First Ward Urban Village / North Tryon Vision Plan

[Raintree21]

Do you know how old this rendering is? I ask because it has a traffic circle in it and the only one downtown is on Davidson St. and there are condos all around it but this picture shows mid-rises surrounding it.

[atlrvr]

In the massing diagram that GeekUSA linked, the traffic circle is at 9th and Brevard...it seems that would be part of the overall vision to add that.

I think this is new, but I laugh...this is all an academic excercise.

[geekUSA1981]

Do you know how old this rendering is? I ask because it has a traffic circle in it and the only one downtown is on Davidson St. and there are condos all around it but this picture shows mid-rises surrounding it.

Can't be too old. I had been to the ccc.org site in June, and it had a different rendering, then. I assume the round-about shown in the rendering would be newly added as part of the development.

[uptownJim]

THE BIDDING ENDED TONIGHT AT 5PM EST.

Does anyone know if Levine ended up outbidding the other partners. Gosh, i hope not !! But I won't be able to sleep tonight until I hear from someone the final disposition of this auction process !!!!

[atlrvr]

Well if there was another bid, it would start the 10-day cycle again, so if Levine did bid, there is still hope.

[BUILDIT]

hmm the rendering i hope isnt real, because if it is, it doesnt exactly look like a strolling area, but then again its just a rendering so i could be totally wrong

[geekUSA1981]

Some observations about the rendering...

Most of the highrise complexes appear to have elevated greenspace ontop of the parking garages--very nice.

Was trying to determine if there was any signifigance to the coloring of objects, but couldn't find any logical explanation, except for those areas colored in red. My guess is that "red" designates retail. It's all only at street level with the exception of the white-toppped section near the bottom (which could be multi-story retail).

The building with the little red section at its corner near the roundabout has a transparent parking deck that continues beneath it, which I'm guessing = underground parking deck.

The one think I'm not sure of is that big gray patch to the right of the roundabout. Parking lot?! Surely not, what with all the other parking decks. Hopefully, it's supposed to be a large outdoor plaza.

Are his people EVER going to get that #%*$ing website up and running?!

[Raintree21]

It also shows Phifer Ave. going all the way through to Brevard when it doesn't right now.

As for the gray spot to the right of the traffic circle, maybe Levine doesn't own all of it. Polaris shows a 0.4 acre site that is owned by a couple from Durham. Also, some of the properties are shown as owned by 9th Street Investors and Levine Properties while others just say 9th Street Investors. Wonder if that makes any difference?

[cltheel.sdl]

A couple questions: does BB&D now have full control over the Hal Marshall center? And who is the county realtor (or person) involved in this deal? Thanks.

[swh1972]

Nothing really exciting here, but while walking past this morning, I noticed that the Quarterside projects were starting to make progress on the wood framing. These should take shape pretty quickly, and give a good sense of what this block will look like when finished.

[CLT2010]

So did BB&D get the land does anyone know???????

[uptownliving]

Grubb Properties outbid BB&D in the latest round for the property. The Mecklenburg County Commision has to approve whoever the high bidder ends up being before the land sale becomes official.

[cltheel.sdl]

Grubb Properties outbid BB&D in the latest round for the property. The Mecklenburg County Commision has to approve whoever the high bidder ends up being before the land sale becomes official.

Well at least Levine didn't get his hands on this property. There is no way Levine could feasibly get this land with the increased price, and hopefully Grubb or whoever gets it develops it within the next couple of years. That would certainly be nice.

[dubone]

Grubb will almost certainly be approved if he ends up being the highest bidder. While I am very happy with Grubb as a developer, I sort of wonder whether his ownership of Hal Marshall will continue to keep his attentions away from Elizabeth Avenue like his SouthPark project seemed to do for a few years. However, it would be great if he can make his retail connections come alive for this First Ward district. Maybe Elizabeth Ave has been slow as demographics haven't quite worked, but maybe uptown has a different set of numbers to work with.

We'll see. Frankly, anyone would be better than Levine, but Grubb at least is someone who tries to do right and tries to make stuff happen, so I will be fine with him buying that land.

I guess, though, since Levine 'needs the Hal Marshal parcel to start on his overall project', I guess if he doesn't get that land, then he won't ever start on his land. Ha!

[atlrvr]

Grubb is an odd bidder for the site IMO. Clay Grubb has mentioned on occasion that they would have limited exposure to the Charlotte market in the future due to the high-costs of development, and especially land. While I appreciate the overall above-average quality of their projects, I'm surprised they would tackle something of this size, especially with a lot of money tied up in land at the moment.

My thought is there is a developer (possibly out of town) out there looking for a local developer to take control of the land, but it certainly can't be to their advantage for the cost of land to continue to be bid upwards.

[CLT2010]

Definately just happy that it wasn't Levine so atleast in the somewhat near future we can actually see it be developed since that is such a nice sight i'll be glad to see it go.

[atlrvr]

Did anyone read the update in the print CBJ? I let my subscription expire since Lee Howard no longer appears to be writing for them. No disrespect to Ashley if she reads this, but other than her, I don't find much more of the staff to do any real digging.

Anyway, apparantly Grubb is the frontman for a developer looking to building apartments. I'm sure there was some additional info...anyone? anyone?

[CLT2010]

Yeah Lee Howard left the business journal to pursue other ventures.

[Mobuchu]

Quick rundown:

The current bid for the 12 acre property is $37.65M. The other bidders have until Aug. 6th to raise the bid by at least 5% or $39.5M.

Grubb says he envisions apartments with rates of $1,000 or less a month. Considering the cost of land, there would need to be a very high amount of units to make it work, with units as small as 500sqft. He was quoted saying there would be restaurant and service retail space, but he doesn't see this being a retail site.

They will also consider office space, but being so far from the square and being on an island because of Levine may not make that work.

He's also quoted as saying that if the bids go any higher, the owner may have to land bank until the value reaches a desirable price for development.

[brian7270]

Quick rundown:

The current bid for the 12 acre property is $37.65M. The other bidders have until Aug. 6th to raise the bid by at least 5% or $39.5M.

Grubb says he envisions apartments with rates of $1,000 or less a month. Considering the cost of land, there would need to be a very high amount of units to make it work, with units as small as 500sqft. He was quoted saying there would be restaurant and service retail space, but he doesn't see this being a retail site.

As a multifamily developer this is just crazy. You cannot pay more than $30k per unit for rental land and make the numbers work and that is assuming average 900 SF units. Shrink them further and the land price eats up the total budget per square foot.

Heck, most of Novarre(iation's) land prices are well below this per unit and they are condo.

Brian

[Mobuchu]

Well, I guess that depends on how many units are made. Maybe Atlrvr or someone can run some #'s to to see what would work at these prices. We dont have much rental in uptown, maybe a very dense apt. highrise would work. No flash, no bells and whistles, just a dense 30story highrise like you see in many of the northern cities.

I love that they are going to try and bring affordable rental to uptown though. If they can make the #'s work, I'll be a big fan of their project.

[atlrvr]

^ It can't be a highrise....there is no way at that land-cost and the price for steel and concrete that they can do high-rise. At most this would be a 5-story wood frame surrounding a deck, with the first floor steel.

Something along the lines of Quarterside, but on a much larger scale.

I don't have time to crunch numbers at the moment (perhaps this weekend), but I agree that this seems tight, especially at his price points. He is talking about being under $2 a square foot.

Tryon St. is an odd place for an apartment building, and at $3.5M/acre (after holding and demo costs) I think they would land-bank.

For comparison, I believe Trinity is paying about $1.5M-$2M per acre for the Polk Building site....that's a huge difference, and West Trade is arguably a better location for apts.

[rockhilljames]

It's amazing that the biggest "hole" in all of downtown is seeming to command the biggest prices.

Seems that the land is being priced out of being developed.

[dubone]

That, or it is being priced into being developed much more densely in order to offset the land costs.

[world44]

Charlotte is a nice city! A member of another Charlotte blog referred me to Urbanplanet since their threads and posts were more for the Urbanites. I have taken a look at charlottecentercity maps and all the construction sites underway. Quarterside is referred as a "village". What will the "village" consist of and how will it contribute to Uptown's enhancement? Curious, when is the completion date and what does it look like now?