Brooklyn Village Redevelopment in 2nd Ward

[urbanlover568]

YES 

 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article83898912.html

[southslider]

^Finally, some common sense.  With all the restored streets and replaced parking lots, the redevelopment should easily have more trees than Marshall Park. 

Edited June 15, 2016 by southslider

[cltbwimob]

Congratulations to Conformity.  I am sure this is going to be a game-changer for them and a game-changer for uptown.  I can't wait to see what this looks like in the future.

[asthasr]

I don't understand where the love for Marshall Park suddenly came from. It always seems underused and unloved when I drive by it. It looks like the landscaping in Ballantyne.

[cltbwimob]

35 minutes ago, asthasr said:

I don't understand where the love for Marshall Park suddenly came from. It always seems underused and unloved when I drive by it. It looks like the landscaping in Ballantyne.

I agree.  It seems as though every time I ride by, the tumbleweeds in the park outnumber the humans 10-1. I'd be interested to know when the last time some of these individuals on the CC set foot in Marshall Park.  It's a relic of Urban Renewal...let it go.

Edited June 16, 2016 by cltbwimob

[Nick2]

People are scared of change. It's as simple as that. However, the argument for having a larger park is pretty valid. I wish the truly open space would have had a minimum set forth in their requirements. Perhaps along the lines of 2.5 contiguous acres. This will be a great addition to uptown in the future and I am excited to see it unfold!

I don't know how many watched the meeting but I watched a good bit and skimmed a little. It's a little disheartening how it seems many of the county commissioners were fairly unaware of the entire procedure and the details of the project. That is somewhat understandable considering the sheer volume of details and how most of them probably had staff doing the groundwork. The meeting seemed very productive overall.

Dioro did a good job of addressing some valid complaints. Some important things I think that should be noted is how they are genuinely taking community outreach into account with this project and they are heavily noting that there is a very strong support for more green space. However, it's unreasonable to think that a full 5 acres will be reserved for a park when the whole tract of land is only 16 acres. As Dioro said, they want to make this as beneficial for the future residents of Brooklyn Village as possible while being equitable for the developer and allowing them to maintain a healthy profit considering that's the reason they are placing the bids, which is perfectly reasonable. 

Sometimes people allow emotions to trump logic and they need to look at the big picture. Conformity does a good job of looking at the big picture and it should be noted that they were by far the most committed toand passionate to this project out of the 3. They defended their plan well in the interview and actually stuck to their guns for what they have on paper in a positive way.

Some details about the plan:

• BK Partners was ratified in a 5-3 vote.
• 17 acres total with 1.9 acres of "open space"
• Losing 5 acre Marshal Park
• The city manager's staff will be allowed to continue to negotiate for increased green space down the road
• Land bought for 50.18 million.
• Developer plans to spend 683.3 million on the project.
• Project split into two areas: north and south connected by a walkway called Myers Passage
• 10% reserved affordable housing which is determined at 30% of the yearly income for 80% of the median income. Approx 1200-1300 per month for a 4 person family.
• 1070 housing unite (107 affordable)
• 680k sq ft office
• 250k retail
• 280 hotel rooms split between two InterContinental Hotels Group hotels
• a "cultural space" whatever that means
• This is odd in my opinion and certainly different but they're committing to 35% minority and women owned business contracting opportunities within the development
• The first phase to be finished by 2021 and completed organically.

[SgtCampsalot]

3 hours ago, Nick2 said:

• This is odd in my opinion and certainly different but they're committing to 35% minority and women owned business contracting opportunities within the development

"The county said The Peebles Corp. is the nation’s largest minority-owned real estate developer."

That is really cool, especially for this project.

 

Edited June 16, 2016 by SgtCampsalot

[cltcane]

2 hours ago, SgtCampsalot said:

"The county said The Peebles Corp. is the nation’s largest minority-owned real estate developer."

That is really cool, especially for this project.

 

That's correct.  The former Director of Development and General Counsel for The Peebles Corp. are friends of mine.

[CLT704]

Wait, why is BK Partners two separate areas? When all the other ones have the full site developed?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, CLT704 said:

Wait, why is BK Partners two separate areas? When all the other ones have the full site developed?

The other Development groups were working under the assumption they could purchase and redevelop that land as well. Most of that land is not actually available. In fact, a good portion probably wouldn't even take a "offer you can't refuse."

[michaelef]

This is complete speculation on my part, But in the rendering below it almost looks like the building on the left will be an Even Hotels. I only say this because they mentioned IHG having two hotels, and it has the same color scheme as the Evens brand. 

http://www.evenhotels.com/hotels/us/en/reservation?dp=true&_PMID=99629062&siclientid=9803&sessguid=293c1f13-95e4-4b60-b821-cba11e94c659&userguid=293c1f13-95e4-4b60-b821-cba11e94c659&permguid=293c1f13-95e4-4b60-b821-cba11e94c659&sitrackingid=658833885&glat=SEAR&sicreative=102910241545&sitrackingid=658833885

[CLTProductions]

7 minutes ago, michaelef said:

This is complete speculation on my part, But in the rendering below it almost looks like the building on the left will be an Even Hotels. I only say this because they mentioned IHG having two hotels, and it has the same color scheme as the Evens brand. 

http://www.evenhotels.com/hotels/us/en/reservation?dp=true&_PMID=99629062&siclientid=9803&sessguid=293c1f13-95e4-4b60-b821-cba11e94c659&userguid=293c1f13-95e4-4b60-b821-cba11e94c659&permguid=293c1f13-95e4-4b60-b821-cba11e94c659&sitrackingid=658833885&glat=SEAR&sicreative=102910241545&sitrackingid=658833885

No need to speculate. The 2 brands will be: EVEN and Staybridge Suites. It's in the LOI IHG gave to BK (so many acronyms) 

Edited June 16, 2016 by Jayvee

[Rufus]

Not to veer away from Brooklyn Village, but what's happening on the Northwood Ravin lot?  Any update on that project since they won the bidding war?

[CLTProductions]

2 hours ago, Rufus said:

Not to veer away from Brooklyn Village, but what's happening on the Northwood Ravin lot?  Any update on that project since they won the bidding war?

It's in site/civil plan review now 

[CLTProductions]

Holy moly Northwood Ravin. This is amazing

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/development/article85620607.html

421 apartments, 12,000 square feet of office space and 8,000 square feet of retail

[Boricua]

Well ill be damned. This came out of nowhere 

[ah59396]

Really like the look of this.  Hope they follow through on the design.

[tiblerbrit]

The tower looks great, but the street presence along Stonewall is horrible.

[tozmervo]

25 minutes ago, tiblerbrit said:

The tower looks great, but the street presence along Stonewall is horrible.

I totally agree, it's a glossy image with an astonishingly bad street presence. This is 1100 South all over again

[49er]

i guess we shouldn't complain but 8k of retail with that big plaza seems like a letdown. I can't really tell what is beyond the deck access on Stonewall. The building architectural is pretty cool - I like the lack of blue glass curtain wall

[tozmervo]

Should also point out this is an awful street presence being placed along an area that is already in bad shape from a street view. As people rightly complained on this board several years ago, South & Stonewall is a heinous intersection from any kind of urban planning standpoint. You have to cross nine lanes of traffic on the south side of Stonewall. NASCAR plaza has a little plaza on the corner that a food truck will sometimes set up in, but that's it. 

If built per the rendering, this will eliminate any chance of that intersection becoming urban - it will be a suburban collection of towers plopped down between southend and uptown

[HopHead]

I really like the building design, but I don't understand the parking entrance on Stonewall at all. To me they, shouldn't stick that in the middle of the development on a busy street like that. It just screams someone getting run over. God knows we have enough of that already in uptown. I'm sure someone in urban design can maybe better know why they made that decision than me.

Edited June 24, 2016 by HopHead

[tozmervo]

They're shoving a second parking deck entrance off of South Blvd near the back of the rendering, too

[CLTProductions]

So let me ask this. Given the traffic patterns of the area, what SHOULD they do? Seems to me like the only things you guys want is pie in the sky?

 

There's gonna be egress off stonewall. It's just GOING to happen. Non negotiable. 

8k is not enough retail. No doubt. I concede there. 

But there is plaza space, giant glass windows to engage the restaurant to the sidewalk. Medians. Hard scaping. Just not sure what else you could possibly do given the challenges of this site. Perhaps I could be swayed but just saying the street presence is awful without giving any realistic alternatives isnt helpful lol

[tozmervo]

Do you want me to design the building for them? For starters they could just not have a plaza and insert storefront instead. They could dramatically reduce the size of the ingress/egress from the parking decks - they need 8'-6" at most per lanes, two lanes, and the character of design can visually reduce the entrance in favor of pedestrians. They could show on-street parking along south boulevard. They could advocate to reduce the size of that POS intersection. They could actually step down with the slope of the site instead of really lazy flat slab design

While we're at it, we can also substantially reduce the 558 parking space count they're providing. It's barely 900 feet to Stonewall station, not to mention within easy walking/biking distance of practically every business type someone would need for day-to-day living. I can't believe we're still building parking decks that massive in Uptown