Tepper Sports drops another major project: Thursday, July 21

Charlotte FC's club academy facility will not be housed at the Eastland mall, at least for now.Tepper Sports & Entertainment (TSE), which owns Charlotte FC as well as the Carolina Panthers, announced they no longer had plans to be involved with the redevelopment of the Eastland Mall."After a great deal of consideration, the timeline for the Eastland project posed challenges that led us to research expedited alternatives," Tepper Sports said in a statement. "We continue to work towards a practice facility for Charlotte FC’s first team, the club’s academy and its MLS Next Pro team and will provide updates as our plans are finalized." TSE noted that while they have no plans at this time to have a presence at Eastland, they are open to discussions.Additionally, TSE added that since they took Bank of America Stadium over in 2018, they have contributed over $70 million in facility improvements and doubled events taking place all without public funding from the city of Charlotte.READ MORE: https://www.wcnc.com/article/sports/tepper-sports-plans-eastland-mall-redevelopment-charlotte-fc-panthers-north-carolina-david-tepper/275-bb809144-92c2-4349-822c-1bd68e712263Charlotte transportation officials met Wednesday to discuss the possibility of allowing more tolls on Interstate 77, stretching from Uptown to the South Carolina border. The North Carolina Department of Transportation says it received a request from an unidentified company to build toll lanes to the South Carolina state line. NCDOT said it must be formally approved by Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization before it can analyze the proposal. Any toll projects in North Carolina must be requested and approved by the local planning organization, NCDOT said citing state law. NCDOT issued a statement saying the proposal is only a concept and not anywhere close to being approved, and went further saying it's not "advocating for any particular path forward" regarding I-77 tolls.READ MORE: https://www.wcnc.com/article/traffic/more-tolls-proposed-interstate-77-charlotte-south-carolina-state-border/275-b3ad3d8d-ff1e-4f4c-ba51-b2dcb50756b9