Keeping landmark lights in uptown Charlotte would take a ‘Hail Mary’
Part of Charlotte’s twinkling skyline will flicker out this week when a mounted uptown sculpture comes down.
The 80-foot dancing neon “Quadrille” sculpture, which routinely syncs to goals and touchdowns made in the Bank of America Stadium, will be stripped from the old Duke Energy building on South Church Street Friday, The Charlotte Ledger first reported.
With one uptown re-location option still under consideration, moving the 40-foot-by-40-foot piece among the city’s skyscrapers will be a “Hail Mary,” but Charlotte Center City Partners — which coordinates uptown’s trademark lights — is bullish about it, said CEO Michael Smith. The organization has been working with Duke Energy and Foundation of the Carolinas to figure out if the piece can stay in the city.
MRP Realty, the building’s new owner, won’t keep the sculpture, which spans three-and-a-half stories and weighs 15,000 pounds, because it needs to add windows for the 450 converted apartments the building will soon host, Smith said.
Duke Energy first fastened the sculpture by Michael Hayden to the Brooklyn Village Avenue side of the building near the Bank of America Stadium in 1996 — just before the Carolina Panthers’ first regular season game.
Hayden is best known for the “Sky’s The Limit” light display in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. During the day, Charlotte’s art piece shifts through colors of the rainbow as the sun reflects off of it. At night, its 53 neon elements flash animated choreos.
Duke Energy has been desperately offering the piece — for free — to local organizations and business, but to no avail. On Friday, it will decommission the work and store it in Maiden, about 40 miles northwest of Charlotte, said spokesperson Madison McDonald.
The new glass Duke Energy Plaza spanning a block between South Tryon and South College streets can’t support the heavy art, according to The Ledger.
Duke Energy has offered to pay for the art’s transportation and delivery cost through the weekend, and any one who is interested in the piece or has an idea for where it can live can email DEPlaza@duke-energy.com, McDonald said.
This story was originally published October 23, 2023 at 4:32 PM.
