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New Urban Village Near Scaleybark Light Rail Station


monsoon

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I would say that a 9 acre piece of property surrounded by industrial development, a railroad track, two thoroughfares, and a train track is going to be very isolated. It certainly doesn't lend itself desirable living space but I guess we will see. It would seem at the moment the developers have the same thoughts on this land. As I said earlier, 3030 South isn't doning that well for the same reasons. Since you brought it up, my guess is that if it was in Huntersville they would have put a little more thought into the matter. Of course that doesn't have anything to do with this discussion and I am surprised you brought it up.

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And after all, the people that are going to be living in these condos: empty nesters, young professionals, are looking to be in the center of things and not in the peace and quiet of the suburbs. I don't think they will mind the hustle and bustle of S. Blvd. I enjoy living on a relatively busy cut thru that has steady vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Its Urban :thumbsup:

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I have looked at that map before too. If you notice it is bound by some pretty busy roads, and industrial development. Across S. Blvd however that is mostly 60's ranch houses that is prime for residential re-development. If you zoom out a bit you notice the CATS property is bound by S. Tryon and S. Blvd, both major thoroughfares. At best there is 9 acres there that is going to be redeveloped. Then of course there is I77 just west of there.

People don't like living against highways.

On the other hand, if you go down Scalybark road, a developer has a lot more to work with. There are already cases in Charlotte when entire neighborhoods like this sell out to developmers and I can see this happening there. Given that it already has the trees, neighborhood streets schools etc all right there it will be a much more desirable area to do this than the isolated property above. CATS should have put the station closer to this area and use the industrial space it hopes to turn into TOD, as industrial space.

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Crosland already owns most of the property across South Blvd from the CATS and City property. At the Open House I went to a few months ago they had renderings up of how they were going to redevelop that whole side of South...all the way up past the Clanton Rd intersection. If this RFP goes through then both sides of South will be developed in a very urban manner. This will basically become an extention of SouthEnd.

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(1) I don't think that because developers aren't tripping all over themselves to buy the land in late 2006 is a reason to call this a failure. The LRT is still 1 year away from opening, and this is the furthest TOD from Uptown if I'm not mistaken, and there is still plenty of ongoing development going on north of here (3030, etc). It may take some time for the economics to work with this property.

(2) CATS most likely bought that land because it was cheaper (underused industrial), it was next to the existing track ROW, and because it was consisted of a single additional property, not several parcels. These factors made it much more desirable and easier to patch together for a new TOD.

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(2) CATS most likely bought that land because it was cheaper (underused industrial), it was next to the existing track ROW, and because it was consisted of a single additional property, not several parcels. These factors made it much more desirable and easier to patch together for a new TOD.
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CATS certainly could have elevated this section of tracks, but the Cost Effectiveness of this project was already borderline. If they had proposed elevating this section of tracks then that certainly would have pushed the project over the edge and it would not have gotten approval from the FTA for FFGA.

I think the design they came up with was pretty good considering the money they had to work with. By splitting South Blvd in that section it opens up both sides of South Blvd to development...not just one side.

Time will tell if this becomes a choking point during afternoon rush hour. The gates at each intersection will only be down for about 15 seconds every 3.5 minutes. That means that 93% of the time the gates will be open.

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I still hold that that these grade crossings will turn out okay, certainly compared the extreme cost of elevating the section. I also believe they should have cut out the $100m+ that went into the other bridges/grade separations and just made the drivers wait.

Really, a major intent behind this line was to help redevelop the vacant and blighted parcels along this line. There quite a few around this station, but the west side of the tracks were much more blighted and underutilized.

People in the market for TOD, especially in the central district of the city, within a few miles of downtown, are not phobic of industrial uses nearby. (Before the asphalt plant comes up again, the caveat to that would be highly polluting industrial uses of which there are none near Scaleybark) . There are negatives to this location, but they are not outside of the norm for urban locations.

People who want to turn around blighted corridors have to have vision enough to not confine themselves to neighborhoods that are not blighted. The city has been targetting underutilized parcels to flip for uses that are consistent with the vision for the corridor.

It is working so far, it's just that the developers tried too hard to be consistent with other city goals like affordable housing. But nonetheless, the results in this station area will likely be the most dramatic before-after images on the whole line.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here is the letter the city sent to the 3 developers asking them to redraw their plans for the Sckaleybark TOD. They want the developers to maximize the city's return on the land and minimize public investment.

The revised bids will have to be submitted by Jan 2, 2007. Then the council is expected to take action on the revised bids at their Jan 22, 2007 meeting.

Letter to Developers

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I've worked some with one of the developers looking at this in the capacity of developing a feasibility study for part of their proposed project. Developers ARE anxious to get this land, they are just trying to negotiate the best terms FOR THEM and the city is trying to get the best FOR US. There is absolutely no lack of interest in this area by the developers that have already submitted and plenty of others would like to be a part but don't qualify or are not up to this scale of a project.

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This is why the city governments should not be directly involved in speculative land development. (what they did when they bought the additional parcel in hopes of making a profit) Who is going to want to live on a 9 acre plot of land with a 350 car parking and ride lot and a CATS bus terminal?

I took another look at this property after I was chastised here for being critical of it, and it doesn't make sense unless your only goal was to make money on that piece of property. The station is almost impossible to get to from the neighborhoods where there ARE people and where there are chances for developing good TOD. And because of the design there are 5 at grade crossings on the line which is going to cause mayhem with traffic and travel times on the train.

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I agree. I like the median from the perspective of a driver through the area. The lanes were so skinny, would flood all the time, didn't have left turn lanes, and Clanton had that weird dog leg design. I am convinced that if the engineers are competent, they can time the lights in such a way that the trains will be barely an issue. They certainly aren't as frequent, or take as long as the other cross streets that cause southbound South Blvd traffic to stop.

I won't weigh in much about whether the city should have even tried to take on the task of spurring this development, or trying to make a profit out of it. But I have no doubt that something will go there that is significantly better than what would have gone there without the train, and without the median train design. Even if the city gave away the land (which I hope they don't have to do), they'd still benefit much more in taxes than could have ever been hoped for from baseline expected tax revenue from that land.

My hope would be that the city simply sell the land for whatever they paid for it, and pay for any of the stuff that the public would typically have paid for (the CATS parking, the library, etc.). That way, it virtually pretends that the city wasn't involved in the land deal.

The developers shouldn't have been asking for free land, however. I sure hope they got the message for the second round of number crunching.

As for the site, the land is big enough that it would mostly be its own place, and not matter as much that Tryclan Dr, nearby, has a lot of light industrial uses. We'll see, though.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The 3 new bids were reviewed by city council for the Scaleybark station land. All with the parking spaces and money it wants for the land, but all 3 proposals call for public investment. The decision needs to happen soon in order to have the park and ride ready by November.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/16379098.htm

Does anyone know if the proposals are online yet? And where to find them?

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That seems fair. This was an economic development project to begin with, and they include public assets to support the transit line. Early in this thread, there were predictions that no request for the private sector to build something like parking ever are successful. They almost always result in a reduction in the market value of the land.

The public is getting park and ride spaces, much increased tax proceeds, a small park, infill population density, sales tax proceeds, hotel tax proceeds (under one proposal), and transit riders. These seem to be fair responses to the RFP. I still want Scaleybark Partners to win. It is larger, covering more land, and we all know Crosland will still develop their existing land across the street anyway.

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Don't forget, though, that these proposals don't exist in a vacuum. If Scaleybark partners gets selected, that will put the maximum density of the land west of the tracks into play. But then land east of the tracks doesn't suddenly become undevelopable. Crosland already owns that land and would still develop the portion of their proposal that is on that land. In fact, Crosland will likely then develop their land with higher density as they focus entirely on that spot.

It is the same concept as a developer developing an entire block downtown, versus one developer doing one half and another doing the other. Splitting the ownership creates some competition and design focus.

So, I view it as Scaleybark + Crosland, Bank of America/Blvd Centro + Crosland, or Crosland + Crosland. In that framework, and also due to the far and away better siteplan and design concepts that Scaleybark Partners showed at the public meeting, I would choose Scaleybark Parners in a landslide.

I also like that Cherokee (part of the parnership) has created station areas in other cities, and Pappas has good relationships with retailers, and has done a decent job of creating street life and communities in other developments.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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