First Ward Urban Village / North Tryon Vision Plan

[southslider]

For anyone wondering if the BLE would end up any different than the Blue Line, Council cleared up anyone's doubts. Thanks to Levine's newly amended agreement, there will be just as many parking decks lining the BLE as there are lining the Blue Line in Uptown.

Charlotte loves T.O.D. (Transit-Obstructred Decks)!

[dubone]

Assuming it happens, it is at least positive that it has a ground floor retail, so it can hopefully spawn some retail growth there like has happened in 7th St Station. Likewise, while I am very skeptical that the office tower would happen within a decade, at least having that possibility means it will happen eventually, allowing the area to grow once and come back and further densify with projects over the decks.

But I still am suspecting that he'll come back in a decade and complain about the economic conditions and ask for 15 more years.

[kermit]

Mary Newsome has a thick-with-irony interview with Daniel Levine in today's urban institute update: http://plancharlotte.org/story/daniel-levine-interview-first-ward-plan-charlotte?utm_source=Updates+From+UNC+Charlotte+Urban+Institute&utm_campaign=ed7dc76592-Website_Updates7.28.11&utm_medium=email

on the First Ward Project:

Our dream, my father’s and my uncle Leon’s, is that we can help put the structure in place so that over the next 100 years, potentially, this site could become a place with soul.

One of the things I’ve lived by is that I’d rather do nothing than to not do it well.

Unfortunately, the harsh reality of the economy made it impossible to get financing [for the underground deck]. Not just, “No” – “Hell, no!” So, though I will probably live to regret not having the parking under the park, it’s more important to get started.

He also mentions a possible second UNCC building in the area (over the long term) and cladding the new aboveground deck in titanium (?!????!)

Its a truely bizzare interview.

[15895]

The next 100 years....?

To think, I used to say that in gest...

[New Name]

Wow. Levine spends an inordinate amount of time talking about Disney. This guy is a small town developer. Always will be.

[dubone]

Levine Properties doesn't even have a website anymore (wtf?), but it used to be obvious that all he had ever developed were horrible suburban warehouse-style office parks. He also was handed the original TWELVE development by Novare on a silver platter. TWELVE was originally going across 7th from 7thStStn, but he screwed it up, and ended up having his only participation in the urban real estate boom being a public university building which thankfully came to fruition.

All in all, if he does make a couple projects happen, then great, but he has had dozens of big plans that mysteriously are unable to come to fruition. It makes him either incompetent or shrewd about getting his actual desire -- earning parking revenue with very little cost for a long time to come and cash out AFTER everything else is developed uptown.

If he really wanted to make the city a better place for the next century, he would have kept as many of the old industrial buildings that dotted his land and fostered reuse of them. Dixies is the only one and I'm pretty sure he bought the building after Dixies had already happened. You don't tear down century old buildings with character that could easily be developed around to pave a parking lot unless you care nothing about the city and everything about cash cow land banking.

I will continue to believe he is lying about development plans and will keep using his leverage as the sole landowner in a vast swath of downtown to get freebies from the city with as little accountability as possible. But hey, if they happen, then I'll be glad to be proven wrong.

[carolinagarnet]

Did anyone else notice that he praised Disney for EPCOT while also knocking Magic Kingdom Main Street for being soulless? At any rate, his plan to develop the periphery of his land first could be a strategy to wait for increased demand and therefore increased density closer to the core of Uptown, but I have a feeling he is really biding his time until he can sell that land in a few years for a huge windfall.

[dubone]

That preference for the urban design of Epcot Center (virtually none) says a lot.

[carolinagarnet]

To Levine's credit, the original plan for EPCOT that he is probably referring to was considerably different from the final product:

http://progresscityusa.com/2010/04/20/epcot-origins-1977-master-plan-5/

[TotalLamer]

Did anyone else notice that he praised Disney for EPCOT while also knocking Magic Kingdom Main Street for being soulless? At any rate, his plan to develop the periphery of his land first could be a strategy to wait for increased demand and therefore increased density closer to the core of Uptown, but I have a feeling he is really biding his time until he can sell that land in a few years for a huge windfall.

I wouldn't say he's wrong. Main Street IS soulless... especially at it's time, it was a bunch of brand new buildings dressed up to pretend as if they were period... trying to evoke the sort of "personality" people like in places like NoDa without actually having any history at all. That defines soulless.

Whereas Epcot is at least true to itself, whether or not you happen to enjoy modernist stuff. Personally I do. I love looking at pics of Brasilia and that sort of thing.

[dubone]

It's a theme park, not city blocks in the heart of a city pushing 2m people, that was part of the city plan in the 1700s and populated for 200 years and for 100 years had brick industrial warehouse buildings that are perfect for adaptive reuse to interesting restaurants and clubs.

Enter Daniel Levine: wrecking balls and asphalt paving trucks. I think we know what is soulless.

[TotalLamer]

It's a theme park, not city blocks in the heart of a city pushing 2m people, that was part of the city plan in the 1700s and populated for 200 years and for 100 years had brick industrial warehouse buildings that are perfect for adaptive reuse to interesting restaurants and clubs.

Enter Daniel Levine: wrecking balls and asphalt paving trucks. I think we know what is soulless.

Except you said he was talking about Disneyland Main Street... which has none of that soul or history.

[kermit]

The Observer has a boilerplate story on urban village construction (starts in December). Not much new information.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/09/21/3547528/transforming-first-ward.html

[Norm2]

The Observer has a boilerplate story on urban village construction (starts in December). Not much new information.

http://www.charlotte...first-ward.html

I like the map that the Observer included with the article. Allows me to actually see which blocks Levine actually owns and to see what is planned to go where.

[ajfunder]

My only complaint is they didn't include the BLE and the 9 street station to the map. That will be a centerpiece of this development.

[dubone]

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/05/3579303/charlotte-developer-to-focus-on.html

It would be really great for both First Ward and Fourth Ward if Levine's connections lead to a Publix in his land uptown. Of course, the article, like all Levine plans, is vague on that idea.

[swh1972]

2013 and yet no visible progress on the parking deck. Would really like to see the development in this area take off, but appears more and more likely that this will continue to be slow going.

[28202]

I would like to see this:

 

http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/portfolio/archives/10061111Lincoln_road/slide.asp?slide=1  (scroll through photos, bottom right)

 

Retail, parking, events, future adaptability for numerous uses...

 

or a similar concept above 210 Trade(sans parking).

Edited January 2, 2013 by 28202

[DMann]

2013 and yet no visible progress on the parking deck. Would really like to see the development in this area take off, but appears more and more likely that this will continue to be slow going.

Survey Crew on site this morning at the Levine property by the UNCC Uptown Classroom Building.

[dubone]

Levine Properties costume party for the new year?  

[dubone]

Was that a survey crew for developable land or was it for the BLE?

 

With the Renaissance Place site in the works for a Novare Skyhouse, and HOPEFULLY Levine not being disingenuous about his plans for at least adding 10th Street from the Lynx to Brevard and a residential project on the block it creates, I was looking again at the old ideas for developing the county land that currently houses the Hal Marshall complex.   It is probably for the best that the land did not go to private hands, as hopefully the county/city can arrange for the 10th Street connection on that land to go from the NCDT to the Lynx station.  Frankly, they could simply slap some paint down on their parking lot and call it 10th Street since it is already paved, but I know things don't work that way.   

 

I think the biggest impediment to growth in this area of First Ward is that the county services create a massive concentration of homeless which in turn creates an unsafe feeling at night (I'm pretty bold, and even I look around myself when I walk through this area at night), and hurt the prospects of businesses like the ever failing location in the old Wachovia branch building at Phifer and Tryon.   I think NCDT and McColl center has helped bring some nightlife activities to the area, but people tend to treat it as a single destination rather than supporting northward growth of the Tryon Street stroll district.   I know many many people who don't venture beyond 7th St, or people who have worked in 525 N Tryon (Odell) and considered the area a total ghetto, despite being just blocks away from victorian mansions and an ultra luxury restaurant (McNinch).   The homelessness and blight relating to the county's Hal Marshall land  is a major source of that discomfort.  

 

Obviously I am not encouraging that we hide our poor, but I do think that downtown has too much of a concentration of poverty, and it is best to create an environment where there is able to be economic activity that might be better able to help the poor in the long run.   Hopefully at some point this decade, the county will be able to sell the property (the last sale attempt fell through) in conjunction with the Blue Line construction and revived development activity in the area.  

 

We don't need some magic one-fell-swoop development like they used to hope would descend on the area when they first coined the idea of a North Tryon Urban Village, leading to endless studies and major scale concepts.  At one point they drew up ideas that the land would be a major urban mall-type development similar to how Metropolitan turned out.   I think at this point most of us now know this will not happen, in part because Metropolitan succeeded, but also because they did not succeed.  That is, they brought a lot of missing retail elements to the downtown area, but never were able to draw a department store or the typical mix of clothing stores because the market is too close to the actual malls.    Now we are in a market where we neither expect condominium growth or office development, and certainly not major retail development.  

 

Honestly, I think that probably means that we can hopefully lower our expectations enough to accept the type of 5-8 story midrise construction that always seemed right for the area.  

[nonillogical]

As a former Tryon House resident I feel you on the public perception of the N. Tryon 8th-10th area. My window was right on the front so I saw most of the scenery, good and bad, for 3 years there. I was frustrated by that attitude because from my perspective the good far outweighed the bad.

 

What that area needs, but can never get, is like 4 more Tryon Houses basically. Low-cost (for uptown), amenity-free simple apartment living that will attract the kind of person that is less squeamish about a grittier side of town or rubbing shoulders with the homeless from time to time. Naturally diversifying the foot traffic there and making the still-present homeless less obvious. Unfortunately we all know that no residential will be built in Uptown with this clientele in mind ($800-1000 rents, and NOT a 400sqft studio), and so it will be a while before the area can be filled with the luxury housing everyone is waiting for.

[dubone]

I totally agree with you on that.   I think the problem for the area developing has been the excessively high expectations.  It is pretty much a glut of land that creates his own wasteland.   If the landholders would let low- or mid-rise developments they could probably result in development interest for the remaining parcels that might actually come closer to their [stated] lofty goals.  

 

I totally agree about diversifying the pedestrian demographics, best done by reducing extreme concentrations of homelessness enough to allow for new development, rather than trying to total eliminate their presence.

[DMann]

I totally agree with you on that.   I think the problem for the area developing has been the excessively high expectations.  It is pretty much a glut of land that creates his own wasteland.   If the landholders would let low- or mid-rise developments they could probably result in development interest for the remaining parcels that might actually come closer to their [stated] lofty goals.  

 

I totally agree about diversifying the pedestrian demographics, best done by reducing extreme concentrations of homelessness enough to allow for new development, rather than trying to total eliminate their presence.

Has anyone noticed the woman living on 8th Street between College and the LYNX line?  She exists on a folding chair and has cardboard to keep her dry.

[Niner National]

Has anyone noticed the woman living on 8th Street between College and the LYNX line?  She exists on a folding chair and has cardboard to keep her dry.

She yelled at me one day for walking through her crunched up chips on the ground that had already been rained on and walked over by other people. She then told me it was okay and that god would forgive me.