Fund times: Dimensional Fund Advisors: Charlotte.

• Author: Mildenberg, David
• Position: NC ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: FEATURED PROJECT CHARLOTTE

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Replacing old structures in Charlotte to make way for big buildings filled with smart finance professionals may be as common as a Myrtle Beach sunburn. And the new Dimensional Fund Advisors' office in Charlotte is certain to raise the city's financial IQ, given the money-management firm's reliance on Nobel Prize-winning economists.

Still, the DFA expansion comes with considerable regret because its planned seven-story building will replace the Common Market, a favorite coffee, sandwich and beer spot, and a vacant lot that hosted a popular weekly food-truck gathering. Common Market's courtyard is widely viewed as a treasure, frequented by hipsters, CEOs, cyclists and people of all colors. "It's an intimate space that is unique in Charlotte," says David Walters, a retired UNC Charlotte architecture professor who leased space nearby for 26 years.

It's also one of the best real-estate locations in Charlotte, a mile south of the Bank of America headquarters building, next to a light-rail station and in the South End neighborhood, where the population has more than doubled since 2009, to almost 9,000. Starting in the 1980s, Charlotte graphic designer Gaines Brown bought real estate there, convinced the deteriorating industrial neighborhood had a future as an artists' haven. Now, South End is teeming with young professionals with center-city jobs, along with at least eight brewpubs. What the area lacks is major employers, Walters says.

DFA will help fill that void. Aided by $18 million in local and state grants and tax breaks, the company expects to employ at least 300 people there by 2020. Those workers, involved in investment management, sales and IT, have average annual compensation of about $147,000. The 900-employee company paid $12.2 million...