First Ward Urban Village / North Tryon Vision Plan

[Guest]

51 minutes ago, CLT> said:

Right, but the interior of the block has the same mid block 'street' as these concept sketches. 

Its like this.

 

[B Randy]

FYI.  Larken came out STRONGLY against tearing down Hall House in tonight's 7/Tryon update to Council.   Said he'd fight until the day the wrecking ball started swinging...

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, Randolph Dragon said:

FYI.  Larken came out STRONGLY against tearing down Hall House in tonight's 7/Tryon update to Council.   Said he'd fight until the day the wrecking ball started swinging...

ditto

[Hushpuppy321]

FYI - Just posting some screenshots of Tracy Dodson presentation to Council last night.  Looks like the City’s MOU and later a Developers Agreement is scheduled to be completed by City Council by years end.  If so, I would speculate that some phase of construction would start sometime in 2021.

[KJHburg]

to replace the all brick  Hall House historic hotel building with a 6 story wood frame construction is a travesty of the biggest magnitude in terms of urban development.  NO other NC city including Raleigh Durham Asheville Wilmington Greensboro Winston Salem would ever do this at this time in our history.    Go to Winston and see how many brick buildings they have still standing with new uses.     And again how much did Charlotte Housing Authority pay for its new name and branding???

[Guest]

https://twitter.com/CLTdevelopment/status/1270396726650773504?s=20

[NYtoCLT]

Yes, it is tearing down one of the last historic buildings in Uptown.  But it is also doing it for a LESS DENSE use.  This isn't a historic single story building being turned into a multi-family building.  It is a damn tower.  You could basically cut the floors in half and Hall House would still be more dense.

 

This proposal is insanity.

[Desert Power]

22 hours ago, NYtoCLT said:

Yes, it is tearing down one of the last historic buildings in Uptown.  But it is also doing it for a LESS DENSE use.  This isn't a historic single story building being turned into a multi-family building.  It is a damn tower.  You could basically cut the floors in half and Hall House would still be more dense.

 

This proposal is insanity.

Exactly. I am not super into historic preservation, but losing a historic building for a 6 story POS wood apartment complex is awful.

[XRZ.ME]

How much more expansive for a brick building than a wood frame building of similar size?

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, XRZ.ME said:

How much more expansive for a brick building than a wood frame building of similar size?

they claim if they build anything but lumber they will not be able to get housing credits.

[atlrvr]

That's a crazy answer, but I now understand now why they are doing this.

They are looking for 9% tax credits instead of the 4%.

For a quick and dirty:

9%:

Tax credits worth roughly 90% of construction costs not including land.

Hyper-competitive process for limited allocation.

Must be new construction.

Must be low-income only building.

4%:

Tax-credit worth roughly 40% of building and/or rehab cost.

Not competitive process.  Almost all projects are approved.

Both rehabs and new construction is permitted.

Allows for mixed-income community.

 

It's inappropriate to pursue 9% here in my opinion because:

1) the project only works at a very low land basis to be considered viable, which means they will have to value the Hall House at well below market value, and that's a waste of taxpayer resources

2) it's very competitive, with only certain allocations awarded on an annual basis by the state.  That is what delayed the Scaleybark apartments for over a decade, because they couldn't get the 9% allocation (I think they finally conceded and went the 4% route)

3) requires tearing down a historic structure because can't be used for rehab.... federal government regulation since the 1980's...yes, ridiculous

4) prohibits mixed-income, even though that has shown better socio-economic success for residents as opposed to 100% low income....see above note on archaic fed govt rules

There is a clean path to getting both 4% low income tax credits as well as historic tax credits to do at least mixed-income housing on site if they refuse to consider a hotel, but I suspect ego is in their way unless they can explain otherwise.

[B Randy]

1 hour ago, atlrvr said:

That's a crazy answer, but I now understand now why they are doing this.

They are looking for 9% tax credits instead of the 4%.

For a quick and dirty:

9%:

Tax credits worth roughly 90% of construction costs not including land.

Hyper-competitive process for limited allocation.

Must be new construction.

Must be low-income only building.

4%:

Tax-credit worth roughly 40% of building and/or rehab cost.

Not competitive process.  Almost all projects are approved.

Both rehabs and new construction is permitted.

Allows for mixed-income community.

 

It's inappropriate to pursue 9% here in my opinion because:

1) the project only works at a very low land basis to be considered viable, which means they will have to value the Hall House at well below market value, and that's a waste of taxpayer resources

2) it's very competitive, with only certain allocations awarded on an annual basis by the state.  That is what delayed the Scaleybark apartments for over a decade, because they couldn't get the 9% allocation (I think they finally conceded and went the 4% route)

3) requires tearing down a historic structure because can't be used for rehab.... federal government regulation since the 1980's...yes, ridiculous

4) prohibits mixed-income, even though that has shown better socio-economic success for residents as opposed to 100% low income....see above note on archaic fed govt rules

There is a clean path to getting both 4% low income tax credits as well as historic tax credits to do at least mixed-income housing on site if they refuse to consider a hotel, but I suspect ego is in their way unless they can explain otherwise.

They did not present an intention to pursue 9% in their County update.  Straight up typical 4% deal.  Unless there's new thinking...I think it's ego and lack of creativity...

[CarolinaDaydreamin]

45 minutes ago, Randolph Dragon said:

They did not present an intention to pursue 9% in their County update.  Straight up typical 4% deal.  Unless there's new thinking...I think it's ego and lack of creativity...

If it was always their intention to remove it for higher tax credits, they should never have been given the option to own this building in the first place. 

[dubone]

It makes me so angry that the city would do this given our horrible track record on keeping interesting historic buildings, but just like the Polk/Coddington, this is now to rebuild a worse, lower quality building of less density on the same footprint. 

Not the least of which is that the cost of the units and the number of units is shocking.  Uptown has a mountain of public/subsidized housing already, but followed the model of mixed income for the importance of the social diversity needed to keep them from being a negative impact on the area.    North Tryon is already a very tenuous place socially with extreme homeless concentration.  But the fact that significantly more units could be built outside of uptown and lower land basis is just mind-numbingly frustrating.   

 

[SydneyCarton]

This is going to be a very high-end project.

https://www.charlotteobserver.com

Edited June 11, 2020 by SydneyCarton

[cltbwimob]

On 6/8/2020 at 9:49 PM, Randolph Dragon said:

FYI.  Larken came out STRONGLY against tearing down Hall House in tonight's 7/Tryon update to Council.   Said he'd fight until the day the wrecking ball started swinging...

 

On 6/8/2020 at 10:29 PM, Tyree Ricardo said:

ditto

My question is what-if any-effect does Larken’s opposition to the Inlivian project have?  I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the CHA/Inlivian is answerable to the city council (even though it’s a nonprofit), so if that’s the case I could see him being quite the ally for those of us opposed to the demolition of Hall House.  But if Inlivian operates completely outside the purview of city  government, does Larken’s voice have any sway?

[DMann]

Do you suppose there’s anyway Inlivian could be forced to keep the side on Tryon Street as part of the project?

[dubone]

I hope Larken can gain traction among city council to save this building.  It is an absurd proposal that I would hope gets rationalized out, even if they use the rest of the same land and sell just the historic structure.  

 

This city has lost too much, but in exchange for a lowcost 6-story stick build sht-box will be a terrible policy and action by a division of the city.  

 

[B Randy]

17 hours ago, cltbwimob said:

 

My question is what-if any-effect does Larken’s opposition to the Inlivian project have?  I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the CHA/Inlivian is answerable to the city council (even though it’s a nonprofit), so if that’s the case I could see him being quite the ally for those of us opposed to the demolition of Hall House.  But if Inlivian operates completely outside the purview of city  government, does Larken’s voice have any sway?

To my knowledge there are a few things to consider:

• Inlivian Board is elected by City Council - and must approve all business decisions (have they done this yet for Hall plans?)
• City Council holds purse strings for future Housing Trust Fund dollars
• Inlivian must present again for approval of Meck's $6mil before moving forward.  City/County leadership should come together on this decision.

[DH17]

Heard some details on the plans for the Library block and let's just say I am very impressed. Probably won't be anything public for a long while and who knows what impact Corona will have on it, but I am very optimistic for now.

[dubone]

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/development/article244194707.html

Seems some info released, but it does look bleak about the powers that be blessing the destruction of the historic building. 

[cltbwimob]

45 minutes ago, dubone said:

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/development/article244194707.html

Seems some info released, but it does look bleak about the powers that be blessing the destruction of the historic building. 

Not sure I follow.  Other than a vague reference to the Inlivian proposal, which we already knew about, there wasn’t much talk about the Hall House in the article.  Did I miss something?

[B Randy]

7 hours ago, cltbwimob said:

Not sure I follow.  Other than a vague reference to the Inlivian proposal, which we already knew about, there wasn’t much talk about the Hall House in the article.  Did I miss something?

Larken, in his commentary endorsing the 1.5 block developer led project last night, reiterated that he had huge concerns re: Hall House and would fight it's demolition until the end. 

There was no additional talk re: the Inlivian project in last night's meeting.  With the vote last night, the two projects are now officially separate as far as I can tell.

[DMann]

I saw a guy measuring the windows at The Hall House so I stopped to ask if they were going to save that as a botique hotel and he said no.  The plan is to save the facade on the Tryon Street side and incorporate it into whatever replaced it.

[Rufus]

56 minutes ago, DMann said:

I saw a guy measuring the windows at The Hall House so I stopped to ask if they were going to save that as a botique hotel and he said no.  The plan is to save the facade on the Tryon Street side and incorporate it into whatever replaced it.

If this is the case, it's a cop out for a number of reasons. 

1.) I am tired of older buildings being admired for just their street front design. There is no consideration for the scale and intimacy that the other sides provide. No buildings are built like that any more, and it really should be treasured to show how buildings have evolved and adapted based on use and growth, etc. 

2.) It comes across as fake altruism on the part of InLivian, and that's worse than putting up faux historic details.