Eastland Mall Redevelopment

[nowensone]

^Those were the days when I'd stay up to watch his show.  15 years ago, or was it 20?

[Third Strike]

City officially severs ties with Heese, and Studio Charlotte:

 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/03/20/4780162/city-hesse-part-ways-over-eastland.html#.UytLeIWigfg

 

They plan to open the site to different developers, and a movie studio could still be built, on the back area of the lot.

[CLTProductions]

City officially severs ties with Heese, and Studio Charlotte:

 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/03/20/4780162/city-hesse-part-ways-over-eastland.html#.UytLeIWigfg

 

They plan to open the site to different developers, and a movie studio could still be built, on the back area of the lot.

To expand on that and to add to the "news to no one dept"

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/morning-edition/2014/03/city-recommends-pulling-the-plug-on-studio.html

[mallguy]

Why doesn't the government just sell the land, get out of the way and stop wasting my tax dollars on this project?  The Eastland site is in a derelict area and any nice development there is doomed. Just let a low-income housing developer or industrial project developer buy it.

[Madison Parkitect]

Why doesn't the government just sell the land, get out of the way and stop wasting my tax dollars on this project?  The Eastland site is in a derelict area and any nice development there is doomed. Just let a low-income housing developer or industrial project developer buy it.

Yeah, why should the city try to improve an area or take advantage of future growth by putting something nice where the trolley line will end? Just make it a big factory site! 

[15895]

Why doesn't the government just sell the land, get out of the way and stop wasting my tax dollars on this project? The Eastland site is in a derelict area and any nice development there is doomed. Just let a low-income housing developer or industrial project developer buy it.

So it doesn't turn into Levine land.

I won't address the "let low-income...." part as I'm in 100% opposite view point of that statement

[mallguy]

If the Eastland site were next to uptown or SouthPark or even a dumpy area next to Ballantyne, then I could see the wisdom of spending tax dollars on it in an effort to facilitate something nice.  Greenville, SC's city government did some renovation work on a marketplace building next to its nice downtown there, and the result was the West End, which is now a thriving area.

 

Eastland, however, has no hope.  It's a derelict, largely inaccessible area with terrible demographics, surrounded by derelict, largely-inaccessible areas with terrible demographics, and if anyone thinks that high-income people will suddenly come to Eastland due to trolley lines, they should think again.  (Public transportation ridership to Eastland is already very high; the bus lines that serve the site are very heavily used, although admittedly rail transit will attract more and more upper-income riders than those bus lines do.)

 

The only things that I can think of for the Eastland site are industrial/warehouse or low-income, high-density housing uses (e.g., for Section 8 housing projects).  Government has already basically burned hundreds of thousands of hard-working people's tax dollars on projects that had no hope, and it's time to call it quits and just let the private sector alone handle it.  Whether or not anything is built, at least the drain of tax dollars needs to stop and any further losses should be borne by the private sector.

[southslider]

Albemarle Rd at Farm Pond Rd is the busiest bus stop on the Eastside, not Eastland.

[Madison Parkitect]

 

Eastland, however, has no hope.  It's a derelict, largely inaccessible area with terrible demographics, surrounded by derelict, largely-inaccessible areas with terrible demographics

Largely inaccessible area? It's 3 miles on a single road from Plaza Midwood and is at the intersection of two extremely busy major roads. How is that inaccessible? And the demographics may be lower-income now but the money in Plaza Midwood is pushing further and further towards Eastland every year. Besides, the mall site and the trolley are the kinds of projects that spur a demographic change.

[mallguy]

Largely inaccessible area? It's 3 miles on a single road from Plaza Midwood and is at the intersection of two extremely busy major roads. How is that inaccessible? And the demographics may be lower-income now but the money in Plaza Midwood is pushing further and further towards Eastland every year. Besides, the mall site and the trolley are the kinds of projects that spur a demographic change.

It's far away from a major interstate highway.  Developers love that kind of access. Accessible only via local roads and Independence Boulevard (also a slum area) does not really help.

 

The Eastland area has such a bad rap around Charlotte that upper-income people just are not going to go there, period.  If it were near a major white-collar employment center, such as uptown or SouthPark or Ballantyne, then I would agree that gentrification would slowly improve the neighborhood.  That's not the case, though, trolley or not.

 

In short, the Eastland area has nothing going for it that would typically lure upper-income people or developers of projects for upper-income people.  Government needs to realize that all that it has going for it is that it's an in inexpensive part of town, and so a low-budget use (e.g., a warehouse or Section 8 housing) is what a private developer would likely do for it.

[ah59396]

While I'm of the agreement that the city should have never got involved with the Eastland site from the get-go, I think you're wildly off the mark here in a couple ways.

Letting a notoriously poorer area of the city fallow and get worse is the exact OPPOSITE of what a city should do. This laissez faire attitude toward an area because it has "terrible demographics" is a dis-service to the people who live there and contribute to the tax base. The money could have been better spent, I agree. But smart investment in poorer parts of the city can lead to success and there are countless examples that prove this.

[southslider]

If developers can market Park Rd as Myers Park, it's not that far off to think of Eastland as building off Midwood. But seriously, the international flavor of Central Avenue is in itself a great marketing asset. People come from all over to visit the Farmers Market off Billy Graham or the Expo on Statesville Rd. Build a cool international marketplace and even those South Charlotte types pretending to have money will visit.

Edited March 23, 2014 by southslider

[Third Strike]

 

Cool flyover of the construction site.

[caterpillar2]

I enjoy going to the old Tryon Mall near Sugar Creek Rd.  for Asian needs.  There are some great Asian  places to eat and extensive Asian grocery stores.  The parking lot and area are in shambles.  It would be great to combine what is there with a huge outdoor market. I believe that that would be a worthwhile investment for the city. That part of town could uses a face lift.

[Third Strike]

City Council went over a new plan for the former site of the Eastland Mall. This was a reporter's Instagram, so apologies for the quality:

 

 

The site will be divided up into smaller parcels. The plan is to open a large lake and park on the site, along with a K-8 magnet school. The other parcels would be advertised for private development.

[Guest]

City Council went over a new plan for the former site of the Eastland Mall. This was a reporter's Instagram, so apologies for the quality:

The site will be divided up into smaller parcels. The plan is to open a large lake and park on the site, along with a K-8 magnet school. The other parcels would be advertised for private development.

Perfect, I wish more sites were opened up like this. I wish Levine would do this with the land he owns, would make for a more natural urban environment.

[15895]

Love it!

[Niner National]

I was always hoping they'd turn it into a park anyway. This is even better.

[southslider]

So a privately funded Plaza Fiesta-like redevelopment was passed over, the City spent millions to assemble the site, and the results are a tax-exempt park and school. Meh

[cltbwimob]

A local doctor wrote an editorial in the Observer last year stating that the city should reserve the mall site for a medical school. I thought this was a wonderful idea, especially if the school started out as a med school but grew into a school for virtually all medical sciences such as pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, optometry, physician assistant programs and the like. There is a school that did just that in California called the Western University of Health Sciences. It boasts nearly 4000 students and creates a half-billion dollar economic impact for the community in which it resides. Additionally, the school has 1000 full and part time faculty members and has several hundred support staff. How much would such a school do to turn around the fortunes of that side of town?

[15895]

So a privately funded Plaza Fiesta-like redevelopment was passed over, the City spent millions to assemble the site, and the results are a tax-exempt park and school. Meh

The park and school will be 1000x better than plaza fiesta and will probably bring in more revenue over time than a Mexican mall.

I always thought the establishment of a block by block homes with some apartments & a school was the best use. You could probably find my post here wishing for that.

And didn't Plaza Fiesta need assistance also?

Edit: te neighborhood better not have culdesacs...

Edited February 23, 2015 by AirNostrumMAD

[archiham04]

This was my Eastland Mall proposal for the Knight Cities grant... Initial submittal was character limited.... didn't get past the first round.

Repurposed Mall Property

Keep the Eastland Mall redevelopment profits in the community and out of the pockets of fat cat out of town developers.  Because the city is the sole property owner, they have the unique opportunity to install an efficient gridded city street infrastructure and parcel the property into a network of small parcels to encourage an organic city growth reminiscent of the era of pre automobile development.  Keys to success would be 1. deed restrictions on land assemblage and subsequent fallow land 2. Initial access to purchase based upon prequalification and lottery weighted to proximity of residence 3. Removal of regulatory impediments to development such as minimum parking requirements and overly specific zoning expectations. 

[southslider]

The sad truth is that the people guiding the redevelopment of Eastland are not the people who would actually shop, live, work or play at Eastland. But despite their dwindling population, old white people still turn out to vote in East Charlotte, so let's waste more taxpayer money on this latest urban renewal scheme.

[Niner National]

A local doctor wrote an editorial in the Observer last year stating that the city should reserve the mall site for a medical school. I thought this was a wonderful idea, especially if the school started out as a med school but grew into a school for virtually all medical sciences such as pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, optometry, physician assistant programs and the like. There is a school that did just that in California called the Western University of Health Sciences. It boasts nearly 4000 students and creates a half-billion dollar economic impact for the community in which it resides. Additionally, the school has 1000 full and part time faculty members and has several hundred support staff. How much would such a school do to turn around the fortunes of that side of town?

Interesting idea. I know that Presbyterian has been a big proponent of a medical school in Charlotte. They wanted to partner with CMC and UNC Charlotte to start a med school, but CMC preferred the terrible 2 year UNC-CH branch campus option instead of a full fledged medical school.

 

I think a medical school at this point is going to have to be mostly privately funded though. There have been several news stories out of Greenville lately saying that ECU's medical school is on the brink of insolvency due to budget cuts. They're apparently been hemorrhaging money the last 2-3 years.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Niner National

[Third Strike]

Here's a closer look at the development plan for the site:

 

http://www.charlotteeast.com/files/8114/2453/7637/2-19-15_Eastland_Update_3.0.pdf

 

From the meeting given a month ago on the site, here are the highlights:

• The city is working with various partners to determine the needs of the site
• A large storm water lake would be created. Roughly the same size as the lake at Freedom Park
• They shied away from having retail facing Central because of elevation issues from the other side
• They do not want to fill the site with just public uses. However, they do believe having important public spaces like schools and parks can drive growth
• The school would be a K-8 magnet school, with a focus on Spanish language Emerson. The size of the school would be smaller, and not like the ones being built in the suburbs
• A proposed 100k regional recreation center could go on the site, along with recreational fields. Since the YMCA is one of their partners, I'm guessing they would be involve somehow
• There are currently two site configurations. One has the school and rec site as one building, along with a bigger park. The second has the school and rec center as separate buildings, with a smaller park, but with a dedicated rec field
• They highlighted other nearby potential sites for redevelopment that could be affected
• There were concerns about gentrification on the surrounding apartment building complexes

http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/FocusAreas/EconomicDevelopment/Documents/EDSummary2-19-15.pdf?Web=1