A year after Truist slapped its sign on the skyline, has it grown on you, Charlotte?
It was one year ago this month that Truist Bank placed its 980-square-foot nameplates — and 558-square-foot logos — on top of one of Charlotte’s tallest towers.
The bank, a combination of BB&T and SunTrust, announced its merger in 2019 and bought the 47-story building, formerly known as Hearst Tower, the same year.
When Truist put its new name and logo atop the building, it was meant to celebrate the historic $66 billion merger that gave Charlotte a new bank headquarters. But some corners of social media were less than kind, about the design, the color and the name itself, and nearly 3,000 people signed a petition calling for the signs’ removal.
“Ask yourself... Would you slap a bumper sticker on a Bentley?” the petition read. Even Charles Hull, the tower’s architect of record, wrote in a comment on the petition that he was “terribly disappointed to see the building vandalized in this way.”
The bank also added multicolored lights to the building so that the length of the tower shines Truist purple or other colors at night, depending on holidays or community events like a Panthers game. Charlotte residents were split on that change as well, with some calling the new setup gaudy.
Many took to Twitter to express their distaste for the changes. One Twitter user called the signs “an eye sore.” Another said the lit-up tower “looked like a slot machine.”
But a lot can happen in a year’s time, and the business team at the Observer wants to know if Charlotteans have changed their mind about the Truist sign. Let us know your thoughts in the poll questions below.
This story was originally published November 9, 2021 at 2:10 PM.
