Feeling a little burned out at work? Some local companies are offering workers sabbaticals to deal with stress — and as a perk. While it's a benefit employees love, many businesses are still hesitant to embrace it. For more, we turn now to Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: So Tony, a sabbatical is a common perk in the academic world. But what kinds of companies offer a sabbatical, and are more of them doing it?
Tony Mecia: Marshall, you have companies in a wide range of industries that offer these programs, from the tech industry to large retailers to financial services. Charlotte-based Bank of America this year rolled out a sabbatical program that after employees have been there for 15 years, they're eligible for four weeks of paid sabbatical time off. The numbers are still fairly small. It's kind of a rare perk that's offered. There was a survey in 2019 that showed that only about 5% of companies offered paid sabbaticals.
Terry: So why don't more companies offer sabbaticals, especially since we keep hearing about companies that are struggling to keep burned-out employees?
Mecia: For companies, it's a little bit tricky because if you have people who are off for large chunks of time, the question is who does that work? So there are some logistical issues there. We talked to someone with Catapult Employers Association who said that for companies, it might just be easier to encourage people to take all of their vacation days rather than offer a program like this.
Terry: All right. Well, switching gears to another discussion that leaves many people feeling burned out, this week marks a major milestone for the old Eastland Mall site in Charlotte. City Council on Monday unanimously approved a new development proposal for nearly 30 acres at the site. The decision comes more than a decade after the mall closed and the city purchased and then demolished the building. Tony, at this point, I've lost count of how many times we've talked about Eastland. What finally got approved? And is the saga over?
Mecia: Yeah, it's like the soap opera that, that never ends. And it is still ongoing in the sense that nothing is constructed on this portion of the Eastland site. You know, city leaders have been talking about this for months. You might recall, Marshall, there were two competing proposals — one for a sports complex, another for a tech hub and concert venue — those two have now kind of merged. It's now one proposal, and the City Council this week sort of lined up behind that. It will have the e-sports component. It will have a sports component. It will not have an amphitheater. At least not at this point, it will not have a hotel. So it's moving forward. But you know, it could be a little while before you see any construction activity out there on that part of the site.
Terry: Well, let's move on to a development project that is not moving forward. Charlotte found out this week the Western and Southern Open Tennis Tournament will not be moving to the city from Cincinnati. Tony, there were plans to build a major tennis complex near the airport to lure this tournament. So why did the tournament decide to stay in Cincinnati?
Mecia: Yeah, Marshall, if you're cynical, you could look at this and say, well, the company that runs the Western and Southern Open, Beemok Capital, they must have known they wanted to stay in Cincinnati and were trying to shake more incentives out of Cincinnati. And so we're just sort of playing with Charlotte and never had any intention to move here. I talked with economic development director Tracy Dodson this week. She said she thinks that is not the case. And City Council members have said they think that's not the case. They think that Charlotte had a legitimate shot at it. The problem is that when Beemok started looking at the numbers, they saw escalating construction prices. And it would have taken a much bigger investment for them to build something new in Charlotte rather than to, sort of, fix up what they had in Cincinnati. So it was really an economic decision, Tracy Dodson told me. And they said they liked Charlotte, but they couldn't quite make the numbers work as well as they could in Cincinnati. City, county and state leaders had pledged $115 million in incentives for this project. It was going to be built in the River District, which is just west of the airport.
Terry: So what's going to go in place of that tennis complex now in the River district?
Mecia: Well, the River District is continuing to develop. Crescent Communities is the developer. They've cleared the site. It's a mixed-use development with apartments and shops and, and things like that. That's still moving ahead. But I think Crescent and a lot of city leaders are pretty disappointed not to have landed this tennis tournament.
Terry: All right, let's end this week on some housing news. Data from the Canopy Realtor Association shows that in September the median sales price of a home in Mecklenburg County remained exactly the same from a year ago: $420,000. That's the first time in years there's been no year-over-year change. Tony, are the days of home prices always going up over?
Mecia: The data would suggest, yes. It's a little bit of a surprise, Marshall, because in the last few years in Mecklenburg County, we've seen large increases in home prices. You know, last year there were year-over-year increases around 20%, 22%. And so to go from September 2022 to September 2023 with no increase in housing prices suggests that the market is leveling off. I think you can look at that and say fairly that housing is at least not becoming as expensive as it was previously.
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