of what’s going on with these communities: It’s just one more way to facilitate a workaholic.”
Eric Davis moved to Uptown a few years ago to eliminate a 45-minute commute from the north suburban Lake Norman area. Davis, the 33-year-old treasurer of the Third Ward Neighbors Association, works in the technology department at Accenture in Gateway Village and said his life is now more cohesive.
“Living Uptown has made my social life, recreational life and professional life much more integrated,” Davis said.
“It used to be leave my house, drive 45 minutes and put myself in that state of mind to work or relax.”