SydneyCarton

One of the residential buildings rising at the UP Mall on Estes.

Does anyone know if the office tower and the residential tower are both going to be built now?

Monday Night Foootball

The old Chapel Hill Hotel site on Fordham and Ephesus Church.

Aurora (MLK/Estes) on Sep 13th

I completely agree. I hope that they build a lot more, but also vary the styles. Has anyone ever seen the “made from scratch” downtown in Carmel, Indiana? It looks good. I’d like to see more of that in Clt. This is all new.

JR Dronset

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/development/article278519184.html Brooklyn Village project will demolish first-of-its-kind Black-developed building BY JOSH BERGERON UPDATED SEPTEMBER 05, 2023 8:57 AM Developers say they hope to rekindle vibrancy from Charlotte’s original Brooklyn community in place of an uptown building that sits at a critical crossroads for the city’s Black business history. Demolition is starting now on Walton Plaza — a building that, as Charlotte historian Tom Hanchett said, is “not officially a landmark, but maybe it should be.” There and at a site one block north, developer BK Partners will build Brooklyn Village — housing (affordable and market-rate), retail, office space, hotel rooms and a park…. The Walton Plaza section of the property will be part of Brooklyn Village South. The 11.3-acre Brooklyn Village North property sits between the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center and the courthouse, including Marshall Park. Together, the sites will have 1,243 residential units, including at least 114 designated affordable; office and retail space; hotel rooms; and 2.5 acres of “open space,” which includes a park. Peebles said BK Partners will seek to build as many housing units as possible and that more units could mean more designated as affordable. Watt said he’s not particularly sentimental about the building because “buildings come and go,” but he’s skeptical that Brooklyn Village will truly pay homage to the community it’s named for. Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/development/article278519184.html#storylink=cpy Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com

Nickkrincon

I was at the Barnes & Noble next door a week ago. Nothing is happening there.

That’s great news. This is going to be a beautiful tower.

Wow! This is rising quickly!!

Thanks. I eventually realized that it’s Portmans’ Hawkins St project. I walked near there recently, but I didn’t make it by that site. Is the residential building under construction?

There’s so much going on in SE that I’m losing track of things. Isn’t this the project that will have a very nice, tiered residential tower as part of the development next door? If so, where exactly will it be located? Also, does anyone know the status of it? P.S.: This is the residential tower I was thinking of. I had the wrong project. Does anyone know the status of it?

It’s huge.

The Aura site on MLK and Estes

I went by there last weekend. As I recall, it’s boarded up.

Here’s The Observer’s story on this issue. Audrey Elsberry Tue, August 15, 2023 at 6:16 PM EDT A $600 million project in uptown Charlotte years in the making was scrapped on Tuesday after the county and a Virginia-based real estate developer cut ties. The county, which controls the nearly 7-acre site, couldn’t come to terms with the developer, Metropolitan Partnership, County Manager Dena Diorio told the Charlotte Observer. The firm’s exclusivity expired and the county chose not to extend it, she said. The project was to be built between Tryon Street, College Street, 7th Street and 6th Street. Plans for the 7th and Tryon mixed-use development included an office tower, apartment building, restaurants, retail and plaza in two square blocks of uptown. Now that the development is off, the county hopes to sell the land. Diorio said the land will likely be sold in chunks and not as one large parcel. The next step for the county is to decide how it will sell the separate parcels. It plans on using the proceeds to fund multiple affordable housing projects off site, which was part of the original plan. Diorio would not disclose the biggest disagreements with the developer. Metropolitan could not be reached immediately for comment. What will the county sell first? The now-unused parcels span two blocks, and the county will sell the land in pieces. The last bits of land to sell will likely be those planned for the office building because the county does not believe there currently is a market for office space. It’s not ripe for redevelopment now so we’ll focus on the two parcels (previously) owned by Bank of America, which are at 7th and Tryon and 7th and College,” Diorio said. As for the use of that space, the county hopes to see apartments and retail, as in the original plan. The Main Library project planned for part of the lot, which broke ground Tuesday, will be unaffected by Metropolitan’s exit, according to the Charlotte Business Journal, which first reported the news. The development’s controversial plans The real estate developer requested a public-private partnership at the outset of the project to fund $24.4 million in improvements such as parking spaces, an outdoor plaza, extended bike lane and street changes. In 2020, the City Council allocated its portion of public funding to the developer, which totaled $27 to $30 million between the city and the county. The majority of that funding, $25 million, would be given through tax breaks for providing parking. Affordable housing advocates had problems with the site’s plans because they believed local leaders had broken their promise to include affordable housing in the development. The county mitigated this concern by pledging to use the proceeds from the land sale to fund an affordable housing development next to the site as well as other units in the county. Environmental advocates also opposed the plans. Charlotte Mecklenburg Climate Leaders wrote a letter to Mayor Vi Lyles and City Council members saying the amount of parking planned for the development should be reduced to mitigate environmental impacts. The Observer’s Taylor Batten contributed to this story.

Clt Development or KJ: Since the whole site is being cleared, is the developer going to build the office tower now, or wait for more tenant commitments? Also, will the office tower and the apartment tower both rise above a single, shared podium?

I observed yesterday that the homeless situation in Uptown is at a crisis point. If their bathing in this fountain was part of the problem, I can sadly see why it was razed. Homelessness is also approaching a crisis point in Chapel Hill. One morning last week, I saw four homeless people on Franklin St., two of whom were fighting with each other. Also, unlike Charlotte, CH is a “city” of only 60,000 people, and, therefore, the homeless situation here is particularly crazy. Something must be done.

It was hot, but a few cold beers helped cool me down.