It looks like a coffee war is brewing in Charlotte with an emphasis on drive-thru options. To talk more about it and other business news of the week, Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: We’re not just talking about the big names like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, right?
Tony Mecia: That's right, Marshall. We're talking about a number of new entrants to the coffee market that are building drive-throughs just all over the Charlotte area. Clutch Coffee, Burr & Berry, 7 Brew, Scooter’s Coffee, these are all names that, if you live in Charlotte, they might not be that familiar to you, but in the surrounding counties, they're really popping up a lot.
Terry: So what’s driving all of this and why in the suburbs in particular?
Mecia: The main thing that's driving this drive-through coffee trend is the growth in the surrounding communities. There's really an opportunity there, a lot of these companies think to come in and capitalize on that. The other bit of it is that even though Charlotte is growing a lot, too, it's a little bit harder to build these in Charlotte because of regulations like the Unified Development Ordinance. They really kind of discourage new drive-throughs, including drive-through coffee. So a lot of these have migrated out into the suburbs and into the surrounding areas.
Terry: Let’s talk about a real estate rumor now. We love rumors on this segment. This one is about a possible automotive headquarters coming to Charlotte. What can you tell us?
Mecia: This would be a big deal. Nothing's been officially announced yet, but it's pretty well established that Scout Motors, which is confirmed to be building a big factory in Blythewood, South Carolina, with about 4000 jobs — Blythewood is about an hour south of Charlotte — they've been scouting, shall we say, for a headquarters near that factory. Charlotte's pretty close. Obviously, Columbia is pretty close. There may be some other cities in the mix.
The word on the street, talking to a lot of office brokers, is that Scout is really kind of narrowing its search on Charlotte and specifically the Commonwealth development in Plaza Midwood. There's a new office building going up there. This is the one that's right in the middle of Plaza Midwood. The CEO has said that headquarters, wherever it winds up being, would be about 1,000 high-paying jobs, engineering jobs, some people moving here from Michigan and California, and other places.
Terry: On to some national news that’s affecting Charlotte, and that is President Trump announcing last week a new $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applications. What are those visas, and how do they impact Charlotte?
Mecia: The H-1B visa program is a major way that foreign professionals come and work in the United States. Companies in the United States hire people from overseas to do jobs that maybe there's not enough qualified people in the U.S. to do. I looked at the companies in Charlotte that have a lot of these H-1B visa workers. Bank of America and its related companies are kind of at the top of the list. They had about 750 H-1B visas last year. Truist had 180, Honeywell 125. There's a number of companies that have smaller numbers, in the dozens. Some other names on that list include Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Atrium Health, and a number of small technology consulting companies.
Terry: Let’s finish this week with an update to a story we talked about a few weeks ago. The UNC Board of Governors has given permission to UNC Charlotte to start a new major in Artificial Intelligence. What will it include and when will it start?
Mecia: This is a program that UNC Charlotte's really been kind of pioneering. The thinking is that in this time when AI is taking over the workplace and a lot of job functions, that you need actual humans who kind of understand this technology and can give direction to the AI program, I guess, instead of the other way around. This would be coursework that students would have. They could major in it. They're going to have a master's program. It would also look at the ethics of AI and other things like that. The thinking is that it would start in 2026.
