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Thursday, March 11, 2010
Boomer with Attitude / News Fifth Third Bank move brings promise of urban paradise
Posted By John Grooms on Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 2:22 PM
Wow, what a huge, huge deal for this city — Fifth Third Bancorp is moving its corporate headquarters a whopping eight miles or so! To Uptown! Woo-hooo! The city’s economy is saved, new jobs are being created as we speak, and pretty soon we expect to see ordinary Charlotteans rolling around in piles of money in their front yards.
Yep, this move by the Midwestern bank with the funny name is a major, major event, at least according to local media coverage. I admit I got all tingly just reading about the epic move from University City all the way down to North Tryon St. Charlotte Chamber Chair David Darnell put it best: 5/3’s move is "good for uptown and good for Charlotte."
Yes, that’s sarcasm. Thanks for noticing. But, really, is there anyone besides maybe 20 or so suits who cares about this big news item? But, hey, the city is desperate for any kind of movement in the local economy. Unemployment’s at 12 percent, and our signature industry, banking, is as popular today as a copperhead in a baby’s crib. So, just for a day, local media treated 5/3’s piddling move as big news.
But look again. How many new jobs are being created for the city by the move? Zero. So how is the move “good for Charlotte” — and when are the gray men in shiny shoes going to quit using that worn-out mantra from the 1980s? “It’s good for Charlotte.” Yep, those bankers have certainly showed everyone just how much they know about doing what’s “good for Charlotte,” didn’t they?
The whole scene yesterday, with the obligatory press conference at the Chamber — attended by the mayor and county commission vice-chair, no less — was kind of funny in its pretense. Darnell, the Chamber chair, is a big wheel at Bank of America. The building 5/3 is moving into is *owned by Bank of America. And amid the play-along games at the press conference, one of the amusements was pretending that 5/3 is a “competitor” for BofA. Right. And that ant down there is a competitor for the sole of my shoe. No, guys, Wachovia it ain’t. Dressing up this minor move as big economic news for the city is just more corporate PR and smoke and mirrors — and most of us have already seen enough of that from the banking industry in the past 18 months. You boys go ahead and keep preening among yourselves, but forgive the rest of us out here, the ones who don’t get the million-buck bonuses, if we don’t seem real excited about your little party.
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