Mecklenburg County owns a small, empty building on LaSalle Street that used to house Project Lift, and for the past year the Board of County Commissioners has been asking what it could become. On July 7, the county gave its most concrete answer yet: a west side workforce hub, run by the Urban League of Central Carolinas and four partner organizations, built around a single promise. Take residents of the 28216 ZIP code who are starting out near the $42,000 one partner cited as the area's average, and move them into work that pays $67,000 or more.
The initiative has a name, Urban Spark, and a set of year-one numbers the county says it will hold the partners to. What it does not yet have is a signed contract, a renovated building, or a single vote of the board. Commissioners took no action on July 7. The presentation was the fourth the board has received on the LaSalle building over roughly a year, and the first since the county selected the Urban League as its operating partner in May.
A building with a history
The building sits at 2324 LaSalle Street, in a corridor the presentation tied to the Beatties Ford Road area and the Lincoln Heights and Washington Heights neighborhoods. Robyn Hamilton, president and chief executive of the Urban League of Central Carolinas, told commissioners the roughly 3,000-square-foot building carries about 70 years of public-service history, and that many in the room remembered it as the home of Project Lift. She called it "this beloved building" more than once.
The county chose the site for its proximity. According to the presentation, the students Urban Spark intends to reach attend West Charlotte High, Northwest School of the Arts, Phillip O. Berry Academy and Harding University High, and roughly 75 percent of them are directly certified for free and reduced-price meals. The Urban League built its demographic case on the 28216 ZIP code, which it described as more than 81 percent African American, with a median age of 42, 49 percent of residents receiving food and nutrition services, and a high school graduation rate around 72 percent. Hamilton said one figure surprised her: the share of homes still without high-speed internet.
One operator, four partners
The structure the county settled on puts one organization on the hook. The Urban League of Central Carolinas is the "lead operator," a role Hamilton defined plainly: the Urban League is "ultimately responsible" and the "accountable operator" to Mecklenburg County, the single entity the board can hold to the outcomes.
Under it sit four partners, each with a defined role. Road to Hire, led by chief executive Dr. Monique Perry Graves, already runs programming inside West Charlotte High and, according to the presentation, will dedicate at least 15 slots to students from the target area. Year Up United, represented by regional market lead Don Thomas, committed to a minimum of 10 seats per cohort for six months of training followed by a six-month internship. Do Greater Charlotte, founded by William McNeely, handles the creative-careers track. My Brother's Keeper, led by executive director Ricky Singh, is the community-rooted partner; the presentation credited it with roughly 8,000 home visits last year and a plan to help families complete federal financial-aid forms.
The partners arrived with track records the Urban League offered as evidence the model works. Year Up United, according to the presentation, already serves 303 west side residents at an average starting wage of $67,000, up from a roughly $42,000 area baseline, with what it reported as 100 percent 90-day retention. Road to Hire reported serving more than 1,000 people a year, an average starting wage of $74,000, a 94 percent one-year retention rate, and $30 million in scholarships awarded. Those figures are the partners' own, presented to the board rather than independently audited.
The numbers the county says it will measure
The point of naming an accountable operator, said Commissioner Mark Jerrell, the District 4 Democrat who chairs the board, is that the county can come back in a year and check the math. The Urban League gave the board a set of year-one targets to check: at least 250 participants enrolled in the pipeline, at least 75 credentials earned, 80 percent 90-day job retention, 80 percent of requesting families completing federal financial-aid forms, more than 25 employer partners activated, 24 community pop-up events, and at least 80 job interviews facilitated.
Behind all of it is the wage number. "When you take somebody from 34 or 40 thousand dollars a year to 67 or 74 thousand dollars a year, that is a game changer," Jerrell said. "You're almost doubling someone's income." He returned to the theme when the presentation ended: "Today we are doubling down on you."
Jerrell, who said more than once that he is "not a big fan of programs" and does not think they have produced the outcomes the county expects, framed Urban Spark as something else. "This is about empowering the community and providing a level of economic stability," he said, "not a handout but a hand up."
What the commissioners pressed on
The board did not vote, but it did press. Commissioner Yvette Townsend-Ingram, an at-large Democrat who said she was also speaking for Commissioner Arthur Griffin Jr., an at-large Democrat who was absent, asked who answers to the county if the year-one goals are missed. Hamilton's answer was that the accountability sits with the Urban League alone, not spread across the collective. Townsend-Ingram also pushed on the building itself: the rendering the county showed, she noted, looks nothing like the building today, and she asked how the renovation gets paid for and whether local contractors, students and existing trade programs would do the work.
County Manager Mike Bryant said the agreement with the partners will be performance-based, with the outcomes rolling into the county's workforce-development scorecard, and that the county will fund the renovation while programming costs are shared under a contract still to be written. It is the same performance-and-scorecard posture the county has been reaching for on bigger questions, including the influence it wants, and mostly lacks, over data-center development. It is also not the county's only large capital commitment this year, alongside the $118 million training center it is funding in Matthews.
Commissioner Laura Meier, the District 5 Democrat, called the plan "a slam dunk and a home run and a grand slam." Commissioner Susan Rodriguez-McDowell, the District 6 Democrat, said she had confidence in the partners. Commissioner Vilma Leake, the District 2 Democrat whose district includes the site, tied the plan to Phillip O. Berry Academy, a school she said was built during her time on the school board to prepare young people for jobs, and pressed the partners to make sure young men were pulled into the program alongside young women. "Make sure that we bring our boys into the program," she said, "so that they can be good fathers and good leaders in this community."
What happens next
For all the enthusiasm in the room, Urban Spark remains a plan the county has endorsed in principle and not yet enacted. The Urban League said its immediate steps are to seat a community advisory council, finalize a first-year calendar of pop-up events, and confirm the LaSalle building's lease and renovation scope with the county. Bryant said he already has commitments from private-sector, faith and community leaders to serve in an advisory role, though he declined to name them. A performance-based contract, and the county money to renovate the building, still have to follow, from a board that spent much of the spring on its FY27 budget.
The board's own framing set the test. The county says it will return in a year and read the numbers back. Until then, the building on LaSalle Street is still empty.