PlazaMidwoodGuy

While I'm certainly glad to see such a spot open in my 'hood, that is one ugly building! I was hoping they would do something -- anything -- to it to make it look better/cooler/urban.

I wouldn't read too much into that. In fact, the folks on the Weather Channel are usually so busy talking about Atlanta that they don't have time to mention many other cities.

But don't you think that will only be the case for southbound 77? On the northbound stretch, there will be traffic from the eastern and western legs of I-485 dumping onto a narrow and inadequte I-77, along with the traffic already traveling north on the interstate. That segment backs up on a regular basis because of the narrowing of the road, so I can only imagine what it will be like once you start pouring northbound trafficed onto it from I485.

I would like to think you're right. But traffic congestion alone doesn't seem to deter sprawl around here. I-77 north of Exit 23 won't be widened in the foreseeable future and is already a parking lot much of the day. It is a rare morning or afternoon these days that I don't read on Charlotte.com about another accident that has slowed or stopped traffic on the northern stretch of I-77. But the development of northern Mecklenburg / Lake Norman continues unabated and the suburban nightmare known as Mooresville just keeps exploding. Apparently these folks are quite content to sit in traffic jams every day on their way to and from work (or anywhere else, for that matter) as long as they can have their suburban existence. While there is no one single cause and no one single solution, to me it is a huge problem that there is little to no regional cooperation where planning and growth controls are concerned - and no real incentive for local governments to do anything to change current development patterns. I would LOVE to see I-77 widened in northern Meck and southern Iredell, as well as from I-485 to the SC line. But like Chief JoJo said above, in a few years, the roads are just going to fill right back up.

I checked Meck Co. GIS to see who owns that horrible sea of ashphalt and the equally horrible strip shopping center with Family Dollar. It says Cole Properties, which has an office on Central Avenue. Who is this owner has he even been approached by any serious developers about buying that parcel? Seems I remember a battle about it a few years back. Does anyone know the story?

In light of all the recent tear downs and so-called "renovations" that have been and are taking place, should the Plaza-Midwood historic district be expanded in order to preserve the character of the neighborhood and prevent some of this? While some of the home additions have been done quite well and fit in perfectly with the character of Midwood, others are simply awful. It sometimes looks like someone dropped a house onto a house, with no consideration whatsoever for making the addition blend in or for preserving any architectural integrity of the structure. And while some of the tear downs may have been homes that were ugly or non-descript to begin with, that isn't always the case. For instance, a beautiful home at the corner of Truman and Belvedere was recently demolished. And don't even get me started on the trees they just cut on that lot!! It has been stripped clean of numerous old, LARGE trees. It looks awful and the loss of tree canopy really pi**es me off as a resident of Midwood! At this point, it doesn't matter to me how "fabulous" the house (or houses) they build there might be. The reckless disregard for those trees far overshadows anything that will get built, IMO. But back to my original question (pardon this tree hugger for getting sidetracked). Should Midwood's residents set about attempting to cover more of the neighborhood with the historic district status in order to have more say-so over the renovations and tear downs? While it won't plug the holes in the city's lame tree ordinance, it may prevent Midwood from becoming a neighborhood of McMansions. P.S. Should this post be in another thread or a separate thread?

True, but how much have things changed? How - in this day and age - did we end up with that god-awful suburban Bojangles at the corner of Independence and 3rd?

If only that were the case, which is most certainly is not in Mecklenburg County. And you're right, it's not the case in most US cities. If these loops could be built for the original purpose intended way back in the 1950's and 60's (as a means of diverting traffic away from congested city centers), then great! But developers and politicians got involved and our city and county, to quote Miesian Corners, never grew a set. They bowed to the pressure of the developers and we now have many, many more interchanges on 485 than it was initially designed to have, and they've allowed some sort of sprawly retail, office, tract home development at each one of them! I remember several years ago when one of the planning big-wigs from Atlanta was in town speaking at a conference. He said if he could give Charlotte one piece of advice so that it could avoid some of Atlanta's mistakes, it would be for us not to lay one more foot of concrete for I-485. To me, the problem isn't the road itself. The problem is that our local government can't let it be JUST a road. It's absolutely nothing more than an expansion tool for developers.

They announced at the dinner on Saturday night that the 2008 HRC Gala would once again be in Charlotte. Our location on the state line is just too convenient, since our chapter is both NC and SC combined. I'm sure the folks in Greensboro or the Triangle would like to have it back there, as well. I suspect, however, the national HRC office really likes the fact that the Charlotte gala has grown into THE largest individual gala in the country (second only to the National HRC Gala in DC) and probably prefers to keep the Carolinas' dinner right where it is!

Authenticbeing is correct...this project will be at Matheson and Simpson.

Thanks for the info, geek. While I certainly like the idea of the artist studios, I must say I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of a gas station/quick mart eyesore on that corner.

Is Crate & Barrel building anything but the larger C&B Home stores these days? Just asking. I know they sat back and waited for years to come to SouthPark in Charlotte until they got just the spot they wanted on the property and they built a 2-level stand-alone store that isn't physically attached to the mall proper. It would appear the trend with C&B is that they don't want the stores they're building nowadays to be inside of a mall. Obviously Crabtree would be a great place for a C&B Home store, but is there a space for them to have their own plot of ground for a 2-level building? (Sorry, I've been to Crabtree a couple of times, but I'm not familiar enough with it to know how the new Hudson Belk annex is laid out and if there's room for a large C&B Home store there.)

Examples? Eastland, Carolina Place, North Lake and Concord Mills. Carolina Place sits in a sprawly, big-box cluttered, traffic congested nightmare. North Lake is a suburban mall at an interstate exit surrounded by a sea of asphalt, and increasingly surrounded by cookie cutter residential. The same can be said of Concord Mills, but on a larger and uglier scale than North Lake. Eastland is....well...Eastland. I never said SouthPark was great development. I didn't say it was URBAN development at all, good or bad. I said it has done a good job of reinventing itself...changing with the times, if you will. I also said I would've preferred all that shopping to be downtown. But the reality is that it isn't. The mall is there, it's not going away anytime soon and it's still a better environment, IMO, than the other malls I listed above. It's stable, it's an anchor for an entire section of the city, and over the years it has managed to lose at least some of its original, totally suburban feel, whether or not you happen to like its existence. Would I like to see more pedestrians using the sidewalks there? Sure. But the lack of people walking around the area would seem to be more a product of our car-based American culture and the way people THINK about getting from point A to point B than anything else. Could people park at Morrocroft Village and do a little shopping at, say, Borders and THEN walk over to the mall to pick up some glassware at Crate & Barrel, a new top at Banana Republic and some overpriced jeans at Lucky, THEN walk over to Harper's for a smart lunch? Sure they could! And they could do all that relatively easily. But will they? I doubt it. Heck, there are people that will eat dinner in one end of Uptown and then get in their car to DRIVE to the other end of it to go to a bar, when they could have easily walked the entire way! I'm all for dense, urban, walkable, sustainable development. But we're talking about something that was built as a suburban shopping mall 37 years ago. I maintain that, compared to the other examples of regional malls in the Charlotte area, SouthPark isn't doing so bad.

Good point! While there were certainly mistakes made over the years where SouthPark (or pretty much any other suburban shopping mall) is concerned, I think SouthPark has done a pretty good job of reinventing itself and has become a focal point for an entire section of the city of Charlotte. Would I prefer to see every square foot of that retail in Uptown Charlotte? You betcha! But I've seen a lot worse than SouthPark when it comes to malls and the development that surrounds them.

For the most part, the southern side of Charlotte was already the more affluent section of the city by the time they started building the mall on the southern fringe of town. With that in mind, I think what is now the SouthPark area would still have become one of the "nicer" areas of the city. But there's no doubt that area wouldn't have exploded like it did without the mall. And the trend over the last few years to make the mall even more "upscale" is only inflating the property values in that vicinity even more.

I gotta say, I'm with ya A2! No doubt politics plays a role in every state when it comes to highway building and maintenance, but NC seems far worse that other states. NCDOT seems to think that lights along interstates are some sort of fluff or luxury ....instead of a BASIC safety issue. For the last few years the excuse has been "we don't have the money." Well, as a lifelong resident of this area, I can tell you that well before there was any budget crisis in Raleigh, the state has been unable and/or unwilling to keep the highway lights up and running in Mecklenburg County. And don't even get me started on the litter issue!

Where do you hear bragging? Cantnot starts their post by saying "Hey, here's something interesting...." And if, indeed, SouthPark is now or soon will be the largest mall in the state, then that IS an item of some interest. Whether or not SouthPark is/was an urban planning failure isn't even remotely part of cantnot's post. Thanks for bringing that to our attention, cantnot! Many of us will be interested to find out if SouthPark is...or soon will be....the largest mall in North Carolina.

Interesting. I know that limits were put on SouthPark's size when they did the rezoning a few years back, as a compromise of sorts with the surrounding neighborhoods that wanted NO expansion at the mall whatsoever. Have the recent expansions brought the mall to that limit? Could they expand another 46,000 sq. feet even if they wanted to?

A good friend of mine worked for years at Belk Store Services and said that year after year, Jackson was the top salesperson in the entire Belk chain. Don't know if that's still the case, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. He's definitely good at what he does. Heath in the men's shoe department is also excellent. He's been there for at least 20 years.

I ran a search and couldn't find the post you're referencing.

Nice video. The project looks great...but please tell me there won't be palmettos! "Charleston By the Creek."

Guess where I won't ever be eating or spending money!

My experiences in Billy Reid have been nothing but positive...and all I've ever done there was browse. And I'm with you, MC....if I had the income, I'd be shopping that store dry! Likewise, I've gotten consistently prompt service at Nordstrom and Niemans. Belk is the one I have an issue with. Ugh. And while that's a great aerial shot, MC, I can't help but wonder if someone should have been in their jumpseat, instead of snapping photos from the passenger cabin.

Thanks for posting those renderings, dubone! There are a couple of questions that I have and if anyone knows the answer, please inform me. 1) All the renderings I've seen of this project show the current Baxter St. bridge over the creek being "straightened out" and hitting Kenilworth perpendicular, as opposed to its current angle. Its current configuration makes for an unnecessarily sharp turn onto Baxter from inbound Kenilworth and really clogs up traffic at that spot. I've always thought the bridge could be re-worked so that it moved traffic more efficiently here. And go on if you must about the need for it to be pedestrian-friendly, but the reality is that this intersection already moves a ton of cars through it and that will only become more the case once this project is finished. So, the question is: does the Baxter bridge stay or will it get changed? I don't see any work being done on it. 2) What the hell is with that jut-out on Kenilworth (or maybe it's still Stonewall at that point) that forces traffic to do a sharp jog to avoid hitting the curb!? To clarify, picture yourself driving down Stonewall towards Baxter. After you've rounded the curve to the right (just after the ramp from John Belk dumps in) there's this section of that grassy area that bows out and the street does a sharp curve around it. I've never understood why it's there. It's dangerous...and it makes no sense. It just seems to me that it could be "shaved off" in order to make that curve less sharp. I was hoping that when they did the street improvements here that it would go away. No....it's still there! While I'm admittedly looking forward to a Home Depot and Target store being so close to me, I can't help but feel that they...along with the rest of the Pappas project at Metropolitan, are going to create an incredible traffic nightmare.

It's ALL sprawl. In my admittedly biased opinion the entire northern end of Mecklenburg County (and southern Iredell) has become one giant, overbuilt tangle of poorly-planned, cookie cutter suburbia filled with plastic houses and overburdened roads. And it's only getting worse. I-77 between Charlotte and Mooresville has become a parking lot, yet they keep building and building. Of course, when this interchange at 485 finally opens, the traffic clogs on northbound 77 will become even worse than they already are, especially since it appears the state won't be widening the interstate north of Huntersville within our lifetimes. While hardly a unique occurence in our area, Northern Meck/southern Iredell are choking on growth....and they're strangling I-77 along with it. BTW, great shots, MC!