Metropolitan, Midtown Redevelopment

[dubone]

The CBJ is full of news today. So apparently Pappas and Colonial are putting Metropolitan up for sale. Hopefully it will attract a buyer for this ongoing concern and then giving Pappas and Colonial the capital it can put to use developing something new in town.

[Norm2]

The CBJ is full of news today. So apparently Pappas and Colonial are putting Metropolitan up for sale. Hopefully it will attract a buyer for this ongoing concern and then giving Pappas and Colonial the capital it can put to use developing something new in town.

The Metropolitan is an on-going concern for Pappas and Colonial?

[dubone]

No. I mean, it is 90% leased, so they can sell it to investors looking for the cashflow, take the asset off of Pappas and Colonial's hands, who can then take that $110m and use it to develop a new project.

[mallguy]

Interesting to read (in the CBJ article) that Home Depot owns its former Expo Design Center space at Midtown.

I'd think that Home Depot would be doing ANYTHING to find a replacement tenant to occupy the space, or would sell it back to the center's developers.

[Guest]

Anybody heard anything about the Lennar Project? 

[DMann]

Lennar picks Charlotte to test apartment strategy

By Tony Brown, Staff WriterThe Mecklenburg Times
Published: January 18, 2013
Time posted: 6:38 pm
Tags: Jon Hardy, Lennar Corp., stuart miller6:38 pm Fri, January 18, 2013

This 3.5-acre tract, now home to gravel and paved parking lots, a cell tower and a few scattered buildings, will soon become the site of 261 luxury apartments built by Lennar Multifamily. The tract, which has an official address of 207 S. Kings Dr., lies in the center of a triangle formed by Kings, Charlottetown Avenue and East Third Street. Photo by Tony Brown

CHARLOTTE — Lennar Corp. is making Charlotte’s Midtown part of a $1 billion leap by the Miami-based single-family homebuilding giant into the highly lucrative — and, observers say, highly volatile — apartment development and building business.

Lennar Multifamily, with East Coast headquarters in Charlotte, last month bought a 3.5-acre tract of land for $8.25 million in Charlotte’s Metropolitan district, according to Mecklenburg County property records.

Construction is scheduled to begin there in May on a 215,000-square foot complex, which will include two apartment buildings, with 261 Class A apartments and a parking deck, said Todd Farrell, Charlotte-based regional president of Lennar Multifamily. One of the buildings will also house 8,000 square feet of street-level retail, Farrell said via cellphone from southern California.

With U.S. apartment occupancy rates topping out at around 96 percent — an 11-year high, according to New York-based Reis Inc., an analysis firm — Lennar CEO Stuart Miller announced last week that his company will invest an initial $560 million in multifamily projects this year alone.

The first projects, now under construction, are a $36 million, 316-unit complex in Jacksonville, Fla., in a partnership with the Carlyle Group asset-management firm, which has offices in Charlotte; and a $32 million, 264-unit complex northeast of Atlanta.

The Charlotte project — for which Farrell declined to give a total build-out cost, citing a corporate decision to not release the numbers — would be part of a second phase of Lennar’s push into apartments, which would also include new complexes in Texas and the Chicago area, Farrell said.

The new initiative by Lennar — which consistently ranks in the top 5 in annual surveys of the country’s biggest homebuilders by number of units sold and No. 1 in Charlotte in 2011 — is the latest evidence of a rush by investors and builders into a hot apartment market that continues to heat up as more homeowners and would-be homeowners are pushed out of owning.

But Ken Szymanski, president of the Greater Charlotte Apartment Association, had some words of caution for anyone jumping into the multifamily fray.

Szymanski said it’s “unusual historically” for a single-family homebuilder to lunge into the apartment business.

“But many companies are angling to become more versatile, and there’s a perception that apartments are more stable,” he said. “Whether they succeed at it remains to be seen.

“While it’s the darling of the real-estate types today, the depth of today’s apartment demand is not unlimited, and the chronology is not indefinite. We could be having a whole different conversation in 2015” about a glut of apartments. “Especially as rents begin to grow as high as a mortgage payment on a house.

Farrell said the Charlotte complex, which has yet to be named, would have studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments with luxury touches like lobbies, elevators and granite and hardwood finishes.

But “rents are undefined at this time,” he said.

[ah59396]

Excited about this project.  That is really going to fill that gap nicely.  Traffic is about to get AWFUL at the Charlottetown/Kings Intersection though.  Yikes.

[tozmervo]

Premo access to the ABC store, too!

[ajfunder]

Gonna be nice with the streetcar and the greenway a block away from the building. Especially with some street level retail.

Alex

[dubone]

I agree, this is a really important gap to fill in to help make Midtown to Elizabeth Ave a more pedestrian and urban zone.   I'm not as worried about the traffic, as the big box stores and uptown commutes cause much more traffic than one infill project where people can walk to places and transit.

[atlrvr]

http://www.theprestonpartnership.com/project/south-kings-midtown/?cat=current-projects

 

Above is a link to a couple of color renderings.

 

I believe construction starts next month.

 

This is probably the multi-family project that I'm most excited about as it really helps bridge the gap that Dubone noted.  Plus it has retail and what appears to be a high-quality, though not particularly exciting, design.

[Miesian Corners]

Still no movement on the apartment project.  Anybody heard anything?

[dubone]

I was thinking about this today when I was over there.  Sooo many apartment projects zooming along, but this one has been silent.

[Urbanity]

Shame if this one falls through as I thought it would have filled in that section very nicely.

[HopHead]

I'd be rather surprised if this one fell through. Seemed like such a slam dunk location for apartments IMO.

 

BTW - Has anyone heard any traction on the spot formerly occupied by the Home Depot Design Center?

[Guest]

I'd be rather surprised if this one fell through. Seemed like such a slam dunk location for apartments IMO.

 

BTW - Has anyone heard any traction on the spot formerly occupied by the Home Depot Design Center?

I thought they got building permits, but I cannot find it anywhere...

[southslider]

Camden Gallery took some time as well. Perhaps, apartments with retail take longer.

[Prodev]

Should start early August. The hold up was getting equity, which they now have. 

[nonillogical]

Camden Gallery took some time as well. Perhaps, apartments with retail take longer.

There was going to be no retail in this project though. Some kind of deal with Metropolitan to not offer competing retail.

[Guest]

There was going to be no retail in this project though. Some kind of deal with Metropolitan to not offer competing retail.

Nope, you are thinking of the Levine apartments. This one will have 12-15k of retail I believe. The site plans I have at home confirm the inclusion of retail. This is the Lennar project we are speaking of.

[Prodev]

7,700 Square feet of retail located behind the existing retail (chipotle, V-shop, Mattress)

[Guest]

That works, better than nothing.

[dubone]

It had a decent amount of retail in the site plans posted a few pages back.  

 

That is really encouraging that it is still moving forward. 

[Missmylab4]

Any word on the Lennar project? I thought this project would be moving by now. I think this project will really change the landscape around midtown and set a precedent for more urban projects. This along the announced apartments near CMC will really add to the urban portion of the greenway. This might be the catalyst for more infill along Kings Drive. Which looks vastly superior than it did circa 94.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Missmylab4

[Prodev]

I believe it should break ground next week.