Charlotte's Light Rail: Lynx Blue Line

[KJHburg]

Not sure where to put this but a Colorado based homebuilder bought a huge tract of land at the Arrowood station for housing development and it is most likely a for sale product which is good. http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/05/04/homebuilder-new-to-the-charlotte-market-buys.html

[End_The_Sprawl]

I was emailed earlier, showing that they are testing all of the track all the way to the campus station. In addition the campus station has most of the walkways done.

[KJHburg]

What do you think of this interview about the Lynx delays? Finally someone asking some questions. http://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/cats-ceo-to-speak-to-channel-9-live-at-12-pm/519701221?ecmp=trueanthem_wsoctv_tw_main&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=590dd35e04d30144758b1f93&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

[kermit]

^ It made me think that Lewis should not be in a public-facing job.

[nmundo]

Just drove past JW Clay station and noticed that all of the station lights are on now. The area is now significantly brighter than it used to be. For some reason it seems like the lights are set up different on the 2 bridges though which looks pretty bad IMO.

Also, I didn't see anyone mention anything about last weeks public meetings but they stated that they are planning to start doing low speed testing by the end of the month between 7pm and 6am.

[kermit]

12 hours ago, nmundo said:

Also, I didn't see anyone mention anything about last weeks public meetings but they stated that they are planning to start doing low speed testing by the end of the month between 7pm and 6am.

About six months of testing is required so this puts CATS on schedule for a late November open.

The next quarterly report is due at the end of the month, we will certainly know more by then.

Edited May 9, 2017 by kermit

[AP3]

I'm surprised pedestrian lighting hasn't been installed along the sidewalks around the stations.  A lot of the stations are pretty desolate, so I think they need it pretty bad.

[archiham04]

^^the lighting on the two bridges is probably just on bridge being "on" and the other being "off"... which is never truly off because code required a limited amount of emergency egress lighting 24-7

[kermit]

Wow, it only took a decade but this may be the first TOD(ish) project in ArLoLoSo (Arrowood station). Regardless of what you call it repurposing empty bigbox space into inexpensive offices that are transit accessible is a significant win for Charlotte IMO

Quote

Atlanta commercial real estate firm White Oak Real Estate Advisors acquired the big-box structure at 801 E. Arrowood Road for $3.8 million in a sale that closed April 20, according to Mecklenburg County real estate records. White Oak, a firm new to the Charlotte market, plans to upfit the former retail store at the intersection of Arrowood and Old Pineville roads into a 110,390-square-foot, high-density office building.

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/05/12/former-walmart-to-be-converted-into-creative.html?ana=RSS%26s%3Darticle_search&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Hyperbole alert: Best of luck turning a single story building into a "high-density office building"

 

Edited May 18, 2017 by kermit

[SgtCampsalot]

11 minutes ago, kermit said:

Wow, it only took a decade but this may be the first TOD(ish) project in ArLoLoSo (Arrowood station). Regardless of what you call it repurposing empty bigbox space into inexpensive offices that are transit accessible is a significant win for Charlotte IMO

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/05/12/former-walmart-to-be-converted-into-creative.html?ana=RSS%26s%3Darticle_search&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Hyperbole alert: Best of luck turning a single store building into a "high-density office building"

 

Hm... it's definitely piggy backing off of South End's success, but this seems like a dubious venture, and is representative of the struggles of retrofitting suburbia. As much as I want to, I wouldn't call this transit-accessible at all. An old Wal-Mart is a huge space with a huge parking lot.

I hope they do well if only for the publicity of re-using old buildings. My best guess is that they hope to sell it for a mega project in 10-20 years as South Blvd grows.

[kermit]

6 minutes ago, SgtCampsalot said:

 As much as I want to, I wouldn't call this transit-accessible at all. An old Wal-Mart is a huge space with a huge parking lot.

yea, the walk to the station will suck, but it is a reasonable distance (there is a station entrance from the Compare Foods side).

Edited May 12, 2017 by kermit

[KJHburg]

But for a call center operation this old walmart convert might be a good location. Plenty of parking for their high density office setups plus a 5 minute walk to the LYNX as another alternative way to get there.  Plus remember Century Homes out of Colorado just purchased all that land right by the Arrowood station for a mix of for sale townhomes and they will sell some land off to an apartment developer according to the Biz Journal. 

[grodney]

2 hours ago, kermit said:

yea, the walk to the station will suck, but it is a reasonable distance (there is a station entrance from the Compare Foods side).

Came here to tell you you're crazy and there's no access from the Compare Foods lot.....but I'm wrong.....I'd never noticed that super-long ramp along the rail from Arrowood up to the station.  Very cool.  I don't think this walk is bad at all.....especially if you put steps from the corner of the big box down to the intersection of Arrowood and Old Pineville.  It's only 1615 feet - less than 1/3 of a mile.  Also, if you go down England to the CATS entrance, it's right at a half mile.....again with the steps down to the intersection, avoiding the walk out the parking lot.

 

Edited May 12, 2017 by grodney
can never remember if there is one "w" or two in Arrowood.

[kermit]

 

 

[archiham04]

5 hours ago, grodney said:

Came here to tell you you're crazy and there's no access from the Compare Foods lot.....but I'm wrong.....I'd never noticed that super-long ramp along the rail from Arrowood up to the station.  Very cool.  I don't think this walk is bad at all.....especially if you put steps from the corner of the big box down to the intersection of Arrowood and Old Pineville.  It's only 1615 feet - less than 1/3 of a mile.  Also, if you go down England to the CATS entrance, it's right at a half mile.....again with the steps down to the intersection, avoiding the walk out the parking lot.

 

Small detail, but your first 100 feet drops about 25 feet.  There is a huge retaining wall along the access road to the big box.  the route from the building to the crosswalk is an additional 1/3 mile...  Don't you love suburban development.

Edited May 12, 2017 by archiham04

[grodney]

6 minutes ago, archiham04 said:

Small detail, but your first 100 feet drops about 25 feet.  There is a huge retaining wall along the access road to the big box.  the route from the building to the crosswalk is an additional 1/3 mile...  Don't you love suburban development.

Hmmm, yeah, the retaining wall tapers down to nothing at the intersection....but it's still a pretty good drop in elevation from the big box...but looks like a do-able slope. I mean I said it requires stairs ha ha....they're just a little bigger than I imagined.  Google Streetview has views from both the top and the bottom, by the way.  Funny that the streetview car drove all the way to the corner of the big box.  https://goo.gl/maps/71qtYaVZY5s 

[KJHburg]

JW Clay Station today. Talked to my friend who is an electrical contractor who had worked on this LYNX line and he said it was all the city's fault it is delayed not the contractors. No surprise there and yes I do blame CATS. 

[tozmervo]

it's par for the course. I've seen cases where the owner is at fault, but there are more than a few cases where the contractor clearly f'ed up. (The designer is never at fault.)

[KJHburg]

The Old Concord station, the 36th Street station, the 25th Street station, and various other spots along Blue Line Extension today. Even the Old Concord station generated a rezoning for some apartments across Tryon St and of course the NorthPark mall site is a large site for future redevelopment.  You will not recognize this area in 5 years from now especially from the Sugar Creek station southward. 

[archiham04]

I didn't realize 25th street station was so far above the street.  that is unfortunate.  I guess because they needed to stay flat for the maintenance yard?

[KJHburg]

1 hour ago, archiham04 said:

I didn't realize 25th street station was so far above the street.  that is unfortunate.  I guess because they needed to stay flat for the maintenance yard?

Part of it is because the bridge over sugar creek which is right north of station needed to be higher. Brevard st bridge over the creek is much lower. 

[archiham04]

Cool...  Didn't think about that...  hopefully they had the foresight to make an impressive architectural statement with that bridge considering that is the intersection of our city's two most prominent infrastructure projects.

UPDATE: nope

Edited May 18, 2017 by archiham04

[tozmervo]

Coming into work this morning, it looked like they were gearing up to test to train north of 25th St. can any eagle eyed photographers get this boards first photograph?

[tozmervo]

So by stupid lucky happenstance, I happened to catch a shot of the train being slowly rolled through 36 street station at lunchtime 

[kermit]

^ free beer for you! 

Thanks for the photo, it made my heart skip a beat.