With the streak of hot days we’ve had in the Charlotte region recently, maybe you’ve thought of heading to Lake Norman to try and cool down. Be warned, it might be even more crowded than you're used to. According to new data, it looks like Lake Norman is attracting more and more people from outside the Charlotte region in addition to locals. For more, WFAE's Marshall Terry is joined by the Charlotte Ledger’s Ashley Fahey for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: So Lake Norman is having a moment. Hot lake summer? What is this data and what does it indicate about who has been visiting the lake recently?
Ashley Fahey: I think to your point, Lake Norman's always been kind of known as a day trip or an afternoon for a lot of folks who live in the Charlotte region. But now, according to some data we pulled here at the Ledger, it looks like there's a lot more overnight visitors. The number of Airbnbs and VRBO have basically more than doubled since May 2019 to May of this year. We're just seeing more evidence of folks staying overnight, which suggests that they don't live in the Charlotte region.
Terry: How far away are visitors coming from? Can you tell?
Fahey: Yeah, so the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority did look into this. It seems like, at least for the first six months of the year so far, most of the visitors to North Mecklenburg were from places like the Greensboro area, Raleigh metro. Those aren't too surprising and probably what we would expect. But then there were some that emerged that were a bit surprising, some of the origin markets being New York City and Atlanta, which, of course, are a bit farther away.
Terry: Let’s now go south of Charlotte for a moment. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about plans by medical company Octapharma to invest $1.5 billion in a site in Rock Hill and create more than 1,200 jobs. But since we last spoke, those plans appear to have hit a snag. What’s the latest?
Fahey: Rock Hill and York County leaders are disagreeing about the tax incentive structures for this project. They're still in negotiations, but right now, the current proposal would require the city to give up 100% of its tax revenue from the business for decades, which the city is not in favor of. Some of the members of York County Council have said this is a bad look at minimum — we don't want to lose the deal, but this might say to businesses we can't come to an agreement on things and it's not 'a good look for us from an economic development perspective.’ Still to be determined what's going to come of it, but it's currently being kind of battled out between the county and the city.
Terry: On to some car news now. Printed vehicle registration cards and those little inspection stickers that go on license plates are going away in North Carolina. But we're still going to have to actually get our cars inspected and registered, right?
Fahey: Yeah, of course. You will still have to pay your annual personal property taxes, registration fees, and inspection costs. I just went through this myself. But proof that you're up to date won't be required by that little sticker we always put on our license plates. In fact, if you want a printed record, you'll have to actually probably pay the DMV a fee to get that sent to you. But as far as what it looks like, the sort of digital process is still up in the air a little bit. The intention is that the DMV, over the coming months, will be moving to a digital registration record process. This is definitely a shift for those of us who drive a car.
Terry: Finally, Charlotte FC is ending the permanent seat license, or PSL, requirement for season tickets. Why the change, and are people going to see some money back?
Fahey: From the impression I get from reporting from the Charlotte Business Journal and other folks, this decision, which came this week, is a reflection of kind of flagging attendance lately at Charlotte FC games, sagging season ticket sales. Credits toward future season tickets apparently will be offered in the future to the seat license owners. The impression I get is that this has just not been a popular mechanism for soccer specifically. It's of course used in other professional sports, but I think it's something that fans have been asking for and Tepper Sports is trying to respond to that.
Support for BizWorthy comes from the law office of Robertson & Associates and Central Piedmont Community College.
