City on edge

CHARLOTTE — Quickstepping past co-workers lunching along the Tryon Street plaza on a perfect fall afternoon, Wachovia Corp. executive Mike Monaghan carried a bouquet of wildflowers in each hand.

Beside him, his wife, Elizabeth, toted a third.

"None of this is for me," she said.

"They're for my three admins," he explained. "Wachovia's had a bad week. I thought I'd bring them something nice."

Here in the Queen City, where banking is king, rush hours and lunch hours fill the streets with blue- and white-collared shirts.

Bank of America flags line Tryon Street in front of the Starbucks, the Ruth's Chris Steak House, even the Wachovia building. Heaven-pointing buildings made of glass and mirrors hold blurred reflections of one other.

Here, last week marked the beginning — or depending on whom you ask, the climax — of a waiting game.

New York's Citigroup Inc. stunned the city as the sun rose Monday by announcing its intentions to purchase one of Charlotte's two colossal banks under a deal engineered by the federal government. The $2.1 billion sale would include only Wachovia's banking operations and would require government assistance.

Then, to close out what already had been a soul-searching work week in Charlotte, San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. announced Friday that it had reached a $15 billion merger agreement with Wachovia that would absorb the entire company without any federal help.

A welcome move, perhaps, but still another yank in the tug-of-war that the 21,000 Wachovia workers here have been forced to play.

And one more wrinkle would emerge hours later on Friday as Citi threatened to block the Wells Fargo deal, racheting up the uncertainty and anxiety that is hanging over the financial capital of the New South.

Black humor

One small contingent of Wachovia men headed out Thursday for lunch at the Hooters on Trade Street saw two former co-workers pulling out of a parking garage along the way.

Stephen Dockery and Bragg Comer left the bank two years earlier to start their own investment firm, what bankers call a boutique.

Spotting them, one of the Hooters-bound men leapt in front of Dockery's tan Toyota sedan shouting, "Just run me over!"

As the group walked away, Dockery joked, "They're probably having an eight-hour lunch."

Recovering from a startling early week and a somber midweek, Charlotte Chamber of Commerce President Bob Morgan echoed that fearful sentiment after Friday's Wells Fargo announcement.

"If this is a baseball game, we don't know if we're in the third inning or the eighth inning, and we don't know if there will be extra innings," Morgan said.

Despite the Wachovia predicament, he said Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch should maintain the city's footing as the country's second-largest banking center after New York.

But it's not just banking weighing on Charlotte's economy. A gas shortage left the city's regular unleaded price hovering at $4 a gallon even by week's end. Charleston, at the same time, felt a slight relief with prices nearly 30 cents lower than its northern counterparts.

Charlotte-area residential closings dropped almost 35 percent between August 2007 and August 2008, the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association reported. Unemployment was 4.7 percent in Charlotte's Mecklenburg County in August 2007, but a year later it hit 7 percent, according to the North Carolina Employment Securities Commission.

Business owners across the city tell of double-digit declines in revenue percentages for the year.

As Gary Boland, the shoe shiner in Founders Hall, put it, "If they don't tell you they're off, they're either collections guys or lawyers."

Quiet time

Boland leaned against a faux-marble column Thursday afternoon, clutching a cup of coffee and staring out at the nearby stores, ignoring his two empty chairs. He's 66 and moved to Charlotte from Connecticut to be closer to his children.

He's seen recessions before, he said, and he knows luxuries such as the service he offers take the hit first.

"If you have to fill up your gasoline tank or get your shoes shined, you know what you're going to do," he said.

Boland rehabs low-end homes with his son as a side project. This year, he said, they'll have to hang on to the properties and hope to rent them out.

He blames the younger generations' reckless spending for many of the problems plaguing the nation's credit markets. He doesn't know if his shoe-shine customers, mostly bankers at the center of that storm, share that perspective.

"I don't talk business with them," Boland said. "They come here to relax."

They're not talking at the neighborhood lunch spot and after-hours bar, either.

Robbie Logreco, bartender at Mimosa Grill in Wachovia Center, has been serving bankers for nine years. He knows some by name, many by drink. Most, he said, prefer Bud Light.

"We figured they'd all come here to drown their sorrows or to celebrate," Logreco said.

But to his surprise, "They've been kind of quiet about it," he said.

JoS. A. Bank men's clothing store manager Michael Hoover rang up a customer Thursday, asking the man about his weekend plans with an earned familiarity.

"Give Kim my best," the man called out as he left the store.

Pausing before greeting the next customer, Hoover shared this about how his Wachovia clientele differ from those from Bank of America: "We're not seeing many people come over from that side," he said.

Hoover assumes the bankers recognize this situation in historical context. Wachovia itself became the national mega-company that it is — or was — from gobbling up smaller or wounded rivals.

"Most of the banks haven't gotten where they are without taking over other banks," he said.

But for now, those at the center of this takeover are shying away from $275 cashmere sweaters, $49.50 bow ties, even the two-for-$129 dress shirts.

They aren't avoiding Jeff Kornegay, though. He's director of Hunter Hollis, a finance industry recruiter. Kornegay said his business spiked 40 percent from Wachovia employees alone last week.

"A lot of them just need to be patient," Kornegay said.

Walking down Tryon Street, he looked toward Wachovia's mixed-use real estate project boasting a 46-floor condominium tower, several museums and a 48-floor office tower still under construction.

"It's a beautiful building," he said. "I just don't know who's going to be in it."

Reach Allyson Bird at 937-5594 or abird@postandcourier.com.

Photo Gallery

Tryon Times: Charlotte Waits for Financial Dust to Clear

In the Queen City, where banking is king, rush hours and lunch hours fill the streets with blue and white collared shirts. Bank of America and Wachovia skyscrapers line Tryon Street, but turmoil in the financial markets has brought uncertainty to those both inside and outside the banking business.