CHARLOTTE, N.C. – With the Super Bowl over, the sale of the Carolina Panthers will move into the NFL spotlight.
In order not to distract from the NFL’s main event, much of what has been going on with the sale has taken place out of the public eye.
However, groups like the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and Charlotte Center City Partners are already thinking about what happens after the sale.
Michael Smith is the President of Charlotte Center City Partners he says of the Panthers, “ It's been an incredible relationship for a couple of decades.”
Smith is reluctant to say too much about the future of both the local NFL team and uptown Charlotte.
Local Charlotte businessman Felix Sabates has been putting together a group interested in buying the Panthers.
Sabates said his group through would want a new domed stadium in the hope of attracting the Super Bowl.
Many have questioned if Charlotte does have the number of hotel rooms the NFL would be looking for in awarding a game.
Smith said the city is already way ahead of being able to provide enough hotel rooms, citing the time when the Democratic National Convention was held in the Queen City.
At that time there were 4,200 rooms in the uptown Charlotte area.
“We are now over 5,000 and we’ve got 2,500 more in planning," he said.
Seven thousand rooms is the threshold set by the NFL
Mayor Vi Lyles has met with the Chamber of Commerce about the possible ramifications if the Panthers move from uptown Charlotte but on Tuesday, she told NBC Charlotte’s Rad Berky it is too early to do anything more than talk.
“I expect we are all thinking about it, but we have to wait until we have an owner to know what they are thinking,” Lyles said.
