Information Items:
Several Council members asked for more information about the upcoming International Council of Shopping Centers event, Carolinas Idea Exchange, on March 17-18th.
The two-day event held at the Charlotte Convention Center will provide opportunities for retailers, brokers, developers and municipalities to network and discuss potential projects. The conference also includes seminars devoted to the current state of capital markets, green building within the retail industry, and basic retail knowledge. More than 1700 attendees are currently registered for this event. The program for this conference is attached.
If Council members are interested in attending this event, please contact Chris Hemans by noon on March 7 at 704-432-3025 or via email
chemans@ci.charlotte.nc.us.
A regional environmental summit, jointly hosted by the City of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, Centralina COG, Catawba Regional COG, and Charlotte Regional Partnership, will be held Friday, May 2 at the Charlotte Convention Center. The topic of the event is "Greening the Region - What Can We Do?" Elected officials and high level municipal staff from across the region will be invited to attend.
Last year Council asked staff to partner with the County to plan a summit on environmental issues. In September, Council directed staff to incorporate "Green Economic Development," an idea from their earlier Blue Sky discussion, into the summit agenda. To that end, Ronnie Bryant, President and CEO of the Charlotte Regional Partnership, will be the summit's keynote speaker and speak about the private sectors' "greening" efforts.
The summit will also include a morning plenary session with speakers on water quality, air quality, waste management, open space preservation, and green industries and development. These speakers will be asked to update the status of the environment in their area and to share best practices on greening the region and combating regional challenges. The afternoon session will include facilitated roundtable discussion, where participants will be asked to consider what governments can do to green the region.
A formal invitation will be sent to all Council members in early March, and the agenda will be distributed in mid-April.
