Who We Are & What We Do

The future of our community for the next few decades was up for a heated debate on Monday, June 24th when Charlotte City Council was deciding on whether or not to support a $1.3 billion renovation project to drastically upgrade our Bank Of America Stadium to secure our NFL and MLS teams for at least the next two decades, and attract more mega events for our region, including international soccer games, college football games, and mega concerts which have all been fueling the growth of our regions economy and tourism business.

 

While Bank of America is a privately owned venue operated by TSE (owners of NFL Carolina Panthers and MLS Charlotte FC), ultimately the debate was about testing Charlotte’s leaderships courage to step up and vote in favor of partnering up with TSE to upgrade a major community asset that thousands of businesses and employees depend upon for survival and success. The debate was about the city doing its part to protect and enhance thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in revenue for decades to come.

 

Bank of America Stadium (home of our NFL Carolina Panthers and MLS Charlotte FC) has been a mega generator of revenue, jobs, and economic impact for the Charlotte region for the past 30 years.

 

During the past decade, our incredibly located stadium has hosted more than 40 events annually. In this period, these impacts have drastically increased, with hospitality revenues reaching an all time high the past two years, and more and more growth every year due to our awesome stadium.

 

With the mission of helping the growth of our remarkable industry and doing our part to make sure our existing designated taxes are wisely used for the further growth the hospitality industry, investing these revenues into maintaining, enhancing, retaining, and building tourism assets which generate major revenue for Charlottes economy has been a top priority for the Greater Charlotte Hospitality & Tourism Alliance (HTA).

 

While the tremendous impacts of Bank of America stadium go way beyond the hospitality business, our local hospitality industry, which has been benefiting from its direct impact and does not want to take this asset for granted, had been the main driver behind the initiative of upgrading and retaining this valuable community asset. As someone who was actively involved more than 30 years ago with establishing the existing designated tax which will pay the public portion of these improvements ($650M), I am proud of our industry’s willingness to self-impose those taxes to invest for our continued growth and prosperity.

 

Thanks to the hard work of our state legislators in passing a legislation last year (Senate Bill 154) to extend a sunset on Mecklenburg County’s existing 1% Food & Beverage Tax, our industry and Charlotte created the financial capabilities to invest in maintaining, enhancing, and retaining Bank of America Stadium VIA the city borrowing funds based on future growth for these designated sales and tax revenues.

 

• The total cost of these upgrades and continued improvements are $1.3 Billion ($688M from the team). The city’s portion of the investment will all go to contractors who perform the improvements. No money will go to the owners of the team

• Charlotte will receive a 20-year non relocation commitment for the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC.

 

Considering the fact that we had done our job of securing funding from our hospitality taxes for the public portion of this investment and did not need any new taxes nor an increase in property taxes, we still had to relentlessly pursue gaining support of enough council members to make this major achievement a reality.

 

The decision was one of the most crucial initiatives in my over three decades of advocating for the growth of our region’s hospitality business and overall economy. Failure was never an option for us.

 

I truly am grateful for so many people who were actively involved in this journey and know that we all can be proud of making a huge positive impact for our community for decades to come.  

 

Allow me to touch on a few other developments.

 

1. Spectrum Center Major Renovation / Expansion

 

After recently finalizing an agreement with our NBA Charlotte Hornets to partner with them on a $500M+ upgrade to the Spectrum Center ($250M from existing hospitality taxes), we had a “reimagine tip off” ceremony on May 20th to start the major renovation and ultimately build a new $100M adjacent practice facility.

 

With the focus on getting returns on our investments, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) recently awarded our soon the be upgraded Spectrum Center the ultra-prestigious ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament for 2025, 2026, and 2028, as well as the ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament for 2027. The economic value of these four tournaments alone will exceed our hospitality tax investment.

 

1. COPA America Games In Charlotte

 

Bank of America Stadium is gearing up to host two of its most significant soccer games ever in July 2024 when it will host a semi final game (July 10th) and a third-place game (July 13th) for the COPA America tournament, which is the top quadrennial soccer tournament for national teams in North and South America. The tournament will feature teams such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, USA, Canada, and more. Argentina is the defending champion. The tournament started on June 20th and the championship game will be in Miami on July 14th.

 

Get ready for over 200,000 fans coming to Charlotte for the two games.

 

1. Sullenberger Aviation Museum

 

Charlotte has a brand new $32M+ Aviation Museum to celebrate its aviation history and serve as a major tourism attraction as we were joined by Captain Sullenberger (Captain of the famous U.S. Airways Flight 1549 / “Miracle on Hudson”) for the grand opening of this awesome museum next to our international airport on May 29th. Please visit www.sullenbergeraviation.org for information and visit this fantastic tourism asset.

 

1. New $700M Casino in Charlotte Region

 

A groundbreaking ceremony on Friday, June 7th, celebrated the start of construction for the $700M Two Kings Casino Resort in Kings Mountain. The temporary casino is currently operating and offering 1064 slot machines and 12 live table games for craps, roulette, mini baccarat, blackjack, Mississippi stud poker, and three card poker. (twokingscasino.com)

 

1. Charlotte Knights Baseball Team

 

The Charlotte Knights are in the middle of their 2024 season, were the host for one of the best ever ACC Baseball Tournaments with over 71,000 attendees (May 21-26) and have a new owner. I would like to congratulate Don Beaver (previous owner of the team) and thank him for his unbelievable patience with the pursuit of building the fantastic Center City Truist Field Baseball Stadium. He was told numerous times by many officials that there was no way in hell for Charlotte to have a baseball stadium in Downtown. I love people that use rejection to fuel their passion. He proved all of those idiots wrong, by ultimately building the best AAA baseball stadium in America right in Downtown Charlotte.

 

1. Congratulations to NASCAR driver Christopher Bell for winning the fantastic 2024 Coca Cola 600 Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday May 26th.

 

1. We have NASCAR, an NFL Team, an MLS Team, Major College Football Games, International Soccer, an NBA Team, Major Golf Tournaments, a new major International Tennis Event at Spectrum Center, the Charlotte Independence Soccer Team, the Charlotte Checkers hockey team, a new Women’s Soccer Team (Carolina Ascent) that will have their first game on August 17th at Memorial Stadium vs DC Power, a new Premier Lacrosse Team (Carolina Chaos), a new Major League Rugby Team (Anthem RC) and major college basketball tournaments (men’s and women’s).

 

We are currently working on the development of a major Tennis Complex and an Aquatic Center. Let me know if you would like to help us with this journey.

 

Stay tuned as there is a major effort to have the 2027 World Military Games in the Charlotte Region.

 

1. With being Safe Community serving as Charlotte’s primary economic development catalyst and Public Safety being one of the HTA’s top priorities in order to keep our industry and community prosperous, we had a huge victory yesterday (Wednesday, June 26th) when the legislation (HB 834) intended to hold juveniles accountable for their committed crimes and prosecute them as adults became law in North Carolina. Juvenile crimes have drastically increased across the nation with juveniles having a pass to commit most crimes without worrying about prosecution. The Charlotte Police Department recently arrested a 16-year-old and charged her with 184 car break ins. The old law only allowed them to give this criminal a ride home.

 

 

I am so grateful for our wonderful HTA members for your membership, involvement and enabling us to be a private membership organization dedicated to leading efforts which deliver more growth and prosperity for HTA members, our region’s hospitality business, our overall economy, and our vibrant community while relentlessly working on initiatives to address members business challenges and our growing city’s concerns.

 

To deliver our promise of providing our members with the absolute best meetings and events, we recently had a fantastic General Meeting with over 350 attendees at Carowinds, had a sold-out Golf Tournament at Rocky River Golf Club, and a Corporate Networking Event with over 200 attendees at the Truist Field Baseball Stadium.