Construction is now underway on the Fallon Company's first building at Centre South, a development announced a decade ago that includes affordable housing at the crossroads of South End, Dilworth and Uptown.

Why it matters: Charlotte was quick to tear down the low-income cottages on this site in 2017, soon after this public-private project was announced, but it's taken nearly a decade to make up for those lost units.

Zoom in: Twelve03, the name of the first building, will be a 329 units with 20% set aside as affordable to households earning 65% and 80% of the area median income. That's roughly between $50,000 and $63,000 for a single person.

• Amenities will include a coworking lounge, fitness center, a rooftop saltwater pool and a pet spa.

The big picture: Charlotte's housing authority, Inlivian, is partnering on the project as part of a shift in its strategy. Rather than concentrating poverty in clusters of homes, Inlivian is integrating workforce housing into market-rate developments.

• Charlotte faces a widening shortage of more than 40,000 affordable units for its lowest-income renters.

What they're saying: In a press release, the Fallon Company applauded itself for advancing Twelve03 "at a time when few comparable developments nationally have been able to navigate today's challenging capital markets."

• "The journey to Centre South took longer than expected, but we remained committed to getting it right," said Fulton Meachem, president and CEO of Inlivian.

Zoom out: The full 16.7-acre Centre South development is expected to include hundreds of residences, office, retail and potentially a hotel on the site. The timeline of the full build-out is unclear.

What's next: Construction is anticipated to wrap up on Twelve03 in late 2028.

Read the full story and see renderings

🤔 NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip's brewery and Famous Toastery teamed up on a cinnamon roll beer.

💼 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is paying Brooks Pierce attorneys who bill at $275 per hour to investigate Superintendent Crystal Hill. (WFAE)

🤖 North Carolina ranks ninth in the nation for businesses already using AI, per a new LendingTree report. (WRAL)

🏢 More Charlotte office buildings are selling for steep discounts compared to their previous sales price. Three buildings in Coliseum Centre office park near the airport sold to a Minnesota investor for about $51 million, half their 2020 price. (Observer)

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America's child population fell by 1.8 million from 2020 to 2025 — with the under-18 population shrinking in every region but the South.

Why it matters: Most of America is preparing for fewer students and young families, while the South faces the opposite problem: crowded classrooms, new housing pressure and rising political stakes.

The big picture: The South had 303,969 more children in 2025 than in 2020, according to new Census Bureau Vintage 2025 estimates reviewed by Axios.

• The West had the largest under-18 decline: down 1,015,068, or 5.7%.
• Overall, the South's total population grew 6% from 2020 to 2025 — nearly double the nation's 3.1% growth.

State of play: The South's overall growth reflects strong migration patterns that are adding children, people in prime family-building years and retirees — making it the only region gaining population across all five age groups tracked by the Census Bureau.

• The numbers deepen a larger post-pandemic trend: America's growth is moving outward, especially across the South.

Between the lines: This is not simply a story of children "moving" South.

• County-level population change reflects births, deaths and migration.
• The data does not, by itself, show how much of the under-18 growth came from families moving in versus children being born or retained in the region.

Zoom in: Southern metro counties more than accounted for the region's child population growth, offsetting losses in micro counties and rural areas, an Axios review found.

• Metro counties in the South added 361,757 residents under 18, a 1.5% increase.

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