Someday soon, the future of Charlotte could be shaped in this building on North Tryon Street. But right this second, everybody is paying attention to a French guy with green hair.

His name is Patrick Blanc. He's a botanist from Paris known for the Mur Vegetal, or Vertical Garden - a wall of plants that turns into a work of art. His latest creation graces a fourth-floor terrace in this building, the old Montaldo's clothing store. The building is the new home of the Foundation for the Carolinas. The grand opening is Saturday.

The foundation's CEO, Michael Marsicano, sees this new building as the space where big money will meet big ideas. Where the future leaders of Charlotte will rise up from the street. Where the old way things got done in Charlotte will transform into something new.

The building is filled with expensive art, and the foundation is sitting on more than $900 million in assets. But the problems it wants to solve require sweat and dirty hands. They also require a new understanding of how this city works.

Can the foundation pull this off? Can Charlotte?

For the moment, as the building gets ready to open, there are smaller details to attend to. Patrick Blanc trims the dead stems from his work of art. He steps back and tilts his head.

"Almost ready," he says.

Let's start with the Big Idea. It involves tables.

"Traditionally, the way of getting things done in Charlotte was for a few people to sit down at a table," Marsicano says. "Now, people have created their own tables in different parts of the community. The real challenge is connecting tables that have been established, and trying to help people create some new tables to fill new needs."

He's talking about symbolic tables. But at the foundation's new home, the real tables are spectacular. So are the chairs, and the paintings on the walls, and the sculptures tucked into the corners.

A building with a history

The building used to be Montaldo's, where Charlotte women of means bought their new outfits. Most recently it was the Mint's craft and design museum. It holds a few mysteries. Nobody seems to know what the wrought-iron letters KB above the front entrance stand for.

Bank of America donated the building, and other donors gave most of the art, but the foundation still raised $8.7 million to renovate the space. Now the building might be Charlotte's most beautiful workplace. The first floor is an art gallery that'll be open to the public. The fourth floor is a Hall of Fame of sorts to the rich and powerful names - Belk and Blumenthal, Harris and Levine - who donated billions to charity as they built modern Charlotte. There's a big open space with two terraces. It's already booked for weddings.

But the work will get done in the smaller rooms that honeycomb the building. The foundation built 17 conference rooms that can hold anywhere from six people to 35. They're free for nonprofits that need a place to meet. And they're just as gorgeous as the rest of the place.

"They don't operate in the same realm where I usually operate," says Carson Dean, executive director of the Men's Shelter of Charlotte. "But in some ways, it's important that it looks nice. A lot of the people coming there will be used to places that are well-appointed. And I want them to be comfortable when we talk about doing business."

That's what the foundation hopes - that people from different backgrounds will mingle, share ideas, maybe spark new projects.

Marsicano says that has to happen for Charlotte to create new leadership. Because the old form of Charlotte leadership has faded away.

No more 'rich uncles'

For decades in Charlotte, a small group of leaders made many of the big decisions about the city's future. The core members included Hugh McColl, CEO of Bank of America; Ed Crutchfield, CEO of First Union (which became Wachovia, then Wells Fargo); Bill Lee, who ran Duke Power; and Rolfe Neill, former publisher of the Observer. All of them, and most others who played parts in the group, are retired or deceased.

The two big banks, especially, paid the way for the improvements to uptown that created modern Charlotte. But both took deep hits - many of them self-inflicted - in the financial crisis. And even though the banks are still a huge presence in Charlotte, Wells Fargo's HQ is in San Francisco, and BofA head Brian Moynihan lives mostly in Boston.

As McColl said at a meeting of Charlotte leaders convened by Marsicano two years ago: "We no longer have two rich uncles we can turn to. It's time to let those days go - completely."

McColl put it a different way in an editorial published in the Observer last week: "The bottom line is, we need a new generation of leaders - successful Charlotteans at the peak of their energy and ambition - to come forward, take the reins and figure things out."

It's not just happening here. In cities from Boston to Baton Rouge, the business leaders who guided civic change have given way to foundations and individuals with the money and passion to make things happen. The group Leadership for a Changing World, in a 2007 report, called them "quantum leaders" - people who might not be drawn to lead but are willing if the job requires it.

Meet Tommy Norman.

He's a Charlotte developer who was in the Special Forces during his time in the Army. He came to the foundation this year for help organizing his new nonprofit called Charlotte Bridge Home, which serves veterans with disabilities.

Norman started out helping a young Marine who had lost his leg and was moving with his family to Charlotte. Before long, Norman had helped 25 families and decided he needed to become an official nonprofit. The foundation gave him $50,000 - but made him spend half on a study to see what local vets really need. Norman discovered many of the county's 55,000 veterans could use help finding jobs, places to live and ways to get an education. So Norman is figuring out how to make that work. He's been spending time at the foundation, building his charity from the bottom up.

"There's no one leader out there now where you would go if you need to get something like this together," Norman says. "What Charlotte has is a bunch of young, smart people. I want to meet some of those people and take advantage of their skills, and maybe they can take advantage of some of mine."

'We're the broker'

"It will take longer to get things done," Marsicano says. "And it will be messier."

Marsicano is used to messy. He was running the Arts and Science Council in 1997, when the nudity and gay themes in the play "Angels in America" led county commissioners to slash arts funding.

He's also used to long. He helped put together a task force in 2005 to work on problems in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. That led to the foundation's most recent big venture, Project LIFT - a quest to put $55 million into Charlotte's westside schools. (The foundation has raised $46 million toward that goal.)

Dean, of the men's shelter, says Marsicano's plans are big and ambitious - and a huge challenge to pull off.

"To get people talking, and then to keep them talking on the same subject," he says. "We're in an age that people want to do something quickly and move on to the next thing. Nobody wants to go to meetings and talk about the same subject over and over again. So just to keep people focused is a major goal. But that's really how long-term change gets done."

Marsicano hopes to work on that long-term change through the foundation's Center for Civic Leadership. It's now called the Robinson Center for Civic Leadership in honor of Sally and Russell Robinson, who have spent decades serving and donating to nonprofits in the area.

When the center was created three years ago, Marsicano said one of his top priorities was helping the poor and homeless find stable housing. He says that's the next big project he has his eye on. "We continue to struggle to find our way" in providing affordable housing, he says. "There are still a lot of critical needs."

Marsicano draws a six-figure paycheck. But he's not the kind of gold-plated CEO who used to lead Charlotte into the future. He hesitates to call himself a leader at all.

"We're the broker," he says. "We're about inspiring philanthropy and civic leadership. That's why we have all these tributes throughout the building - to hold up all these examples for people who might have the same kind of spirit."

The tributes run throughout the building - every room and floor is named for somebody, and there are portraits everywhere of people who put their stamp on Charlotte, from civil-rights lawyer Julius Chambers to Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.

But the top floor is the biggest honor.

The Legacy Hall features bronze medallions with the likenesses of 29 people who built foundations or endowments to make Charlotte better.

In a way it's a memorial to Old Charlotte - the money and power that pulled this city out of the dirt and into the sky.

The foundation built inseven extra slots, for new leaders who might come forward to fill them.

On the terrace outside the Legacy Hall, the green-haired French botanist is working on his living wall. It's a delicate framework of felt and pipes and water.

It will take a while to see how it all turns out. It could be beautiful.