North End Projects - Camp NorthEnd, Lockwood, Greenville, Double Oaks

[Urbanity]

^^I'm disappointed that they couldn't save the original structure for historical reasons though fully understand the reasons. In spite of that, I do hope that the new building is something completely different and sets a tone for that intersection. Now if they could only do something about that empty lot across Graham from the Crisis Assistance/Salvation Army complex

[Spartan]

Hopefully the new CFD HQ will be a building worth keeping. That's a nice corner for a signature building.

[KickinChicken23]

Hopefully the new CFD HQ will be a building worth keeping. That's a nice corner for a signature building.

It looks like the old building on this corner has been completely demo'd now. I can't wait for this new CFD building to start rising out of the ashes. It sure is a great corner to have a building. I am hoping for something to rival the CFD building off Steel Creek on Lake Wylie, something that can really spur some new development on this corner.

Many people on this thread have mentioned it, but this little five points area has a lot of potential.

[rjp212]

Work is slated to being on Brightwalk at Historic Double Oaks. It is to include "hundreds" of affordable and market-rate homes.

http://www.bizjourna...alk-begins.html

http://www.brightwalkcharlotte.com

Edited December 9, 2011 by rjp212

[Niner National]

Model home construction underway in Brightwalk:

Picture taken from their Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/Brightwalk.Charlotte?sk=wall

[dubone]

http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/Budget/Documents/March%2021,%202012%20Handout%202%20Presentation.pdf

The budget proposal includes major streetscape improvements to Graham and minor street improvements throughout this area.

[dubone]

In conjunction with the streetscape, I read somewhere that Charlotte will also include Graham (and Independence and a few other corridors) as eligible for grants to remove blight.

[Niner National]

Updates on Brightwalk Community:

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/print-edition/2012/06/22/brightwalk-takes-shape.html

Model home sales center:

[ah59396]

I drove through the Brightwalk community last night.  It is coming along at an extremely fast rate.  Tons of houses up now, all of very high quality.  I have such high hopes for this area.  Along with the road diet on Statesville, if they can create some decent connectivity between Uptown, to NC Music Factory, then down to Brightwalk, this area could really make a positive turn.

[tozmervo]

There was a discussion on Charlotte Talks this morning that covered Brightwalk for about a half hour. Sounds like they've been thoughtful in that development, and they are keenly aware of some "big picture" issues such as north Charlotte's grocery store desert.

[Niner National]

Brightwalk is very nice. I'll usually drive through there every few months. I bought a place around the same time that Brightwalk was first being built.

 

I considered buying a place there, but it is still a little too disconnected from downtown for me.

 

It'll be a really great neighborhood when it is all finished though. It's really great to see $200-300,000 homes going into that part of town. 

[kermit]

WSOC has recently converted their very large lawn (facing Tryon, across from Amtrak) into a solar farm.

 

While it does nothing to make the area more habitable, It does represent the only (?) recent investment in the area.

[Third Strike]

Looks like we will see another big push for a "North End" in this part of town:

 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/05/02/4882067/move-over-south-end-could-a-new.html#.U2U4v1emHIU

 

[kermit]

I drove down Sylvania st (connects Tryon and Graham, just west of the Amtrak station in Tryon Hills) today. I haven't been in Tryon Hills in a couple of years so I was SHOCKED by how advanced gentrification is back there. It looks lots like Wilmore from 10 years ago.

 

If the Music Factory apts actually get built then Belmont / Peagram street will be the last inner-ring hood left to redevelop.

[dubone]

I know what you are trying to mean, but come on, there are literally no gentry moving or currently living in or even aware of the name of Lockwood.   You just mean that homes are being fixed up like they were in Wilmore.  Considering the Lockwood houses are nice 1920's bungalows, it is a very good thing for the area to have that type of reinvestment, even if it is for success in rental markets.

 

I know I have heard of more and more middleclass people shifting farther into west end beyond Welsey Heights, and with the rebirth and economic diversification of Double Oaks (thanks to Hope VI reinvestment that helped Belmonth and First Ward), this [North End] collection of neighborhoods could finally have the right prerequisites to take advantage of the BLE and proximity to uptown. 

 

Something will eventually need to be done about the Triangle of Doom between all the railroads anchored solely by the Men's Shelter.   That is legitimately one of the scariest zones in the city (I walked back uptown from Uhaul at 16th one evening and that will never ever happen again). 

 

But with the planned streetscape improvements of North Graham, the area will start to seem vastly cleaner and more enticing for middle class potential residents.

[atlrvr]

http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/epm/Projects/Transportation/Pages/NorthTryonStreetscape.aspx

 

This project will help (streetscape and 1-way pairing of Tryon and Church Streets near current Amtrak station)

 

I do think Lockwood has some great bungalows, but it really is one of the most dangerous spots in the city.

 

The area has a ton of potential, but its going to take several major sites getting activated, and that is going to take some pretty major risks.

 

I can't wait to see what Vision Ventures has planned for the Hercules Industrial Park there on Statesville at the rail crossing.

[kermit]

I know what you are trying to mean, but come on, there are literally no gentry moving or currently living in or even aware of the name of Lockwood.  

 

I can only report on what I saw through the windshield yesterday. I saw 4-7 extensively renovated bungalows (in the three blocks of Sylvania closest to Tryon), 2 or 3 newish Volkswagons parked in those driveways (it was about 4pm), and 3-4 people walking on Sylvania (or working in yards) who fit the description of 'gentrifier.' All those things may have been anomalous, or not. 

 

Like I said, I was _very_ surprised.

[tozmervo]

[Jack Wrangler]

I have lived on Sylvania Ave for the past 4 years. There are three  200+ homes on the market now with another renovation that will be complete in the next month. I have created a facebook page to get awareness out for this area. I have recently updated the page to show renovations for sale and potential renovations for sale. Please like the page and feel free to share to keep up with the area. My wife walks with my son through Lockwood. Its not as dangerous as its made out to be.  https://www.facebook.com/Lockwoodneighborhood?ref=stream 

[cltbwimob]

Something will eventually need to be done about the Triangle of Doom between all the railroads anchored solely by the Men's Shelter.   That is legitimately one of the scariest zones in the city (I walked back uptown from Uhaul at 16th one evening and that will never ever happen again). 

 

But with the planned streetscape improvements of North Graham, the area will start to seem vastly cleaner and more enticing for middle class potential residents.

I read the ULI PowerPoint.  It did make mention of the rail barriers but offered no solution from what I can tell.  I will have to read the full report, but the three substantive recommendations that I gleaned from the presentation were:

 

1.  Leave the Amtrak station where it is and build around it.

2.  Raze the Brookshire

3.  Build a connecting bridge over the NS rail yards.

 

All these suggestions are untenable in my opinion from a cost and value-added standpoint (I will explain later), but the rest is just as you would expect...very little substance other than blah, blah, blah, innovation corridor, blah, blah, blah, walkability, blah, blah, blah, hipster paradise, etc.  One thing they added to their presentation was reconnecting virtually the entire grid in the study area.  The presentation did not explicitly mention it but each one of the illustration maps had a reconnected street grid illustrated.  Oddly enough, this is the one thing I wish they would have been very explicit about rather than just making implicit overtures.  If you look at a map of the area huge portions of the grid are broken, and it would be nice to see that fault corrected.

 

As for their actual suggestions-

 

Keeping the Amtrak station where it is: perhaps the worst idea of all their cockamamie proposals.  I know right now that is the way it has to be, but giving up on the Gateway Station in favor of the 1960s-vomitted-on-me rail yard location is awful.  I see negative value added in this proposal.

 

Razing Brookshire- I have said it before and I will say it again, this will do absolutely nothing to create a better urban environment for North End.  Do they honestly think that people and business are going to gravitate to this area because a freeway is gone.  Less than two blocks north is the CSX Tryon Yard, just north of that is the NS rail yard, plus all the interchange tracks. The stretch from 13th street to 36th street is not much more than a rail yard, plus there is virtually no street connectivity in the rail triangle area, not to mention the high crime levels.  Do they expect destroying the freeway to repair those problems?  Furthermore, how much land do they expect to gain from destroying the freeway and at what cost?  I estimated that if you remove Brookshire and open up all the land between 11th and 12th, you would gain approximately 5-6 acres for redevelopment.  I imagine the cost for removing Brookshire and regrading to street level will cost at least $50 million.  With land values there at the 1-3 million dollar per acre mark, the cost would not even come close to being recouped.  Then there is the problem of having to dump all that traffic onto 11th and 12th, or having to build a new surface boulevard altogether. Either way, the road network there would have to be re-expanded to handle the traffic and would take away much of the land that was opened for redevelopment and would likely increase overall project cost by tens of millions.  The ROI on such a project would be much worse than my ROI on my stock portfolio as of late, and that is bad.  This proposal is bad from a cost perspective and really bad from a value added perspective.

 

24th street bridge connector-The bridge connector is the most tenable proposal, except for costs.  A bridge having to span this gap would be extremely costly.

Edited May 7, 2014 by cltbwimob

[Niner National]

I'm really surprised to see that area getting as much activity as it is. The light rail is not going to be convenient to that area, the homeless shelter isn't far away, and there isn't really much potential for entertainment districts like we have in P-M or NoDa as far as I know (I'm not terrible familiar with these areas). I would have thought Belmont would be much farther along in gentrification than these areas, but it doesn't seem like it.

[New Name]

I haven't read the report or all the commentary, but is there a Police station/substation on N. Tryon anywhere near the "trouble areas"? That should be step #1. There is a lot of potential for startup/hip/interesting businesses to open (there are some retail storefronts that I'd personally love to rehab), but without a commitment from the city to protect it's citizens, it's a tough sell. But if I knew the police officers at a station on that block (or close), and knew they were looking out... 

[southslider]

Where on N Tryon are there walk-friendly storefronts?

[dubone]

Crime does tend to improve when physical aesthetics get better.  Partially it is people there tending to want to protect a nicer area from crime, so they report things more readily, but also there may be something psychological happening in the mind of the person that might otherwise commit a crime.

 

I agree with many of the comments here.  I absolutely agree that removing a freeway (which has pros and cons to be discussed for the city at large) does not necessarily fix a blighted neighborhood any more than keeping the Amtrak station there.  Many social factors will need to be addressed.  

 

I am intrigued by the North Tryon plan attempting to make the area of North Tryon nicer and more conducive to main street-style walking business district, but it just seems like a plan from another era with diagonal connectors and one way streets in areas that don't see all that urban now.  But it is seemingly a compromise to convert from a large thoroughfare boulevard to a smaller urban streets with complete street treatment.  

 

It will be an absurd waste of money if other factors don't help spur a change in the area from Bojangles.  There are some decent older brick warehouses that COULD be something, but again it would rely on social stability and a market forming.  

 

 

I had not fully noticed the area in detail until just now, but the Tryon Hills land behind this North Tryon Business Corridor project is potentially a huge opportunity.  Similar to Brookhill in southern Wilmore, it is a tree-less 1940s barracks style apartment community called Catalina Bungalows.  

http://mountvernonam.com/assets/asset-2/catalina-bungalows/   

 

It seems that Mount Vernon has acquired and bundled 46 acres of land in the area and they seem to be wanting to participate in the North End concept.  In fact, with 46 areas of land with building stock that no one would miss, it is significant opportunity to go in and build modern mixed use buildings with some reserved affordable units.  That could single-handedly correct many social issues in the district, following the footsteps of Double Oaks, First Ward and others.  

[New Name]

N. Tryon @ Lidell St.   It's not much... but if you consider what Noda started with, something really interesting/creative could be a catalyst.