First Ward Urban Village / North Tryon Vision Plan

[dubone]

- It is a 2020 plan, with the only part funded being the UNCC building, for 2010.

- He is greatly disappointed that Twelve was moved.

- He says he hasn't been able to get much attention from the county on the First Ward Park.

- He said Treloar will be saved, along with the Dixies building, still. Treloar will apparently be leased next month for a 'all fresh food' restaurant and renovated as part of the lease.

- He said he has only sold 4 parcels in 25 years, so don't bet on him selling on any of the land.

- He was full of uncertainty and 'ums' throughout all the discussion of the First Ward plans, but talked freely about the Treloar lease, the need for Duke to fix the streetlights, and a few other things.

- He said he has just been in the dream phase for the last 5 years, despite being a land owner in First Ward for 25 years.

Take it for what you want, but my bet is that this land will be fallow until the county builds a park on his land, which won't be this decade.

[graydog]

I'll expand on D's notes below. These might be good for the time capsule.

After hearing him speak, I believe he is trying to do the right thing. His vision is better than 95% of the developers here. Given other developer possibilities, we could be a lot worse off than slow progress.

Here's what I captured from his comments and answers to questions from FW residents.

Overall

- 6 components include a park, a parking garage, retail, residential, office and institutional.

- The vision is to create an extension or add-on of the 1st Ward neighborhood.

- He said an example of his vision is the Lake Shore East neighborhood in Chicago: lakeshoreeast.com.

- He expects to be able to develop buildings with value not found elswhere in the city because the density should allow him to leverage technologies across buildings.

- Buildings will be at the 4 to 5 story low-rise height on Caldwell and transition to high rise on College/Brevard with some mixed heights in between.

- He is stubbornly (his words) sticking to the underground parking plan. He believes we will need additional parking for existing uses as the new buildings rise.

- He passed around a rendering that has been seen before. On the way out I overheard someone say that Levine has been showing him a different rendering.

- Current zoning should allow him to do most anything.

- Existing buildings that will stay include Treloar and the building with Dixie's Tavern. Other older buildings will stay for now. He wants at least 1 older building on each block.

- Could take 10 - 15 years for complete build-out.

Park

- 4.5 to 5.5 acres

- Designed by Civitas.

- Bounded by 7th, 9th, Brevard and light rail tracks.

- County will likely start public stakeholder process next month. It should be 4 to 5 months before a plan is readied for debate and discussion.

Parking Garage

- 1 floor underground parking deck under the park, mostly paid for by Levine.

- He is trying to have get some of it funded by the county and city to support their neighborhood facilities and organizations such as the library, Imaginon, and 1st Ward Elementary School.

Residential

- 3K units with 1/3 rental and 2/3 for sale condo.

- The rentals will mostly be located near/next to the light rail tracks.

- Planning on some 4 story and 25-30 story buildings

- Novare has definitely moved Twelve to their 3rd W property.

Office

- 1.5M SF

Institutional/Cultural

- Offering 400,000 SF of building space to any organization that will pay for the land and building so they are committed to the neighborhood.

- UNCC is the first organization.

Retail

- 350K SF total

- He expects to build a retail village concept around 8th and College.

- He will try for local/regional stores that can draw people in from outside Charlotte as well as neighborhood services.

- A restaurant new to the Charlotte market is expected to sign a lease for the Treloar building at 7th and Brevard next month.

[monsoon]

It makes one wonder why he would hold a meeting to talk about something that won't happen any time soon.

[dubone]

I believe he said 'three trays' on the underground parking deck, which I took to be 3 floors.

I guess I didn't really notate on the rest, as it is the same as it has been for years. But thanks for listing the details for the people new to this.

Metro: he was invited to speak to the First Ward neighborhood association to give an update on what was going on, even if the answer was 'nothing'. He didn't hold the meeting himself. He barely looked like he wanted to be there.

[Mobuchu]

Yeah, 3 levels with about 1200 parking spaces total, to make up for the 1800 currently on his land.

You are right Graydog, he does want a quality urban product. The problem is, as it is with many of these types of developments, economics. Holding that much land and trying to make it all come together is very tough. And unfortunetly we may have to wait another decade, if ever, for this to come through while the rest of uptown densifies. For now we are stuck with this huge wasteland that completely disconnects 1st ward from uptown.

Edited January 3, 2007 by Mobuchu

[uptownliving]

Thanks for the summary dub and graydog. I would add one thing:

-He said to expect to hear from UNCC in the next week or so the architect they have selected for their First Ward campus.

UNCC will be at the First Ward meeting next month to discuss their plans for the campus.

Here is the rendering he passed out tonight:

Edited January 3, 2007 by uptownliving

[uptownliving]

It makes one wonder why he would hold a meeting to talk about something that won't happen any time soon.

To add to what dubone has already posted he was originally asked to come speak about the Novare TWELVE project, but since that has fallen through he just gave us a general update on his plans.

[dubone]

It is funny that the Twelve was by far the largest building in his entire plan! I know most people on UP tend to like that 5-10 story range for buildings, but I'm a bit disappointed that it doesn't scale up a bit more as it nears Tryon. It basically assumes that Tryon will not continue to grow northward. Those are might small buildings for an address on our main business district address.

I REALLY hope that the county does NOT sell their land to him. Note that the public still owns the blocks north of 9th and west of the tracks, known as the Hal Marshal. However, maybe they have promised that land to him, as he claimed he owned 12 blocks, which would include that land.

[monsoon]

^Is there anything in any of the county council's meeting minutes where they have voted to sell this land to Levine? If not, I suspect there is no promise and not even an agreement. And there are other issues with selling land to developers without making it available to others. They are supposed to bid it out for the highest possible price though I agree that shady deals, like what is happening with the baseball park, keep this from happening. In any case it's my guess there is no agreement.

[cooperdawg]

It makes one wonder why he would hold a meeting to talk about something that won't happen any time soon.

If anything else, to re-iterate to interested residents that they can and should be involved with Civitas in the public design charettes for the park that will start in February according to Levine with a total of three to four public meetings to take place over the next three to four months. Parks and Recreation will be able to provide more details on the meeting specifics as those dates approach in terms of time and location.

Edited January 3, 2007 by cooperdawg

[MZT]

Levine must be paying some bodacious taxes on those lots. For years and years, to boot.

[uptownliving]

Yep, 6 figures worth of property taxes every year.

[SmellyCat]

Chump change for him, though.

[RiverwoodCLT]

Do you think that this project is out of Levine league for development?

[dubone]

Yes. Apparently, even working with Novare was out of Levine's league.

[graydog]

Forgot to mention the architecture celebrity sighting. At the meeting was David Furman. (I thought he lived in 2nd Ward at Ratcliffe.)

[dubone]

Yes, he lives in 2nd Ward, but I think he owns a little land in First Ward...

Barry Silberman was also there.

[swh1972]

Have not seen any discussion on Court6 recently...

Anyone know if they are getting any closer to finishing this up? I was looking back through the pictures in this thread, and not much progress seems to have been made in the last six months. I would be upset if I were waiting to move into one of these. Seems like they moved quickly to complete 80% of the construction, and are now stalling on the finishing touches.

Renwick is plodding along, and the Furman projects on the old 1st Ward Park site are starting to go upwards.

[UrbanCharlotte]

Court6 is nearly done. Renwick is going up to the final 4th floor in framing. The quarterside project as a whole is moving pretty fast, but i'm still confused which is where. I think the ledge is farthest along, with a lot going up.

[SmellyCat]

Court6's completion has been substantially delayed because the original contractor was fired. The project's completion is now at least 6 to 9 months behind schedule.

[dubone]

I am always just shocked at how long it has taken, but that makes sense. I will happy to get those residents in.

[joshuacc]

The building with the most work done at this point is actually the Quad. The Ledge is goint to sit on the corner of seventh and mcdowell.

[uptownliving]

Renwick nearing its final height in the background and Quarterside in the foreground.

[swh1972]

Colonial Properties Trust reported their Q4 earnings today. Included in the material was a blurb on The Renwick....

...Average Price of units is $400,000 to be finished beginning of 2008.

[dubone]

The funny thing is that I thought they were overpriced when they first announced. Now they are cancelling those contracts and asking for more.