SouthEnd Midrise Projects

[jjwilli]

12 hours ago, Temeteron said:

Has anyone noticed that the Bee Safe storage is under redevelopment off S Tryon?  Didn’t they just build that like 2 or 3 years ago? 

Don't think it is under redevelopment, just finally finishing up construction.

[KJHburg]

I posted this in the who is going to buy all these condos thread a few weeks ago.  

Do New Housing Units Next Door Raise Your Rents? | Fannie Mae

I dont think there is hardly any impediment to building new apartments in this community apartments are going up in all parts of town.  We have a big demand since there is just such a low inventory of homes for sale.  Our city is fast growing and we are adding apartments at a furious rate but we actually need even more for sale product. 

New Apartment Construction Perseveres in 2021 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)   Charlotte has 10,000 plus apartments underway.... 

[TheRealClayton]

11 hours ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

Dang if it’s a wrapped 439 units, it’ll be like a 7 or 8 story apartment building which is very large for that site.

I would imagine this is oriented more like 500 West Trade.

[Hushpuppy321]

1 hour ago, Blue_Devil said:

Charlotte has to build one Texas Donut size building (300 units) each week to keep up with demand in theory. We are growing at an absurd rate. SouthEnd is trying to keep up, but it needs to happen all over Charlotte. 

300 x 52 weeks = 15, 600 units for maybe 19k or 20k people.  Seems about right….  Staggering figures when you think about it like that.  
My own evidences of the growth is this - my niece just moved here 2 months ago from Savannah (I helped carry furniture to the 3rd Floor… ouch!) and my Neighbors home is under contract after only 4 days on the MLS, them having accepted 1 of 4 Full Asking Price Offers (Ballantyne).

I guess most of the Country is growing like this!?

6 minutes ago, TheRealClayton said:

I would imagine this is oriented more like 500 West Trade.

You mean with a low rise and Highrise portions 

Edited December 15, 2021 by Hushpuppy321

[kermit]

1 hour ago, RANYC said:

Is it political obstruction, or do we simply not have enough suppliers, i.e. not enough developers and developer types to meet all these needs?

IMO our current political system makes infill much more difficult than it needs to be, this discourages developers who are comfortable with greenfield subdivisions reluctant to do any infill (and infill does not offer the same scale of opportunities that greenfield does). We have plenty of developers, but not enough willing to do infill. It would help a lot if the real estate finance system was better set up for small projects.

1 hour ago, RANYC said:

And by the way, a lot of developers don't really take the time to invest until they can achieve a certain profit bogey, which I'm guessing plays a factor in the type of residential product they wish to offer, and product that they write off unless local government steps in to finance.

I dunno if public financing is necessary. Most infill projects are very profitable. The bulk of the risk comes from the difficulty of getting construction started. Rezoning (and angry neighbors) remediation and infrastructure issues all add to project uncertainty. If government can streamline that part of the process (more allowed by right, less neighborhood and council pushback, less uncertainty about sewer capacity etc.)  then intown development would be much more common.

1 hour ago, RANYC said:

What's to stop someone from putting affordable apartments on the fringes of surface parking lots in front of strip malls.  We have several on the westside.  No interested suppliers?

I think builders are generally happy to build on shovel ready sites. The roadblocks here are 1) the required zoning change; 2) reluctant financiers; 3) potentially lower profit margins due to the suboptimal site (other, better, sites still exist so a developer’s board will be reluctant to approve a project unless prices are super low)

Edit: I’ll add that there need to be sticks used to make greenfield development pay more of its fully allocated costs. End subsidies for suburban housing such as road and utilities extensions at public expense, add a carbon tax, have homeowners pay the full costs of their low density lifestyles. Changes like those would make infill development much more attractive to everyone.

Edited December 15, 2021 by kermit

[jthomas]

57 minutes ago, RANYC said:

Is it political obstruction, or do we simply not have enough suppliers, i.e. not enough developers and developer types to meet all these needs?

In a similar vein to @kermit's reply, I think the potential suppliers are already out there, but it's not larger developers - it's small real estate investors who are currently doing things like flipping single-family houses. Many of these people would be perfectly capable of building small-scale missing-middle type projects, and they are small enough that they don't need the larger margins that a big developer would look for. Unfortunately, the current regulatory, zoning, and financing regimes make small infill development very challenging. Flipping a single-family home is pretty simple in comparison. I think that if the structural obstacles were removed, you would see some of these folks move into infill-type projects.

[RANYC]

5 minutes ago, jthomas said:

In a similar vein to @kermit's reply, I think the potential suppliers are already out there, but it's not larger developers - it's small real estate investors who are currently doing things like flipping single-family houses. Many of these people would be perfectly capable of building small-scale missing-middle type projects, and they are small enough that they don't need the larger margins that a big developer would look for. Unfortunately, the current regulatory, zoning, and financing regimes make small infill development very challenging. Flipping a single-family home is pretty simple in comparison. I think that if the structural obstacles were removed, you would see some of these folks move into infill-type projects.

Thanks, really appreciate these viewpoints.  Do you guys think the UDO takes enough strides in allowing small developers to plan, construct, deliver small-scale, missing-middle housing?

[kermit]

3 hours ago, jthomas said:

In a similar vein to @kermit's reply, I think the potential suppliers are already out there, but it's not larger developers - it's small real estate investors who are currently doing things like flipping single-family houses. Many of these people would be perfectly capable of building small-scale missing-middle type projects, and they are small enough that they don't need the larger margins that a big developer would look for. Unfortunately, the current regulatory, zoning, and financing regimes make small infill development very challenging. Flipping a single-family home is pretty simple in comparison. I think that if the structural obstacles were removed, you would see some of these folks move into infill-type projects.

Exactly this! I have done a bit of residential flipping in intown Charlotte over the past 20 years. In that time I saw lots of attractive vacant parcels that I knew could be very profitable for development, but I knew lacked the social network and legal knowledge to get them done. In hindsight, every one of those would have been big money makers — if I didn't fear the complexity of environmental testing, remediation, parking, permitting and neighbors shooting me in the foot.

Edited December 15, 2021 by kermit

[RANYC]

24 minutes ago, kermit said:

Exactly this! I have done a bit of residential flipping in Charlotte over the past 20 years. In that time I saw lots of attractive vacant parcels that I knew could be very profitable for development, but I lacked the social network and legal knowledge to get them done. In hindsight, every one of those would have been big money makers — if I was able to avoid shooting myself in the foot. 

I'm all for density as long as there are rigorous landscaping, tree-planting, and design standards because american density can get ugly pretty fast, IMO.  Yes, I know that adds to housing costs, but don't want to bend on this.

Edited December 15, 2021 by RANYC

[go_vertical]

Hell, there's ugly density all over the world. You pretty much never ever see the crappy stuff in travel guides and tourist videos. For every famous and beautiful destination or street there are a ton of "throw away" spots you would never want to stroll through. This isn't a uniquely American phenomenon. 

[kermit]

3 hours ago, go_vertical said:

Hell, there's ugly density all over the world. You pretty much never ever see the crappy stuff in travel guides and tourist videos. For every famous and beautiful destination or street there are a ton of "throw away" spots you would never want to stroll through. This isn't a uniquely American phenomenon. 

Agreed, my experience has been that East Asian cities are often the worst offenders in terms of ugly density -- but these are the parts of the city where the majority of the housing is located.

At the risk of veering into the subjective, IMO Sprawl is almost always uglier than mediocre density. At least bad density has the virtue of being interesting, sprawl (ugly or not) almost never generates any kind of curiosity or comfort. 

Edited December 15, 2021 by kermit

[KJHburg]

this also makes our Southend MID  rise thread at 8 stories.  the new apartments at Dunavant.  these look great and that is something I rarely say in the apartment development.  Akridge out of DC. 

2300 Dunavant Street Akridge Invested - Commercial Real Estate Services

 

 

Edited December 16, 2021 by KJHburg
I put high instead of Mid rise my mistake sorry for the mass confusion

[dylansukkert]

Any word when the apartment complex is going to start on the old Off Broadway site? Getting tired of looking at the abandoned building.  

[Temeteron]

32 minutes ago, dylansukkert said:

Any word when the apartment complex is going to start on the old Off Broadway site? Getting tired of looking at the abandoned building.  

Agreed, I’m also getting tired of looking at and also dealing with the construction in the middle of south blvd too. Lol

[Hushpuppy321]

2 hours ago, KJHburg said:

this also makes our Southend High rise thread at 8 stories.  the new apartments at Dunavant.  these look great and that is something I rarely say in the apartment development.  Akridge out of DC. 

2300 Dunavant Street Akridge Invested - Commercial Real Estate Services

 

 

8 stories is more of a Midrise right?

[atlrvr]

I believe Off Broadway is demolished before year end.  Demolition permits are approved.

[KJHburg]

8 hours ago, Hushpuppy321 said:

8 stories is more of a Midrise right?

Yes I would say up to 10 is mid rise now but 10 floors and above I consider a high rise in Southend especially.  (of course it is built differently too the taller ones)

[Prodev]

11 hours ago, KJHburg said:

this also makes our Southend High rise thread at 8 stories.  the new apartments at Dunavant.  these look great and that is something I rarely say in the apartment development.  Akridge out of DC. 

2300 Dunavant Street Akridge Invested - Commercial Real Estate Services

 

 

This is wood frame construction, so definitely doesn't belong under high-rise. 

[Guest]

Good thing this is the mid rise thread?

[JRCLT]

Good thing this is the mid rise thread?

I am confused as well lol.

[kermit]

Here is your chance to have a piece of Charlotte history in your house! I don’t know why they would do it, but Leather and Lace is throwing out a perfectly good strip club chair. This would look great in anyone’s living room or formal dining room (depending on the motif). I would have grabbed it for myself but my wife has asked me to stop bringing home street furniture. [this should all probably be blue text]

 

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by kermit

[DMann]

I hear that is a very sturdy chair!

[RANYC]

1 hour ago, kermit said:

Here is your chance to have a piece of Charlotte history in your house! I don’t know why they would do it, but Leather and Lace is throwing out a perfectly good strip club chair. This would look great in anyone’s living room or formal dining room (depending on the motif). I would have grabbed it for myself but my wife has asked me to stop bringing home street furniture. [this should probably be blue text]

 

 

Ugh, no way.  The things that chair has seen...I mean, absorbed.  Good riddance.

[tozmervo]

This has been noted before, but the term "midrise" doesn't mean anything, except as a generic real estate term. Buildings are either high rise or they're not, and the building code treats anything over 75 ft tall as a high rise (Regardless of number of stories). 75 ft is determined by the maximum height a fire department can service from the exterior without having to go up inside a building. As @Prodevmentioned, a conventional un-protected wood frame building can't exceed 70 feet in height. There are ways of going higher with heavy timber construction or other heavy wood techniques that are still very rare in this region, but I think will become much more common over the next decade.

[KJHburg]

8 hours ago, Prodev said:

This is wood frame construction, so definitely doesn't belong under high-rise. 

I meant makes our mid rise thread and that is why it is here.