SouthEnd Midrise Projects

[Dub_Ag]

IMO, looks better than some of the crap thats been built over the last year (Junction, Silos and Colonial per se).

[CLTProductions]

Yeah I don't disapprove at all. I think that looks pretty good and will certainly be cool for that area.

 

Refresh my memory....all parking is underground right? How many levels?

Edited June 23, 2014 by Jayvee

[ah59396]

I actually like the way Silos turned out.  Colonial, on the other hand, is an abomination.  It's almost unintentionally brutalist, because it's so terrible.  The top (non bricked) portion of the building literally appears to just be exposed concrete.

[atlrvr]

I don't mind it, and actually sort of dig that "pocket park".

 

My biggest frustration in all these South Blvd projects is huge setbacks and uber-wide planting strips.

 

I'm optimistically hopeful that the future state of South Blvd includes bike-lanes and street parking, and most of these planting strips disappear and we get a sidewalk to the back-of-curb treament. 

 

I believe the doggie day care at Iverson/South is under consideration for some sort of commercial redevelopment.  That intersection could actually become quite urban.  I just hope Lowe's 1 day starts using their building up at the corner as an actual sales center, and not storage like they do currently.  A little "Lowe's-To-Go" that stocks their best sellers" that is faster to get in and out would be awesome.

[km1789]

I actually like the way Silos turned out.  Colonial, on the other hand, is an abomination.  It's almost unintentionally brutalist, because it's so terrible.  The top (non bricked) portion of the building literally appears to just be exposed concrete.

 

completely agree.... I drove southbound on South Blvd for the first time in a while, and the top of it looks absolutely terrible from quite a distant away. It looks as if there is an entire floor of the parking deck is sticking out above the top of the building

[Guest]

Yeah I don't disapprove at all. I think that looks pretty good and will certainly be cool for that area.

 

Refresh my memory....all parking is underground right? How many levels?

Parking is back left corner of the picture for the apartments. You can see if when driving up from the south. 

Publix (and its three additional retail spots) is two floors of underground parking. 

I don't mind it, and actually sort of dig that "pocket park".

 

My biggest frustration in all these South Blvd projects is huge setbacks and uber-wide planting strips.

 

I'm optimistically hopeful that the future state of South Blvd includes bike-lanes and street parking, and most of these planting strips disappear and we get a sidewalk to the back-of-curb treament. 

 

I believe the doggie day care at Iverson/South is under consideration for some sort of commercial redevelopment.  That intersection could actually become quite urban.  I just hope Lowe's 1 day starts using their building up at the corner as an actual sales center, and not storage like they do currently.  A little "Lowe's-To-Go" that stocks their best sellers" that is faster to get in and out would be awesome.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.205482,-80.862411,3a,75y,180.36h,73.18t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sCdQpj8fUgf_advkh4tMk3g!2e0

take a look at the creeper looking into the K-9 Day Care.

[CLTProductions]

Parking is back left corner of the picture for the apartments. You can see if when driving up from the south. 

Publix (and its three additional retail spots) is two floors of underground parking. 

Ah that's right thanks! Yeah i just meant parking for Publix

[kermit]

The Railtrail has received a significant grant ($412,000) from Artplace America for public art along the trail.

 

Good news, but gezzus, this project needs to go faster.

 

http://www.charlottecentercity.org/rail-trail-receives-a-412000-artplace-america-grant-for-public-art/

[ah59396]

The Railtrail has received a significant grant ($412,000) from Artplace America for public art along the trail.

 

Good news, but gezzus, this project needs to go faster.

 

http://www.charlottecentercity.org/rail-trail-receives-a-412000-artplace-america-grant-for-public-art/

 

Everything moves so slowly here, it drives me nuts!  Citylab had a solid piece on Denver's aggressive infrastructure initiative and it made me wholly jealous of them.  

[CLTProductions]

Everything moves so slowly here, it drives me nuts!  Citylab had a solid piece on Denver's aggressive infrastructure initiative and it made me wholly jealous of them.  

Honestly I think its mildly embarassing, its almost unreal how fast 300 S Tryon is moving along. And I love all the building projects, but this Rail Trail is the project that has me the most excited (I think). It would just totally change the culture and feel of the city.

[Niner National]

All of our greenway building has been painfully slow. We have a nice, but fragmented system right now. I really would like to see the Sugar Creek greenway  connecting to McMullen Creek and Toby Creek Greenways soon. I know that is in the master plan, but I haven't heard anything new about plans in years.

[RugbyPike#11]

More detail on the Sedgefield Shopping Center redevelopment:

 

http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/planning/Rezoning/RezoningPetitions/2014Petitions/Pages/2014-064.aspx

 

Overall, I would have liked to have seen more retail and less surface parking.

 

I felt like there was an opportunity to build a stroll street with main street style store fronts along Haverford Place.  Instead, there's surface parking for Harris Teeter et al on the west-side of Haverford and more apartments on the east-side.  After construction has finished, how hard would it be to retrofit a parking garage with ground-level storefronts where the surface lot sits on the "Harris Teeter" block between South and Haverford?

 

It looks like they're really only planning to have retail on the South Blvd stretch.

[SouthEndCLT811]

More detail on the Sedgefield Shopping Center redevelopment:

 

http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/planning/Rezoning/RezoningPetitions/2014Petitions/Pages/2014-064.aspx

 

Overall, I would have liked to have seen more retail and less surface parking.

 

I felt like there was an opportunity to build a stroll street with main street style store fronts along Haverford Place.  Instead, there's surface parking for Harris Teeter et al on the west-side of Haverford and more apartments on the east-side.  After construction has finished, how hard would it be to retrofit a parking garage with ground-level storefronts where the surface lot sits on the "Harris Teeter" block between South and Haverford?

 

It looks like they're really only planning to have retail on the South Blvd stretch.

 

Marsh will be at Byron's tomorrow at 6 to discuss the project.  I'll be out of town but my gf will be there.  We're pretty interested to hear about the residential piece to it.  She lived in a duplex on Poindexter for a little bit and we both love the old trees and feel of that street.  Put some nice homes there and it's definitely appealing.

Edited June 25, 2014 by SouthEndCLT811

[RugbyPike#11]

I'm going to try to catch that meeting too. Based on the plans, it looks like dense apartments closer to South Blvd (60 ft max) with garden apartments and town homes (30-40 ft max) further east and backing up to houses along Ideal Way and Marsh. It looks like it will be an improvement either way, but I'd definitely like to see more of a town center feel rather than just a couple retail strips along South Blvd.

Edited June 25, 2014 by RugbyPike#11

[tozmervo]

Marsh will be at Byron's tomorrow at 6 to discuss the project.  I'll be out of town but my gf will be there.  We're pretty interested to hear about the residential piece to it.  She lived in a duplex on Poindexter for a little bit and we both love the old trees and feel of that street.  Put some nice homes there and it's definitely appealing.

 

I feel like half the people I know lived there at some point. I spent over 4 years on Berkshire, still get a little nostalgic - such a simpler time. I would be appalled if they don't design around the tree canopy back there.

[rjp212]

Went to the Southend Meeting tonight to hear about the Sedgefield Complex.   They stressed their desire to maintain all the trees and plan on placing a park at the center of the complex.   In fact, only two street trees out of the 60 acre project have to come down, and that's because they were dying!  

I believe they said, they planned on starting the first phase (Harris Teeter and the small 14,000 sf of retail) in Q1 of 2015. The Harris Teeter will have store access from South Blvd with outdoor seating for the deli and coffee shop.  The second phase will be an apartment building located behind the Shopping Center, with plans to open about 6 months after Harris Teeter.  

The portion of the shopping complex that currently houses a Bank of America branch, are still being debated.   Current plans are calling for either apartments with ground floor retail, or 100,000 sf of Office space with ground floor retail.  CCP is pushing for Office space.

Edited June 27, 2014 by rjp212

[15895]

I'm more excited for Harris Teeter than Publix.

[Miesian Corners]

Why is it that HT never learns?  Build a freaking garage!  Publix does it in nearly all of its urban locations (or at least places the store above surface-level parking in the same envelope).  

[RugbyPike#11]

I like the residential portion of the plan.  I think they did a remarkable job of planning to keep their tree canopy and the open space will maintain those very mature trees for shade.  They didn't talk about this in the meeting, although it's in the site plan, but the plan has Marion Pl extending to Elmhurst Rd.  There is also a cut through planned behind the future phase retail providing additional connectivity between Marsh and Elmhurst.  Nice little win for connectivity, although I imagine the property owners losing chunks of their yards are not entirely thrilled. 

 

The developers said that they have turned away inquiries from large chain retailers in favor of localretail, so it was exciting to hear that we might get something unique in those spaces.

 

That said, I remain very disappointed with the lack of retail in the project and if you were at the meeting, you may remember me as the guy in the maroon Winthrop polo complaining about the lack of retail haha.  In the original phase, there will only be 14,000 square feet of retail. To access that retail, Marsh apartment residents are going to have to walk across a large surface lot.  When asked about the utilization of surface parking rather than rooftop (like Lowes), underground (like Publix), or parking deck (like Target), we were told it wasn't possible in such a small block.  The second phase that rjp212 mentioned, where the Bank of America branch currently sits, looks appropriately dense for TOD-Mixed Used URBAN Development and utlizes ground level retail with a parking deck, so it was a bit insulting to be told that a parking deck wasn't physically possible on the larger block.  We were also told that no retail was feasible a block off South Blvd, so apparently we have all imagined Camden Ave and it doesn't actually exist in reality.

 

It should be noted that Marsh outsourced the retail planning.  I guess I should also acknowledge that Sedgefield residents expressed concerns about too much density.  I wish I could have been at those neighborhood association meetings, but I was out of town and it sounds like the SNA didn't pass along my concerns about the LACK of density.  I think it was rickydavisfan who originally described the Marsh retail as Town Center style, so my imagination went wild and I pictured something with a much more significant retail component, possibly even creating something like Main Street style on Haverford.  I tried to capture what was in my head below, I apologize in advance for my goofy paint shop skills.  The blue lines are roughly where Marsh is planning to build multi-level residential.  The rest is what I would have LIKED to have seen.  The red lines I added are ground level retail. the green lines are the parking deck to eliminate the surface parking lot and support the added retail, and the black arrow indicates my desire for a one-way street to make pedestrian crossings easier to the east side of Haverford:

 

Edited June 27, 2014 by RugbyPike#11

[Prodev]

Why is it that HT never learns?  Build a freaking garage!  Publix does it in nearly all of its urban locations (or at least places the store above surface-level parking in the same envelope).  

I think it's actually the opposite, and HT is smart. While I'd much prefer a higher density urban project from a personal POV, if I was in Teeter's shoes, I'd want the surface parking especially since Publix doesn't have it. It's more convenient for shoppers, especially those wanting to get in and out for just a few items. Structured parking may be more appealing to residents in apartments and tenants in office buildings, but it's almost never preferred by shoppers. Look at Metropolitan - I don't think anyone ever praises the parking situation there, While I love Trader Joe's, I dread trying to go there at 7pm and almost always talk myself out of it and defer to Teeter, making later plans to try and get there right at 9am when they open on the weekends to avoid having to search for parking and/or end up parking on the 3rd level. 

[Miesian Corners]

I think it's actually the opposite, and HT is smart. While I'd much prefer a higher density urban project from a personal POV, if I was in Teeter's shoes, I'd want the surface parking especially since Publix doesn't have it. It's more convenient for shoppers, especially those wanting to get in and out for just a few items. Structured parking may be more appealing to residents in apartments and tenants in office buildings, but it's almost never preferred by shoppers. Look at Metropolitan - I don't think anyone ever praises the parking situation there, While I love Trader Joe's, I dread trying to go there at 7pm and almost always talk myself out of it and defer to Teeter, making later plans to try and get there right at 9am when they open on the weekends to avoid having to search for parking and/or end up parking on the 3rd level. 

 

And look at the Plaza Midwood, Myers Park, and Dilworth Teets--horrific!  Meanwhile, I can drive under the Whole Foods at SP and take an escalator into the store.  Same with Publix stores in Tampa, Sarasota, Miami, Ft Myers, Jacksonville, and soon, South End in Charlotte.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Miesian Corners

[Spartan]

never seen a rendering with Publix included, too bad its not larger. 

 

I don't get the 'pocket park' thing. Don't get me wrong, I like the concept, but it seems like it's too small and adjacent to too much traffic to be a meaningful space. That said, I'll withhold final judgement until it's complete. 

 

I don't understand why this city and it's developers are so adverse to a good plaza space.

 

 

I don't mind it, and actually sort of dig that "pocket park".

 

My biggest frustration in all these South Blvd projects is huge setbacks and uber-wide planting strips.

 

I'm optimistically hopeful that the future state of South Blvd includes bike-lanes and street parking, and most of these planting strips disappear and we get a sidewalk to the back-of-curb treament. 

 

The extra-wide planting strips are for future bike lanes. The City requires the space to be preserved for bike lanes along ROW constrained corridors (rather than built outright as you would see in other parts of town) that would get installed as part of a more comprehensive project eventually. There are also examples of this on Park Road and probably other places I can't think of.

[Prodev]

The pocket park is just a result of leftover space. Publix wanted and needed the access off of the signal, so that was really just unusable space as a result of the access connections. 

[videtur quam contuor]

Re:  Trader Joe Metropolitan parking; I have learned that it is easier to drive to the 2d or 3d level and park close to the elevator and thus walk less than parking ground level. Plus choose my parking space. And be able to back out of my space safely to exit.

Yes, I am lazy.

[atlrvr]

Spartan, I actually agree with you that a good hardscaped plaza would have been the better option than more greenspace.  A place where residents and people getting fresh-food from Publix and what are likely to be restaruants front South Blvd could sit/interact.