The Design Center of the Carolinas – Unique Office Space in Historic South End

The 3rd Annual Highest Design Contest Has Begun

Get Inspired!

The 3^rdAnnual Highest Design Concert is off to a great start. Find out more about the contest and how you could win $1,000 and select a CMS school to receive $5,000 in school supplies from Carolina Pad.

See us on WBTV,

http://www.wbtv.com/category/195957/video-landing-page?clipId=6639324&autostart=true

And see what Charlotte Magazine has to say about the contest,

http://www.charlottemagazine.com/Blogs/Revue/January-2012/High-Aspirations/

Get your artwork ready and pick your school to champion!!

Check back for updates. Artwork is due March 16, 2012. Online voting begins March 19.

The Design Center of the Carolinas Announces Charlotte’s Third Annual “Highest Design” Contest

Deadline for Entries March 16, 2012 and Online Voting Begins March 19, 2012

The Design Center of the Carolinas (DCC) and Ram Realty Services announce an opportunity to showcase local creativity through their third annual art contest for Charlotte’s design and arts community. The winning artist will have his or her work displayed on the highest canvas in town, a 125’ water tower, plus win a $1,000 check in this year’s Highest Design Contest. The theme is “What inspires your creativity?” The contest begins January 17 with entries due by March 16, 2012. Online voting will run from March 19 – April 30, 2012.

The Charlotte professional arts community including designers, photographers, illustrators and other artists are invited to participate. The winning selection will be determined by public online voting. In addition to the artist winning a $1,000, Carolina Pad will donate an additional $5,000 in classroom supplies to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg School championed by the winning artist.

Entries must be submitted by March 16, 2012 by email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Submission requirements are available online at www.designcentercarolinas.com. All artwork will be judged online by open voting from the Charlotte community. Participants are encouraged to ask friends and family to vote for their work and the artwork with the most votes wins.

Each artist is encouraged to share his or her vision of what is inspiring artisans today. Entrants may work in a variety of two-dimensional mediums, but need to work in a horizontal format. The winner’s artwork will appear on the Design Center of the Carolinas water tower for a twelve-month period. The water tower is a South End landmark and symbol of the surrounding creative community. The winner and the winning school will be spotlighted in a special ceremony in May at the Design Center of the Carolinas in Historic South End.

Ivy Greaner, chief operating officer of Ram Realty Services spoke of the ongoing tradition of this contest, “We love that the Design Center is thought of as a place full of creative energy that ties with the creative community of Charlotte. Itis there for all to see when you look up at the water tower.”

The contest is open to professionals at least 18 years of age. Required working size is 18”w x 12” h horizontal. Artists are encouraged to enter from Charlotte’s design community working in businesses such as advertising agencies, photography studios, graphic design firms, printing companies, architectural firms as well as arts programs at local universities and community colleges.

The artwork will be replicated onto a large horizontal vinyl canvas and installed on the Design Center of the Carolinas water tower in place of the 2011 artwork Jane’s Dancing Addiction. The winning entry will be selected by the Charlotte community through a web and viral social media campaign on the Design Center of the Carolinas web site. www.designcentercarolinas.com.

About Design Center

The Design Center of the Carolinas is ideally located between Camden Road, West Tremont and Worthington Avenues in the Historic South End of Charlotte, NC, along the LYNX Light Rail at East/West Blvd. A signature example of adaptive reuse of historic buildings, DCC is comprised of three distinct buildings featuring exposed brick, expansive windows and compelling architectural details, giving a vintage vibe to contemporary workspace. Its trademark water tower is also a landmark of Historic South End and a symbol of its urban redevelopment. This unique workspace is designed to bring life to a progressive mix of showrooms, studios, offices and event spaces, resulting in a one-of-a-kind gathering place for creativity and forward-thinking businesses. For more information, please visit www.designcentercarolinas.comor contact Meredith Dickerson at (704) 971-6517 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)regarding leasing opportunities.

About Carolina Pad

Carolina Pad™ is a leading supplier of fashion school, office and organizational products. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, with offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai, Carolina Pad is one of the fastest

Growing stationery companies in the world. Its school, office, and arts and crafts products can be found at mass merchant, office supply, grocery, and drug stores. The Carolina Pad™ portfolio of brands include

Studio C™, Note2Self™, Ghostline®, Notebound®, Sasquatch™, and u:create™. Learn more about Carolina Pad at www.carolinapad.com.

About RAM

Ram is an affiliated group of companies and partnerships that acquire, develop, manage and finance retail and residential properties in the Southeast. The group also selectively acquires debt secured by retail and residential properties. Ram has raised two closed-end private equity real estate funds: Community Reinvestment Partners LP and Ram Realty Partners II LP. Since 1996, the company has deployed $1.5 billion in real estate transactions. Ram is headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida and has offices in Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, Florida, Charlotte and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For more information, visit www.ramrealestate.com.

Design Center Supports Queen City in Pink

Photos by Clear Sky Images

Watch the water tower lights glow pink from September 24th through October 3rd in support of Queen City in Pink and the partnership with Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® to be held on October 1st. Queen City in Pink is a reminder to stay vigilant in the fight for a breast cancer cure and a tribute to breast cancer survivors and those who have been affected by or lost their lives to the disease.

Reboot Charlotte: South End Design Hub

By Reneé LaSalle, Fox Charlotte

Charlotte, NC - Take a walk through Charlotte's South End and you'll know why it's called the city's unofficial creative district.

In the past 20 years South End has experienced an artistic & economic rejuvenation. Now, nearly two-thirds of its businesses are considered part of an extended creative core.

Charlotte's Center City Partners says it's even more.

Ted Boyd, Center City Partners Director of Historic South End says, “South End has really emerged as Charlotte's design hub."

Ferguson South End showroom manager Sonia Gant says that's right on the money, “The stores that are in this area just naturally scream design."

The pluming & lighting store sits in the heart of South End. Gant says the mix of major chains and small independent stores gives the area a healthy feel.

For interior designer Tom Holley the easy access to tile, fabric, and building companies means a win-win for his Crazy Jane's clients, “If you don't know them you want to know of them and you want them close by."

Balfour Beatty Construction pegged the community's accessibility for its employees.

Marketing manager Beth Hernandez says, “We love being right here near the light rail and also having places where they can go during the day to shop or dine."

Center City Partners surveyed more than 830 business for its South End Business Study.

It found 34% of the South End's retail companies are design related, selling either furnishings & interiors or garden supplies.

On the commercial side, 28% of the South End's businesses catered toward design, from architecture & engineering to construction & building.

Business in the South End goes beyond retail and commercial design. Thanks to the creative vibe the area is a hub for art galleries and other artistic & design companies.

Allegra South End Consulting Partner John Oaks says the stimulating energy helps the print & design company thrive, “When your business runs on ingenuity and imagination it's nice to work in an area where you can see that demonstrated 100 times everyday."

3pm Creative Group owner Kara Hollinger-Bulla moved the branding company to the South End thanks to the eclectic synergy, “By being around like minded people it really makes us push our boundaries and not become ordinary."

Boyd says the creative environment is no accident, it stems from a movement which built the Carolinas Design Center and an intentional branding by the community. He says that's part of reason South End will continue to grow.

Center City Partners expects to release its South End Business Survey by the end of August.

Tech Startup Sets Big Ambitions in Financial Sector, July 22, 2011, Charlotte Business Journal

Premium content from Charlotte Business Journal - by Adam O’Daniel , Finance editor

Date: Friday, July 22, 2011

Tresata’s Abhishek Mehta (from left), Richard Morris and Koert Kuipers meet at the fledgling companies office in South End.

Abhishek Mehta and Richard Morris believe the startup they founded in South End will one day become “the Google of financial data.”

For now, it has just eight employees and a dozen computers in a one-room office in an old mill. But don’t be fooled by the humble start. Tresata is a company with some big brains and real innovation at its core.

And local entrepreneurs are hopeful Tresata and others will become harbingers of a burgeoning tech sector emerging from the shadows of Charlotte’s banks.

Mehta and Morris, both ex-Bank of America Corp. technology executives in the corporate investment bank, founded Tresata this year. The company is creating both on-site and cloud computing software that helps banks search and analyze data. They’ve raised nearly $1.5 million in seed money from private investors. And they say their proprietary technology is a first of its kind geared to serve big banks and other financial institutions.

“What Google has done for the web, that’s what we want to do for financial data,” Mehta says. “We think this technology could lead to new economic models. We think the potential is massive.”

What exactly is he talking about? Think of it this way: Google uses technology to store, search and analyze all the seemingly limitless information on the Internet and then deliver results to users almost instantly. Tresata says its technology does the same thing for banks.

The company’s software aims to store, search and analyze financial data for banks so they can track customer trends, market risks and economic trends with the same effectiveness that a person might use Google to get directions.

Mehta and Morris say financial firms currently rely on aging technology to analyze samples of data. They don’t have the ability to fully analyze in real-time the massive amounts of data available to them via internal sources and public networks such as social-media websites. Techies call the rapidly expanding cloud of information available to society Big Data. Consider this: People worldwide last year stored enough data to fill the Library of Congress 60,000 times, according to a recent Big Data report in The Economist.

Tresata already is working with “a handful of clients,” Mehta says, though he declines to name them. And he says rapid growth is expected. That means he plans to hire more coders and developers this year. The firm also has recruited a well-connected advisory board, including MIT Human Dynamics Lab Director Sandy Pentland and Richard Prager, a managing director at BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager.

Tresata also signals much potential for Charlotte, Morris and Mehta say. The two came to the Queen City when they worked at BofA and liked their new home enough to stay even after leaving the bank. Morris arrived from San Francisco, where he worked for years in financial services. Mehta came to BofA and Charlotte after accounting firm Arthur Andersen brought him to the U.S. from his native India.

The duo chose to base the startup here because they believe the area holds potential to become an East Coast hub for data innovation. They say such innovations have been limited mostly to the West Coast. They contend Charlotte has the right mix of talented people — thanks to the banks — and industries that can benefit from data technologies.

“There’s a great combination in this area for Big Data — finance, energy and health care,” Morris says. “Think about it: Energy, banking and health care are all about data.”

Tresata chose a small office in the Design Center of the Carolinas off Worthington Avenue in South End. Mehta says the proximity to uptown and the light rail — mixed with the offbeat and eclectic vibe of the neighborhood — makes a good environment for startups.

The only thing missing, he and Morris say, is more willingness by Charlotte’s big companies to team with and aid startups. “In the (Silicon) Valley, you have access to big companies who want to work with startups and try their technology,” Morris says. “That’s not always the case with the major companies in Charlotte.”

Design Center