First Ward Urban Village / North Tryon Vision Plan

[Guest]

Lol .. If my english is not that bad, when I star reading UP (almost 2 yrs ago) all of you were hating Levine, now he is moving forward all of you are loving him.

Nope, we still hate him. This is all sarcasm

[swh1972]

Appears to be some work going on today adjacent to the site of the Tenth Street Apartments. Looks like excavation work on the Tenth Street extension.

[dubone]

We are still within the project scope of the projects funded by the public.  Still no progress on private development by Levine Properties.

 

I assume that excavation is utilities under the new 10th Street.

[kermit]

I assume that excavation is utilities under the new 10th Street.

 

Yes, I traversed it yesterday (barely) on a bcycle. Between this, the park and the LRT construction it is seriously difficult to walk/bike from 7th street station to UNCC uptown. Their is no way to cross the BLE construction on foot between 7th and 11th. 

 

Making the trip even more exciting is bad signage which sends a ridiculous number of cars the wrong way on Caldwell.

[tozmervo]

I had to get a car from the 9th street Enterprise yesterday and I damn near turned the wrong way on Caldwell. We'll call the clusterF in that area "short term pain for long term gain"

[CLTProductions]

Question:

 

Does Levine own the lot surrounded by 7th, 6th, Brevard and Caldwell? Are there any plans for it? Also, are there any plans for the lot next door surrounded by 5th, 6th, Brevard and Caldwell??

[southslider]

^Supposedly, he wants to rehab the old structure.

[CLTProductions]

^Supposedly, he wants to rehab the old structure.

Yeah, I heard about that building, what of the parking lots though?

[dubone]

Question:

 

Does Levine own the lot surrounded by 7th, 6th, Brevard and Caldwell? Are there any plans for it? Also, are there any plans for the lot next door surrounded by 5th, 6th, Brevard and Caldwell??

He acquired the southern half of that block recently.   

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php/topic/6631-first-ward-urban-village-and-parks/page-104#entry1337175

 

He now buys them under new LLCs with the Golden Triangle Prefix.  But it is still Levine Properties:

http://delval.biz/Business/NC1400363

 

 

 

He does not yet own anything between 5th and 6th St, but he did setup a 5th Street LLC, so he is probably also trying to acquire some of those parcels on that block too.  

http://delval.biz/Business/NC1399229

 

The owners on that "porkchop" block of 5th/6th/Brevard/Caldwell are:

Southland Oil (at 6th and Brevard)

Preferred Parking (at 5th and Caldwell)

James Beam  (at 6th and Caldwell)

 

 

 

 

He is like kudzu.  He grows to cover the maximum acreage, and has the appearance of lush new growth, while secretly destroying all other life in the area.   

 

 

 

Let's be clear, the Treloar House is going to be torn down.   Limited weather protections means that it will slowly decay so that by the time he wants to do something with the land, it will be "beyond repair".  The strategy is called "demolition by neglect" and it is very obvious that he does not have 2 thoughts of saving any older buildings on his land holdings.    He used to tell the First Ward neighborhood semi-annually about how a "Just Fresh" was going in to the Treloar so it became a UP joke that a "Just Fresh is coming soon".   But the goals are obvious based on the behavior and the lack of progress despite being in a good location next to At 7th, Imaginon and 7th St Market.    

[CLTProductions]

...   

Awesome info! It's interesting to see the random owners of the 'porkchop' and yeah wow, Levine really is scum of scum. Freaking build something. 

 

Do you think Hilton has any idea of what they are getting themselves into with him? Do they have ANY control over a construction timeline? For example, if he continues to sit on his @$$ but Hilton wants this new Canopy up and running, can they force his hand? I fear that if they can't they will withdraw interest because he won't ever do it.

[Guest]

Awesome info! It's interesting to see the random owners of the 'porkchop' and yeah wow, Levine really is scum of scum. Freaking build something. 

 

Do you think Hilton has any idea of what they are getting themselves into with him? Do they have ANY control over a construction timeline? For example, if he continues to sit on his @$$ but Hilton wants this new Canopy up and running, can they force his hand? I fear that if they can't they will withdraw interest because he won't ever do it.

They will just move to 3rd Ward, like Novare Did.

[CLTProductions]

They will just move to 3rd Ward, like Novare Did.

I know of a few great lots they can use

[Guest]

I know of a few great lots they can use

I don't know if you know this, since this occurred before you moved here, but catalyst, element, ally and the parking deck were originally planned on Levine Land. It was going to be 27 floors of condos, 42 floor Twelve Hotel and Residences,  and a 18 floor Office Building. Levine never moved on anything, so they found their home on the parcel that held the former Duke Power Building. This was a building a lot of us wanted repurposed, but now that the park is there, Element and Catalyst make more sense fronting it.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Guest

[CLTProductions]

I don't know if you know this, since this occurred before you moved here, but catalyst, element, ally and the parking deck were originally planned on Levine Land. It was going to be 27 floors of condos, 42 floor Twelve Hotel and Residences,  and a 18 floor Office Building. Levine never moved on anything, so they found their home on the parcel that held the former Duke Power Building. This was a building a lot of us wanted repurposed, but now that the park is there, Element and Catalyst make more sense fronting it.

Interesting history, and very cool. I'll take whats there now than Levine still 'planning' that other stuff. Wow, he is seriously just the worst, I don't understand his mentality at all. So when is the headline "Canopy coming soon to 3rd Ward" coming?

Edited March 30, 2015 by Jayvee

[Guest]

Interesting history, and very cool. I'll take whats there now than Levine still 'planning' that other stuff. Wow, he is seriously just the worst, I don't understand his mentality at all. So when is the headline "Canopy coming soon to 3rd Ward" coming?

See, 

Now you better understand why we are so skeptical of him. He got a HUGE transformative project dropped on his lap. While one of those buildings ended up not happening in 3rd Ward, we still got two buildings and a parking deck, plus eventually a third building, just in a different location. He literally could have had all of that on his land, and he botched it. 

[CLTProductions]

See, 

Now you better understand why we are so skeptical of him. He got a HUGE transformative project dropped on his lap. While one of those buildings ended up not happening in 3rd Ward, we still got two buildings and a parking deck, plus eventually a third building, just in a different location. He literally could have had all of that on his land, and he botched it. 

That's why I don't understand his mentality....he sees whats going on, why not produce on the land you own? He obviously has a warped sense of ego. He has to know what people think and say about him, and I would much rather people go, holy crap that new project on Levineland has REALLY changed this city, rather than, holy crap Levineland is the biggest detriment to this city. It seems like his ego gets stroaked by having all the land and having no one be able to do anything on it cause it is his.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Jayvee

[SouthEndCLT811]

That's why I don't understand his mentality....he sees whats going on, why not produce on the land you own? He obviously has a warped sense of ego. He has to know what people think and say about him, and I would much rather people go, holy crap that new project on Levineland has REALLY changed this city, rather than, holy crap Levineland is the biggest detriment to this city. It seems like his ego gets stroaked by having all the land and having no one be able to do anything on it cause it is his.

 

This comment made me visualize Levine sitting in his office looking at a map of First Ward like...

 

[dubone]

But while it would have been awesome to have all gone into 1st Ward, Novare really did get things back rolling in 3rd Ward, helping to add credence to Bearden Park and the BB&T Ballpark to get finally approved and moving.

 

And now we are looking at an 80% build out of 3rd Ward!

 

 

In the end, the First Ward Park and Skyhouse will make a huge difference in the momentum back into First Ward.   Also Levine's contractual obligations to start doing something to add property tax value to his land.   

 

But it is hard to understand if this has all simply been a strategy to make sure his land holdings develop toward the end of the uptown build out and therefore are able to tolerate much more density and higher value in the end.   It seems like ineptitude, especially to those of us who were taken in by his grandiose visions in 2001 and the Novare/TWELVE debacle, and all the rest.   It remains to be seen. 

[tozmervo]

This was just tweeted by @CLTdevelopment as the new Hilton Canopy at First Ward. Had we seen this before? (i'm just assuming this isn't an april fools thing...)

 

. 

 

edit: well, i can't place the other buildings in this image. who knows.

Edited April 1, 2015 by tozmervo

[CLTProductions]

Hahaha you beat me to it. I was just posting about this. I don't think it's an April fools might just be wrong info, or that guy knows something we don't. Those existing things at the bottom don't look like anything in Charlotte.

 

 

Edit: Yup that is the Canopy in San Diego

Edited April 1, 2015 by Jayvee

[tiblerbrit]

Nope, that's the San Diego one:

 

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article3348658.html

Edited April 1, 2015 by tiblerbrit

[Guest]

This was just tweeted by @CLTdevelopment as the new Hilton Canopy at First Ward. Had we seen this before? (i'm just assuming this isn't an april fools thing...)

 

. 

 

edit: well, i can't place the other buildings in this image. who knows.

I have exclusive renderings of Levine's Canopy by HIlton

[kermit]

keeping with the theme above here is a photo of Levineland (the apartments) from today (from the 11th st bridge). Sorry about the crappy lighting. The summary of the picture is nothing is happening on the apartments -- its just work on 10th st extension.

 

 

and the highly controversial fountain in First Ward Park from UNCC:

 

Edited April 2, 2015 by kermit

[ah59396]

This will likely come as a STUNNING announcement to you all, but my contractor friend has informed me that the Levine apartment project is currently undergoing some serious value engineering.  Apparently the lowest of the lower bids on most of the GC work was not quite low enough for Levine.

[nonillogical]

This will likely come as a STUNNING announcement to you all, but my contractor friend has informed me that the Levine apartment project is currently undergoing some serious value engineering.  Apparently the lowest of the lower bids on most of the GC work was not quite low enough for Levine.

It didn't look too special to begin with. Is the large parking deck still a definite part of the project or could it get chopped all the way down to a podium product?