Optimist Park / Belmont Projects

[A2]

All low rise, but then I believe midrise at the corner, where the condos go. But I think that is only 4 or 5 stories.

Thanks D!

A2

[SCOTTER]

According to the Charlotte Observer 10,000 people will be touring Bemont Opt Park area this Sunday for the 28th anual CROP walk. The people participating in the event will be traveling up North Davidson making a right onto parkwood, a right on to Parsons, a Right onto Kennon, a left onto Pegram, Right on to 18th, and left back onto North Davidson heading uptown. For those of you not familure with the CROP walk it is an anual event in our area to fight hunger. This will be an excelent opertunity for the Charlotte comunity to see the sugnificant changes taking place in the area.

[SCOTTER]

This is probably old news. City Council aproved the rezoning of Urban Storage on 10/18/06.

Edited October 21, 2006 by SCOTTER

[uptownliving]

Urban Stash will be coming down in the next few months. Tuscan is dedicated to residential development on the site, and the 150 units will be scaled down to 75 or less. There will be no retail on the site.

Did you get that info from Tuscan? The rezoning that got passed on wednesday allows them to build up to 150 units and the plans they submitted still show 150 units...and also the 150 number was mentioned at the meeting by Councilman Mitchell.

[tarik]

Glad to hear that the rezoning is out of the way. Now we need a clear idea for what is going to be built. The rezoning to mixed use will only require 1 ot 1.5 parking spaces per unit. If you do the math, there is no way that even 75 units will fit on the land. This should translate to the overall number of units that will be built.

It would be nice to also have open space (dog park) maintained and that vehicular circulation is via 16th Street. Just a couple thoughts...

Councilman James Mitchell Jr. extends an invitation for all that want to attend the District 2 Town Hall Meeting:

-Thursday, Oct.26, 2006

-Friendship Baptist Church

-3401 Beatties Ford Road

-6:00 PM

[charlotte49ersuptown]

I read Richard Rubin's Dr. Traffic article in Sunday's paper and they had a little write-up on the new street connecting Brevard and Caldwell next to Alpha Mills. He also wrote about the new senior housing, that it would be completed in 2008 on the north side of New Street and mixed-income housing on the south side at 12th street. I know I have heard of this before, but was seeing if anyone had plans or more concrete info on the project. Just looked at the Housing Authority site and didn't see anything in the pipeline.

[atlrvr]

Hmmm...I know it's called 940 Brevard, is being built by Crosland, and will be financed Tax Credits.

[uptownliving]

940 Brevard

100 units Senior housing

4 stories

Construction due to start next month.

[voyager12]

This is good news for those that don't fit the "Vue" profile.

[tarik]

Thanks for the 940 Brevard elevation. I can't wait to see what is it come. This is good for everyone. Where in the world is a SoDa Lofts elevation? The site plan is interesting, since there are less than 50 parking spaces drawn. My main concern is that the vehicular circulation is from Caldwell. Anyhow...

[uptownliving]

Thanks for the 940 Brevard elevation. I can't wait to see what is it come. This is good for everyone. Where in the world is a SoDa Lofts elevation? The site plan is interesting, since there are less than 50 parking spaces drawn. My main concern is that the vehicular circulation is from Caldwell. Anyhow...

The parking spaces you see depicted in the site plan are for the retail uses. The parking for the condos will be underneath their respective buildings. The developer is required to provide 184 parking spaces if this thing is going to have a full buildout of 150 units and 20,000 sq ft of retail.

[reverbandwhiskey]

Is alpha mill currently renting? Did I read correctly that they are also offering condos?

[Charlotte_native]

Is alpha mill currently renting? Did I read correctly that they are also offering condos?

They are currently renting, not selling, but these are set up for future sales as condos. The developer will tax the historic tax credits before selling -- those run for, I think, 5 years.

[SCOTTER]

There was an interesting article in today's paper talking about the large numer of boarded up houses in the Villia Heights comunity. Should City Council adopt a rule that requires land owners to obatin a permit to board up houses and limit the amout of time the property may remain vacant. Personally I would like for the city to adopt such a rule. In my neighborhood I would like to see the old apartments off of 16th street fixed up and something done to them. The 2002 opt park plan did breifly talk about the apartments and their historical sugnificance. However, nothing has been done to renivate the property. I would also like to see something done to the house at the intersection of 16th and Caldwell.

[MZT]

Part of the reason these houses are boarded up is because the current investors may not be interested in fixing them. They're thinking about their buyers -- developers -- that may decide to tear down and rebuild, or perhaps renovate and resell again.

In the investor's minds, "Why bother repairing these houses, expose myself to the complaints and liability of tenants, when the goal is just to sell in a few years for redevelopment?" IE, they don't want to get their hands dirty. Holding the properties is like holding mutual funds... It's an investment medium.

Edited October 29, 2006 by MZT

[Charlotte_native]

Part of the reason these houses are boarded up is because the current investors may not be interested in fixing them. They're thinking about their buyers -- developers -- that may decide to tear down and rebuild, or perhaps renovate and resell again.

In the investor's minds, "Why bother repairing these houses, expose myself to the complaints and liability of tenants, when the goal is just to sell in a few years for redevelopment?" IE, they don't want to get their hands dirty. Holding the properties is like holding mutual funds... It's an investment medium.

That might be part, but there are several reasons for this, at least in Villa Heights.

1) A lot suspect the neighborhood will change and values will shoot up like they have in Belmont and North Davidson -- the neighboring neighborhoods. Many don't want to deal with tenants so they board them up, others might have plans for when they will fix them up so they leave them vacant.

2) Note on the map in that article the multiple side-by-side sites on Drummond, Barry, and Leigh. Those are all on land zoned multi-family these clustered vacant properties won't be there for long. They have been assembled to tear down and build condos or townhouses. These account for at least half if not more of the properties noted in the article.

3) Some investors have no plans to ever repair these homes. They buy in "up and coming" areas and hold, when the prices go up they flip.

For point #1, if someone has a house they intend to renovate and mark up significantly, often a neighborhood or area isn't "ready" for the price they would need to get. For instance, buy a house in Villa Heights -- common price now, $90,000 -- highest price a "fixed up" house has gotten in Villa Heights so far...$130,000, cost to improve (doing a decent job, nothing exceptional), $20,000 - $25,000. Most would see those numbers and wait to see higher top end prices before investing their fix up money. Interesting part, this self-perpetuates the "problem" of high end pricing not going up. Until the fence sitters finish a few houses and sell them, the prices can't go up since nothing is being sold -- they create their own problem.

Another thing that can happen, and has somewhat in Belmont and Villa Heights, is everyone sees properties being flipped, buys anything they can get their hands on assuming anything can be flipped in a hot market, and prices get higher than the real market would dictate. Villa Heights prices have jumped significantly in the past year or two and have slowed in the past few months...here come the boards until the sales start again. This happened in NoDa in and around 2000 and 2001, everyone bought up everything they could, jacked the prices higher than was sustained by real sales, and everything flatlined for a while. Eventually some prices fell, others did sell in time, and the momentum started back.

[tarik]

There have been marker flags placed on the Urban Stash site. Tuscan says it will be the "first of the year" when they start demolitioning the building, but that statement seems to be up for interpretation. This project should help the neighborhood, and hopefully give a few "boarded-up house landlords" an initiative to sell. Oh, wouldn't that be nice...

[tarik]

The "SoDa" Lofts look awesome! There are 90 units from $80K-$300K. There may be 1 retail space. The rendering we saw was pretty schematic, so hopefully it will end up looking similar. The design is real playful, yet not too colorful. This should be interesting...

[uptownliving]

That is good to hear. Is the site plan the same as was filed in the rezoning petition? 3 buildings with parking underneath?

[tarik]

What we saw were renderings, yet the layout of buildings appears to follow the site plan. There is parking "underneath" the second floor. I hope to find out when the project will be publicly announced...

[grecowfu]

The "SoDa" Lofts look awesome! There are 90 units from $80K-$300K. There may be 1 retail space. The rendering we saw was pretty schematic, so hopefully it will end up looking similar. The design is real playful, yet not too colorful. This should be interesting...

Who is the developer for "SoDa" Lofts again? Is there a website for the development already or is it still in the early, speculative phase?

[uptownliving]

Tuscan is the developer...but no website yet for Soda Lofts...check back in about a month.

[ceeoates]

Does anyone know if anyone lives in the Opt 12 unit at the top right (1208 N Caldwell)? I looked at the unit below it which is now under contract. I went over there recently and didn't see a lock box on the door, but I also don't seen any blinds or any signs of life. Maybe an investor owns it and it looking to rent it out.

Also, I spoke with Tuscan today and they said that the Urban Stash building will be town down and replaced with a mid rise condo building called "Block 90"...not SoDa, thankfully. The building will consist of 90 1-2 bedroom flats. They plan on releasing site plans soon.

The green convinient store on 15th and Davidson was bought out by a church (I'm not sure which church), who plans to turn that lot into a small grocery store. I think a really nice grocery store at that location would really help out the neighborhood.

[dubone]

Welcome, Ceeoates! News that they aren't using the SoDa name (if I'm reading you right) is VERY good. Thank you for bringing it to us.

It will actually be good for the neighborhood to convert the convenience store to another use that doesn't have a criminal connotation. However, I believe the land on the First Ward convenience store is owned by a church but it still is the same type of business as it would be if it were independent.

I agree with you about a grocer, but hopefully in the mould of large city corner grocers. It may be a bit of a stretch, though, as the business might turn out quite like a convenience store anyway, with the best profits to be had on 40 ounce cans.

[tarik]

Opt-12 is sold out! Good news for the new development coming to this block. The unit under question "with the best view" is owned by the developer. Also, the church would like to see the old, green, hornet's nest grocer that they now own turned into a community center. That may be a better serving use than the 40 ounces to freedom provider. We need Hunter Auto & Wrecker to sell out!