Victor28204

The main person that complained about this project, who claimed to represent Cherry, moved to Charleston last summer and sold her house in Cherry (If my memory serves me correctly.) I believe she even wrote an editorial to the Observer with her objections to it. To me, this project really is not even in Cherry, but is Cherry adjacent. Her objections were based in the idea of furthering economic disparities between the renters who once lived in Cherry and those who were building and buying here. It's doesn't matter if it's a 20 story building, or a brand new house as their goal is to pump the brakes on any projects that would appreciate already expensive property values in Cherry. Those with the loudest voices in Cherry are against any developments that may appreciate home values.

Absolutely. I wouldn't want to walk that far if I am trying to get coffee. It's been in the 90s for as long as I can remember. I don't want to sweat in a suit on my way to work.

I completely agree that a Starbucks that close should, and most likely will be, treated as an asset. I believe the straight forward approach from Katie Peralta to the Starbucks owner of "Hey do you know about this " was posed in a manner that he had to refute. He cant be the source of more information that has not already been made public. I agree with KJHBurg that they probably negotiated as being a first floor tenant. Although I cant find any proof of that, it's purely my speculation as I would do the same thing if I were in his shoes. Now that the cat is out of the bag, I would venture to guess this was negotiated a long time ago before the Key Man and Theory parcels were revealed to now belong to a medical office developer. If someone knows the hospital is interested in buying something, the price most likely doubles. Could you imagine going to that Starbucks with roughly 10 spaces to park? I would park at harris teeter and ride a scooter over to get coffee.

The part that I have a question about is that Starbucks is the last hold out. Will Starbucks be the next Thirsty Beaver? If I were the guy that owned that Starbucks parcel, it would be Show Me the Money! The alternative would be to negotiate to be part of the new building. Another positive here is that the aggressive booting company can now go away; hopefully, forever.

According to GIS, the key main building has been purchased as well as the building that houses Theory Design Studio. GIS shows the owners as SHG East BLVD. The address associated with the new owners belongs to Summit HealthCare group, which is a dev firm out of winston salem that specializes on medical office projects. The first picture on their website is of a Wake Forrest Baptist building. I wonder if this is going to be the WF presence in charlotte. https://summithg.com/

I live nearby and run multiple times a week. My route takes me up Morehead and I run past that intersection and stop to cross at that exact corner. In the last 20 times I've run past that intersection, I've never seen a pedestrian other than people running. People simply do not walk right here. Maybe more apartments may change this, but I agree with your assessment purely based on my experience living here. I also wouldn't want to sit below grade at that intersection because I give it a couple years before a car accident goes barreling through the windows. That intersection is high volume, high speed, and very congested. 1315 east for example has had a couple different wrecks go through the corner entrance.

They demolished one of the old houses on the parcel that has been identified as being for the Baxter Place development on Cherry St near Luther. This occurred over the last couple days. I hope construction starts soon. https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article9164330.html

So, I went to this meeting. Larken Egleston of the city council was there and said that after speaking with his colleagues on the council, he is fairly confident that the 20 story building will be approved. There were a few suggestions on traffic control, like traffic plateaus as an option. They plan on doing a traffic study in the neighborhood to see what sort of impact there will be and what steps should be taken to mitigate cut throughs. The main concern is that people who currently cut through the neighborhood do not follow the traffic laws by speeding, not stopping for stop signs, and general aggressive driving to bypass traffic on Kings. Hopefully the main takeaway will be for a police presence in the neighborhood to start writing tickets for those who speed and blow through stop signs. The one thing that may also add traffic to the general vicinity in the next couple years is the proposed Atrium upfit at CMC main (1 billion dollars in meck county for various facilities.) I thought the meeting was generally positive.

I'll be going. I too question what specifically they are going to propose as speed bumps have already been shot down as the fire department said the cut through is imperative to their operations. The only way to stop the cut through would be to create a break from kings to queens, which would also be at the expense of the residents who live in the neighborhood. Quite honestly, it's dumb, but I am attending because I heard there is going to be city representation at the meeting. I think the meeting is going to devolve into arguing over the CCO not holding public meeting, elections, and the general well being of the neighborhood.

The homes they own are dilapidated and ill maintained. Their assets, even if they report as depreciating, are in the land in which the homes sit on. They have a couple acres and could get a lot of money if they sold any of it. A tenth of an acre in Cherry is going for 275-300k.

The CCO is a non profit LLC, so their tax filings are published on the internet. Their 2017 filings show they spent $200k on legal fees for these lawsuits. They are technically supposed to be a community organization that holds elections, publishes bylaws, and works for the betterment of the neighborhood, but non of these things happen. The mouth piece of the group, Sylvia Bittle Patton, has a personal vendetta against Stoney Sellers, one of the parties associated with the development of the Saussy Burbank homes, so she is leveraging the resources of the CCO to get vengeance. The CCO owns a lot of property in Cherry and rents it at low income rates. Their property portfolio is worth millions. If they were truly concerned with low income housing, they would sell half and use that money to build low income housing on the other half. They are more concerned with getting even than helping the elderly, low income, residents of the neighborhood. It’s sad and has been happening for 20+ years.

So I did some more digging regarding the Midtown partners project (across from trader joes.) "Cherry Community Organization v. City of Charlotte, City Council for City of Charlotte and Midtown Area Partners II LLC. The Court of Appeals in an opinion dated February 6, 2018 affirmed the Summary Judgment granted to the Defendants by the Superior Court judge and concluded that the CCO failed to show it had standing to maintain it's action. The Supreme Court denied a petition for discretionary review on Friday, May 11, 2018. This case is now over." This means that the development should move forward and we will hopefully start seeing movement on the site. Hooray. There are still 2 other active lawsuits from the CCO that are going to trial in June and then the other in July. Both are related to the the 5.7 acres that all the Saussy Burbank homes are built on. I would venture to guess the title insurance folks would have a lot to say about this, but I have a feeling these too will be thrown out.

These 2 projects are actually different from the proposal up on Baldwin. It appears the Realtor building may be part of the Pappas development near Pearl St Bridge. I was unaware of this. http://charlottenc.gov/planning/Rezoning/RezoningPetitions/2017Petitions/Pages/2017-011.aspx The other project I am curious about was a rezoning petition from 2014 that is still in limbo due to frivolous Cherry Community Organization lawsuits. It's the Midtown partners project that has 6 revisions. http://ww.charmeck.org/Planning/Rezoning/2014/099-111/2014-109 site plan 6th rev.pdf

Has there been any update to the 2 major projects in midtown? One being the Pappas development across the street from Pearl St bridge and adjacent to the MLS building. The other being the development across the street from Trader Joes. I do know the Cherry Community Organization was suing to stop the dev across the street from Trader Joes but I haven't heard anything since February.

The developer of the 20 story building announced that they would donate $250k to improve Cherry Park if the rezoning proposal passes. This was apparently announced in an HOA meeting directly to homeowners (Saussy Burbank homes hoa.) If this does occur, I hope the money goes directly to the city or the county and not donated to the cherry community organization because it will just fund more frivolous lawsuits.

Diane Takata Powell, one of the residents that spoke against this development, sent a response to the article to charlotte5 and posted in the Cherry Facebook group stating that she doesn't feel the writer conveyed her position on the rezoning petition correctly. She really believes low income housing should be integrated to this project, which again, is ridiculous. Traffic concerns are a weak argument because the center of the Cherry neighborhood is 1 mile from the center of the city at the Trade and Tryon intersection. When you live in the city, traffic is part of the agreement. The residents of Cherry she speaks of in her rebuttal that "worked" with the city and the developer did not represent the entirety of the neighborhood, but rather the pack of well connected NIMBYs and their cohorts that will have an issue with any development that isn't low income housing. In particular, the development they hate the most is that in which would cause property appreciation in Cherry. I am tired of the renter NIMBYs from Cherry speaking on my behalf. Per the instruction on the original article, I am going to write the city council. https://www.charlottefive.com/cherry-resident-midtown/

Has the city council said when this building rezoning vote is going to happen or did they just say the final decision is delayed with no formal date? I looked, but could not find.

Tarhoosier, my home was built within the last 5 years. The home that was in its place prior was a dilapidated shack that was ill maintained and not exactly something that was conducive to renovation. The “historic” part people reminisce about in this neighborhood are poorly constructed and poorly maintained 900sqft homes. I would totally agree with your “irrevocable” comment if you were talking about Charleston single homes, but most of the previous homes in cherry were not worthy of being renovated and were cost prohibitive at renovating.

I currently live in Cherry as well. The main speaker at the city council meeting in opposition to the project from Cherry represents what Cherry was 10+ years ago. She is the head of the Cherry Community Organization (CCO) that never holds elections nor lets any new homeowners participate in city interactions. When the news or the city council wants input from Cherry, they ask her. The bad part is that she doesn't represent 90% of Cherry. Her "board" members are 107 years old and were appointed in 90s. I, and most of my other neighbors, are in favor of the project because it will cause economic development in the surrounding neighborhood. We are in within 1 mile of a major metropolitan neighborhood and cannot control large scale development in this manner. I think its asinine that the city council even gives her input on the project as it's outside the scope of Cherry. If you want input from additional residents like the gentleman from Cherry that spoke above, let me know as I am aware of many families in Cherry just like myself that want this project to happen because it will cause their home value to appreciate. The main resistance to the building is due to any property appreciation that may take place because it will cause those who rent to no longer afford what rentals are left. It's an anti economic development perspective that is bad for everyone except renters. They oppose anything that causes property values to increase regardless of what it is.