Loading docks and COIs: junk removal in South End and Uptown towers

The short answer

If you live in a tower along the Rail Trail in South End, or anywhere in First, Second, Third or Fourth Ward Uptown, three things stand between your old sofa and the street:

• A certificate of insurance naming the property, and usually the management company, as additional insured.
• A reserved loading dock or freight elevator window, typically a two to four hour block, weekdays only in many buildings.
• Elevator pads, hung by building staff before anything bulky moves.

We handle all three as part of the booking, at no extra cost. Prices are the same as anywhere else in the metro: sofa $126, mattress and box spring set $143, quarter truck $241, half truck $431, full truck $732.

Why Charlotte towers are strict about this

South End and Uptown filled in fast and filled in new. These are mostly recent buildings — five-over-ones stretched along the Blue Line, mid-rises around the Design Center and Camden area, high-rises in the Wards — with professional management companies, brand-new finishes, and a resident population that turns over heavily every year.

Fresh drywall in a corridor, a new lobby floor, and a couple of hundred units cycling tenants annually is exactly the combination that produces a strict move policy. It is not obstruction; it is the building protecting finishes that are two years old.

The practical effect for you is that a removal in one of these buildings cannot be arranged the morning of.

What a COI actually is

A certificate of insurance is a one-page document proving the crew coming into the building carries liability coverage, with the property named on it. Management offices in Charlotte are consistent about wanting one and specific about the wording — the legal entity that owns the building, the management company, sometimes both, listed as additional insured.

What we need from you is the exact name the office wants on it. Ask them for it in writing, forward it, and we produce the certificate before the truck is scheduled. It costs you nothing and it is the single most common reason a high-rise pickup gets delayed by a day.

The dock, and why the parking deck is not an option

A lot of Charlotte's newer buildings have parking decks with low clearance — low enough that a box truck is not driving in. That is not a problem as long as everyone knows in advance, because the crew stages at the dock or on the street instead of the deck.

It becomes a problem when nobody checked. So when you book, tell us:

• The building name and your floor.
• Whether there is a dock, and if so how it is accessed — a lot of South End buildings dock off a side street or an alley rather than off South Boulevard itself.
• Whether the freight elevator is separate from the passenger elevators, and its hours.
• Whether the management office requires check-in at a security desk.

Move windows and the Rail Trail calendar

Two Charlotte-specific scheduling realities.

Month end is the crush. This metro's rental turnover is heavy and concentrated, so the freight elevator in any South End building is spoken for in the last few days of the month. Book the middle of the final week if you can.

Weekend events. South End's stretch of the Rail Trail and the Uptown streets around the arena and the ballpark get closed, congested, or coned off for events and races on a fairly regular basis. A truck cannot stage on a street that is closed. If your building fronts one of those routes, a weekday is simply easier than a Saturday.

What gets removed from these units

Tower removals are consistent because the units are. A typical South End one-bedroom turnover:

• Sofa — $126
• Coffee table — $67
• TV (42 to 65 inch) — $68
• Mattress + box spring set — $143
• Bar stool — $37
• Bar stool — $37

$126 + $67 + $68 + $143 + $37 + $37 = $478 itemized. As a load that is around a half truck, so the quote is $431.

The bar stools are the tell. Every one of these units has an island and nobody takes the stools to the next place.

What you must not do instead

Do not put furniture in the trash room, in the corridor, in the stairwell, or beside the compactor. Bulk items are outside the building's standard waste contract; the property pays to have them removed and then charges it back to the unit, off the deposit if you are moving out.

Do not stage anything in the lobby. Every management office in Uptown and South End has a rule against it and most have cameras on the space.

And do not leave anything on the Rail Trail side of the building. That is a public greenway, and leaving furniture there is illegal dumping rather than a donation.

For property managers

If you manage one of these buildings rather than living in it, the useful part is that the price is fixed before dispatch. You can approve $431 for a unit turnover in an email, get the COI on file in advance for the whole year's work rather than per job, and schedule around your own move calendar.

We can also work from a leasing office key or lockbox with photos sent on completion, which matters when you are turning several units at once after a heavy month-end.

What it costs

Nothing extra. There is no high-rise fee, no elevator fee, no COI fee, no dock fee and no charge for the crew waiting for building staff to hang the pads. A sofa out of a fifteenth-floor Uptown unit is $126, the same as a sofa out of a ranch in Cotswold.

Frequently asked questions