The River District

[KJHburg]

actual photos of the first phase of the River District as seen off Dixie River Rd near where West Blvd ext will cross. 

Last photo is West Blvd ext near I-485 interchange. 

New website video animation alert check it out   https://www.theriverdistrict.com/      This will be a major success as other big communities in this area have been Palisades,  Berewick etc. 

Love the community garden farm aspect as this was farmland but now first generation forest mainly pines.  

 

[NDL.]

It's a shame that the marketing team hasn't developed excitement and anticipation, by featuring some photo's such as the ones above - along with a caption, timeline, something...

[KJHburg]

New video on their website showing the layout better of the first phases. Love the community farm and riverfront park.

https://www.theriverdistrict.com/

 

[CLT2014]

40 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

New video on their website showing the layout better of the first phases. Love the community farm and riverfront park.

https://www.theriverdistrict.com/

 

Hopefully the homes get high quality hardiboard and not vinyl. The housing styles and architecture looks very similar to the River Walk in Rock Hill.

[KJHburg]

Crescent had its ceremonial groundbreaking this week.  However site development work has been going on for months and months now.  

Vertical construction will start this year from the Biz Journal:

""Those permits include the first phase of Novel apartments at Westrow, which Kerley said will include around 300 units. Another 124 mixed-income apartments to be developed by Laurel Street Residential and approximately 100 townhomes will fill out the residential portion of the soon-to-be permitted section.

On the commercial side, around 30,000 square feet of office and retail space will join that residential element as the initial pieces of Westrow and The River District, Kerley added.""

obviously this is small part to get it all rolling and this is 10 year buildout or more.

https://www.theriverdistrict.com/

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2023/03/30/crescent-communities-river-district-groundbreaking.html

and my friend who was out there for the groundbreaking confirmed what I told him you don't hear the airport really as it is to the side of the runways.  

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by KJHburg

[drawscape]

I'll always find it funny that there is no access to the river from the little town center in the masterplan. Imagine showing up to check out the new River District, and there is no water in sight.

[Norm2]

1 hour ago, drawscape said:

I'll always find it funny that there is no access to the river from the little town center in the masterplan. Imagine showing up to check out the new River District, and there is no water in sight.

As much as boy seeing a river in the river district sounds funny, be glad they are leaving a ton of land next to the river as park land

[KJHburg]

Interesting proposal about a major tennis center at the River District that could lure a major tennis tournament here and it is backed by Ben Navarro of Charleston who was a bidder for the Panthers.  From the Biz Journal today 

""Charlotte city government and Mecklenburg County leaders responded enthusiastically today to a request to pay up to one-third of the cost for a $400 million tennis complex at the River District that would include the relocation of the Western & Southern Open beginning in 2026.

Ford Perry, chief operating officer at Beemok Capital, the Charleston, South Carolina-based company that owns the Western & Southern Open, told a joint session of the city and county economic development committees that his company is pursuing an “aggressive timeline” to decide the tournament’s future by late summer or early fall.   The Western & Southern Open is currently played in Cincinnati, where the tournament has been based since 1899. It is one of nine tennis events with the highest-level designation, which, in turn, attracts the top players. In 2022, the Western & Southern Open’s men’s field included nine of the top 10 players while the women’s field included all 10 of the highest-ranked singles players.  The options under consideration for Eastland Yards include a tennis nonprofit known as Carolina Serves. Given the financial heft of Navarro’s River District proposal, and the clout of being aligned with the men’s and women’s pro tours, prospects for Carolina Serves have likely dimmed.""

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2023/05/10/river-district-400m-center-tennis-event-beemok.html

More on this tennis center proposal from another Biz Journal article:

""The city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County are considering a request for $132 million to help Charleston-based Beemok Sports and Entertainment build a $400 million tennis complex in The River District in west Charlotte. It's part of a deal that would relocate the Western & Southern Open professional tennis tournament here from Cincinnati.  

Proposed terms include:

•Beemok leasing or buying 53 acres from Crescent and owning the tennis complex (the Cincinnati tennis campus is 40 acres).

•Making the tennis headquarters a year-round attraction by bringing in amateur and college tournaments and competitions while also offering public use and staging outside events such as concerts, which Beemok does already at its Daniel Island tennis stadium.

•Beemok leasing or acquiring 100 acres of nearby property for parking.

“It’s an incredible opportunity,” said Brendan Pierce, Crescent Communities commercial president. “These kinds of complexes and tournaments don’t come around often.”

Pierce added that Beemok’s ambitions for the complex make the project ideal for helping establish The River District, which will allocate 40% (550 acres) of the entire site to green space and walking and biking trails. Such an attraction would “turbo-charge” prospects for attracting restaurants and retail by bringing another 650,000 people to the area each year.""
https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2023/05/10/beemok-capital-river-district-tennis-center.html

Edited May 10, 2023 by KJHburg

[Desert Power]

Bad proposal that seems to involve both a lot of taxpayer money and a ton of parking. Just as they are talking about increasing taxes and giving Tepper $600mm for a stadium. Seems ridiculous.

[CLT2014]

Would this be paid specifically out of the tourism and occupancy taxes? 

[ArchiCLT]

Another problem is that it will NEVER look like the rendering - with all the perfect trees. The angle of the rendering was specifically chosen to mask all the surface parking. In reality, the entire massive site will be clear-cut and regraded. It isn't perfectly flat as the rendering depicts. Unless they're paying a premium for buried retention, the site will have several large detention basins. More generic suburban sprawl.

On a secondary note, this is another example of how a pretty rendering can get our hopes up on this forum. The released rendering looks perfect, but the finished product years later rarely matches. Today's clients will see a rendering and then expect the building to match perfectly. Architects are forced to design to the rendering in many cases. Even the most advanced rendering software isn't perfect, and it's difficult to render certain materials, such as parking deck screening for example. I'm looking at you, 110 East!

[KJHburg]

57 minutes ago, CLT2014 said:

Would this be paid specifically out of the tourism and occupancy taxes? 

Not sure.  I think it would come out of that as those taxes have to support tourism related projects.  One thing I noticed about this proposal is that it is where they planned office space and I wonder if they would like to get rid of some of the land as office has slowed down so much.    They have room for 8 M sq ft which is much larger than entire Ballantyne market now. 

[CLT2014]

10 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Not sure.  I think it would come out of that as those taxes have to support tourism related projects.  One thing I noticed about this proposal is that it is where they planned office space and I wonder if they would like to get rid of some of the land as office has slowed down so much.    They have room for 8 M sq ft which is much larger than entire Ballantyne market now. 

Yeah there is no way they need all that office space out there. We don't need more satellite suburban office parks.

[KJHburg]

More on the River District from a Charlotte Ledger talking with the marketing director of the River District with Crescent.  

""We already have a tremendous amount of interest around how we want the small office to develop and small retail beginnings. Those calls don’t stop. We’ve had probably 10 tours over the past six months with Fortune 500 companies to do large campus opportunities.

[There’s interest from] those who want to be near the airport, who want to have that access to transit. They want to be in an environment that’s high-quality, the next place, the next generational area that’s built around employment and developing talent.

So pedestrian, mixed-use, live-work-play …

It’s the antithesis of the business park. This is an environment where you can leave your office and go get a bite to eat and you don’t have to spend an hour transiting back and forth. You can hop on your bike, you can get to a trail, you can get to the restaurants, you can get to the event centers, you can get to places to shop, eat and live without having to essentially enter into a car and spend 40 minutes commuting back and forth.""

Sounds like they do have a good bit of interest from companies for space there.  The residential will do great I know.  

[Desert Power]

1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

More on the River District from a Charlotte Ledger talking with the marketing director of the River District with Crescent.  

""We already have a tremendous amount of interest around how we want the small office to develop and small retail beginnings. Those calls don’t stop. We’ve had probably 10 tours over the past six months with Fortune 500 companies to do large campus opportunities.

[There’s interest from] those who want to be near the airport, who want to have that access to transit. They want to be in an environment that’s high-quality, the next place, the next generational area that’s built around employment and developing talent.

So pedestrian, mixed-use, live-work-play …

It’s the antithesis of the business park. This is an environment where you can leave your office and go get a bite to eat and you don’t have to spend an hour transiting back and forth. You can hop on your bike, you can get to a trail, you can get to the restaurants, you can get to the event centers, you can get to places to shop, eat and live without having to essentially enter into a car and spend 40 minutes commuting back and forth.""

Sounds like they do have a good bit of interest from companies for space there.  The residential will do great I know.  

 Large campus opportunities brings to mind something like the SAS campus in Cary. Work and play, but maybe not live.                    

[KJHburg]

2 minutes ago, Desert Power said:

 Large campus opportunities brings to mind something like the SAS campus in Cary. Work and play, but maybe not live.                    

I did not include this quote but when talking if the River District was like Ballantyne she said this:

""To take the scale and scope of Ballantyne with the curated craft of Kingsley and Baxter and make it current — if you were to bring those together in today’s environment, then that’s what you would see.""   

I have looked at this plan many times and it has a strong employment center component but equally strong residential and retail component all blended together better than the existing Ballantyne which had residential in one section office only in another.  However the Reimagined Ballantyne underway now is correcting most of that and mixing the uses better.  I would compare the River District to Lake Nona outside of Orlando.   With the parks, the planning, the mixture of uses this River District will be very successful.  Plus a location very close to the airport without the negativity of that.  

[Hushpuppy321]

Does anyone know how the scale of this proposal (Tennis) compares to the Complex in Cary?  Town of Cary had invested in Tennis long ago.

[KJHburg]

10 hours ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

Does anyone know how the scale of this proposal (Tennis) compares to the Complex in Cary?  Town of Cary had invested in Tennis long ago.

this seems heavier on the tennis stadiums with multiple ones of various sizes.  

[CLT Development]

11 hours ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

Does anyone know how the scale of this proposal (Tennis) compares to the Complex in Cary?  Town of Cary had invested in Tennis long ago.

The River District Tennis Complex would be on the scale of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens. 4x the size of Cary's in scope.

[Madison Parkitect]

15 minutes ago, CLT Development said:

The River District Tennis Complex would be on the scale of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens. 4x the size of Cary's in scope.

That's where they have the US Open, by the way. This would be a really legit complex.

[TheMightyBK]

A tennis complex would be cool- I used to play quite a bit…but that was in the 1980s at the height of the sport’s popularity.  Do people even play anymore, though?  Isn’t pickleball the thing now?  Is a complex 4x the size of the US open facility justified in any way by the current and forecasted popularity of the sport?  To me, it’s a head scratcher.

[ABCW]

15 minutes ago, TheMightyBK said:

A tennis complex would be cool- I used to play quite a bit…but that was in the 1980s at the height of the sport’s popularity.  Do people even play anymore, though?  Isn’t pickleball the thing now?  Is a complex 4x the size of the US open facility justified in any way by the current and forecasted popularity of the sport?  To me, it’s a head scratcher.

It's not 4x the size of the US open facility, It's 4x the size of a facility in Cary.

[InSouthPark]

19 minutes ago, TheMightyBK said:

A tennis complex would be cool- I used to play quite a bit…but that was in the 1980s at the height of the sport’s popularity.  Do people even play anymore, though?  Isn’t pickleball the thing now?  Is a complex 4x the size of the US open facility justified in any way by the current and forecasted popularity of the sport?  To me, it’s a head scratcher.

4x Cary, not 4x Queens (where the US Open is played).

 

[TheMightyBK]

My reading comprehension skills need work, but at scale with the US Open facility is still a head scratcher

[Nathan2]

The tennis facility is just a sprawling car-only infrastructure nightmare. The last thing we need is another overbuilt development far from the city and can only be accessed by car, which will further cement car-oriented travel patterns. Urban-forward sports facilities are the only way to go in today's modern era. This will just be another drain on the cities infrastructure and tax base.