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Developers call it "the dirt." It means whatever land is under whatever buildings they buy or own.
The price of "dirt" is a huge factor in what gets built - and what gets torn down. To make a profit after paying a lot for land, developers must build lucrative projects: office towers, condo towers, expensive mansions and so on.
Other things also matter: politics, zoning ordinances, the strength of the market and of course, location, location, location. But where the dirt is pricey and the market is hot, any small, inexpensive building - the Coffee Cup restaurant, just to grab an example - is at risk of demolition without strong government protection or deep-pocketed preservationists.
In a nutshell, that's why Thursday the Cup became rubble.
People harbor many misconceptions about historic preservation. One is that all that's worth preserving are architectural gems or homes of famous people. To see why this is short-sighted, one need only visit New York's SoHo or Boston's North End or any of a gazillion other healthy, historic urban neighborhoods.
To people who want to preserve only the Mount Vernons and Monticellos, a one-story cinderblock café dating from 1946 seems worthless to start with. But they are wrong. The Coffee Cup for decades was a well-loved soul food joint near uptown. Bankers and blue-collar workers, janitors and journalists, black and white, all ages and incomes would tuck into greens, pintos, cornbread, biscuits, chicken, cobbler and other regional specialties.
Another misconception is that once a building is a designated landmark it is safe. In North Carolina it is not. A historic landmarks commission may only postpone demolition for up to a year. Of 330-some designated landmarks in Mecklenburg County, 16 have been demolished - most in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Many people might be surprised to learn Mecklenburg County has a large and active preservation revolving fund, wielded by its city-county Historic Landmarks Commission. It buys properties, attaches preservation deed restrictions and resells them. The fund began in 1991, and it is no coincidence the parade of landmark demolitions eased about then.
Many preservation fans would rather ignore less soulful things, such as zoning. But absent other protections, zoning can doom a historic property. It doomed the Coffee Cup.
In 2003, the Cup was part of a large tract - then owned by Duke Energy's real estate arm, Crescent Resources - which was rezoned to allow high-intensity development, up to 10 stories.
Who wanted the rezoning? It was the City of Charlotte, aiming to upgrade West Morehead Street.
The upzoning dramatically increased the value of the dirt, especially in Charlotte's sizzling real estate market. In 2005 Beazer Homes USA of Atlanta bought about 18.5 acres, including the Cup, for $16.7 million. Beazer planned a major mixed-use development. It didn't want to preserve the little cinder block building.
With the Coffee Cup threatened by demolition, the City Council in 2007 designated its exterior a landmark. That stalled demolition for a year.
Meanwhile, stuff happened.
Beazer, a huge starter-home subdivision developer, is facing federal mortgage and accounting fraud charges. And the real estate market crashed. Beazer has had the property for sale, a forlorn and empty survivor in a denuded moonscape.
The one-year demolition delay was up in June. Thursday, the Cup died.
I used to think people in other cities, where more old buildings survive, were different from people here, where much of downtown has been torn down for skyscrapers. But now I think the difference is less in their souls and more in their ordinances.
New York, for instance, created an air rights marketplace, so small-scale building owners could sell development rights. You see plenty of skyscrapers, but also a surprising number of three-, four- and five-story buildings, even in Midtown.
To tame extreme land-value escalation, many cities have height limits. By contrast, under Charlotte's uptown zoning you can build as high as the Federal Aviation Administration and structural engineers will let you. All property is a skyscraper-in-waiting. So the dirt sells for a lot of money - which gives the buyer no incentive to save a small old building.
Plenty of politicians proclaim their dismay at demolitions. In Charlotte, so far, none has been willing to burrow into the roots of the problem and - if you will - get down in the dirt.
