Charlotte overrules prior vote against 14-foot Wells Fargo signs on iconic uptown tower
Uptown Charlotte’s skyline will once again see change after the City Council moved Monday to allow Wells Fargo to add large signs to its iconic building.
The City Council voted unanimously in favor of the bank’s rezoning petition that calls for the addition of two 1,880-square foot signs to 550 S. Tryon St., known to many as a former Duke Energy building. The skyscraper is among the tallest in Charlotte — known for its handlebar roof and LED light show — and is adjacent to the Levine Center for the Arts.
The lettering of the signs will be 14 feet tall, the same as the letters on the Truist Center sign, Wells Fargo representative Anthony Fox said at a January public hearing on the petition.
Asked how soon the signs could go up, Wells Fargo spokesman Josh Dunn said “at this point we don’t have any other information to share.”
The council voted in favor of the bank’s petition despite a recommendation from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission’s zoning committee to deny it. The committee said that, while Wells Fargo’s plan is consistent with the Charlotte Center City 2040 Vision Plan, it offered concerns about the size of the signs and that it will “not increase the attractiveness of Uptown.”
“Permitting this larger signage could create a scenario where larger and larger signage is requested,” the committee said in its recommendation.
City planning staff, however, recommended the council approve the bank’s signs.
There was little opposition heard to Wells Fargo’s plan, despite uproar over a plan to put similar signage on the Truist building, formerly known as Hearst Tower, in 2020. No one spoke out in opposition to the signs at the council’s January hearing, and Fox said no one showed up to a community meeting about the plan and that his team “also received no written opposition to the petition.”
“I know it’s rare that we don’t have any opposition on this,” at-large Council member Dimple Ajmera said at the previous zoning meeting.
District 2 Council member Malcolm Graham, whose district includes the building in question, said in January he’d met with the Wells Fargo team twice about their plan and expected to vote in favor of it.
“It kind of fits right on there,” he said of the proposal.
This story was originally published February 20, 2024 at 12:20 PM.
