500 West Trade (14 story apartments on site of former Polk Building)

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Mgelbach said:

Crap, you're totally right! I wish I had been a little older and had a little bit more money back then, I heard that the condos sold for dirt cheap.

The dirt cheap is what doomed it. The appraised too high and couldn't be underwritten.

[gman430]

 

[DMann]

I don't think they sold dirt cheap!  Quite the contrary.

[QCxpat]

Today 1:50 p.m.

Edited July 3, 2020 by QCxpat

[videtur quam contuor]

I love the stage of these buildings where the exterior is creamy butter yellow or lavender insulation and wish we could have a building that color for real.

[Nick2]

35 minutes ago, tarhoosier said:

I love the stage of these buildings where the exterior is creamy butter yellow or lavender insulation and wish we could have a building that color for real.

But neither of those colors are blue glass or beige. 

[QCxpat]

Today 2:10 p.m.

Edited July 8, 2020 by QCxpat

[dubone]

What a pathetically short project.     The city is making  big idea plans for the Gateway Station development, but then Northwood Ravin only builds some stick built suburban apartments and a midrise that looks ridiculously short next to their own 50 story Vue and all the other highrises a few blocks away. 

 

Knowing they believed the Stonewall & Davidson location to be more worthy of proper investment with a 22 story tower, but in the heart of the city, near Gateway, Bearden, and a few blocks from Trade and Tryon only gets this silly little thing.   After tearing down a 6 story historic concrete and steel building built with higher quality and better materials than their home depot sticks, they could have at least tacked on some height.   

 

Northwood Ravin should be ashamed of this low scale, low quality mess, while the city and state try to build something great with Spectrum across the street.   They undervalued the heart of the city.   At least the Spectrum development will get to have nice views over top of this forgettable project. 

[CharlotteWkndBuzz]

Yeah, agree.  Uptown 550 scale should have been bare min at this location (another N Ravin prop).  That stretch of Trade is a blank canvas and will hopefully (someday) have the Stonewall effect.

Edited July 10, 2020 by CharlotteWkndBuzz

[B Randy]

3 hours ago, dubone said:

What a pathetically short project.     The city is making  big idea plans for the Gateway Station development, but then Northwood Ravin only builds some stick built suburban apartments and a midrise that looks ridiculously short next to their own 50 story Vue and all the other highrises a few blocks away. 

 

Knowing they believed the Stonewall & Davidson location to be more worthy of proper investment with a 22 story tower, but in the heart of the city, near Gateway, Bearden, and a few blocks from Trade and Tryon only gets this silly little thing.   After tearing down a 6 story historic concrete and steel building built with higher quality and better materials than their home depot sticks, they could have at least tacked on some height.   

 

Northwood Ravin should be ashamed of this low scale, low quality mess, while the city and state try to build something great with Spectrum across the street.   They undervalued the heart of the city.   At least the Spectrum development will get to have nice views over top of this forgettable project. 

I think we can all agree that the retail and ground level activation this project contributes on Trade/ Graham is the best aspect.  And that it will allow 500+ people to live in the vicinity while Gateway gets ramped up.  But yes, tower could have gone higher and losing the building was terrible...

[Yeahdoug]

The best thing would be for this thing to fill up quickly to show that a bigger tower is warranted in this area.  Gateway right now is a snoozefest in terms of being a place where young professionals with money want to be. We need better dining options, so like someone else said, the retail could be the best thing to come out of this project. 

The condo prices show Gateways lower housing interest at $100+ a sqft cheaper than plaza or SE and probably 50 a sqft ft cheaper than the heart of uptown. With what Tepper wants to do along Cedar and Gateway station, it could become one of the hot areas imo. 

[dubone]

Quote

The best thing would be for this thing to fill up quickly to show that a bigger tower is warranted in this area.  Gateway right now is a snoozefest in terms of being a place where young professionals with money want to be. We need better dining options, so like someone else said, the retail could be the best thing to come out of this project. 

If Gateway is a snoozefest, imagine how bad this will be, with lower construction quality but similar density.    Meanwhile the highrises a block away around Bearden are ultra hot commodities that plenty of people are flocking to.   

6 hours ago, Yeahdoug said:

The condo prices show Gateways lower housing interest at $100+ a sqft cheaper than plaza or SE and probably 50 a sqft ft cheaper than the heart of uptown. With what Tepper wants to do along Cedar and Gateway station, it could become one of the hot areas imo. 

That's true, when it gets hot, at least Northwood Ravin built a disposable building so we can get something good on this block when someone tears it down. 

[Hushpuppy321]

I think Northwood Ravin (NWR) tried to hedge their bets in the same way Lennar (LMC) did with The Ellis in 1st Ward.  Both those projects are very similar with Highrise (Steel & Concrete) mixed with low rise Stick Built.  With the recession / pandemic getting worse before it gets better and area rents dropping, the stick built may be the only units to get rented out next year.  Visionary, no.  Conservative, yes for both NWR & LMC.  Even though the LMC 33 Story Highrise is much taller/prominent, remember NWR has two (2) Steel/Concrete Highrise Apartments currently under construction at the same time for a total of 30 stories (Uptown & Ballantyne) hedging their risk.

Either way I hope they both keep building Uptown.  Unless something Major changes Center City is set to see ALOT less Cranes on the Skyline in 2021.  Hopefully this is just a hiccup for the QC.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Hushpuppy321

[a2theb]

The project is alright from a Graham/Trade perspective but I cannot get over how horrendous the 5th street side is. No street level activation between Wilkes and Graham is inexcusable.

[Yeahdoug]

2 hours ago, a2theb said:

The project is alright from a Graham/Trade perspective but I cannot get over how horrendous the 5th street side is. No street level activation between Wilkes and Graham is inexcusable.

 

I think there’s at least something on that back corner. There’s a decent two story retail space looking area there. 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Yeahdoug

[QCxpat]

Today 12:00 noon

Edited July 15, 2020 by QCxpat

[TheOneRJ]

[dylansukkert]

12 minutes ago, TheOneRJ said:

Look at that surface lot..... just imagine what kind of awesomeness could be built there!

[nyxmike]

1 hour ago, dylansukkert said:

Look at that surface lot..... just imagine what kind of awesomeness could be built there!

I don't want to be a pessimist but probably stick built 5 story apartments, lol. And they better not tear down that old building on the corner!

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, nyxmike said:

I don't want to be a pessimist but probably stick built 5 story apartments, lol. And they better not tear down that old building on the corner!

Too high of land costs, it'll never be a 5 floor apartment building, not without a 20 floor building attached. We will not see another Midrise apartment building in the central core of uptown again. And don't tell me inlivian, because I'm NOT. LETTING. THAT. HAPPEN.

[j-man]

7 hours ago, dylansukkert said:

Look at that surface lot..... just imagine what kind of awesomeness could be built there!

I could see a really nice wide spread museum to cover most of the lot and some type of tower on top like the Mint and the apartments, though there are truly enough apartments here so many an office tower to go along with a museum. Either on top or beside. 

[ArchiCLT]

Except for the house at 5th/Poplar, First Presbyterian Church owns that block. Not to get this thread off-topic, but this is their 1992 Master Plan.

If I were them, I'd consider long-term land leasing and/or some kind of community/mission-minded use for the block, instead of a  simple, one-time sale, as property values will  surely increase as Gateway progresses.

While there are complaints about the Northwood-Ravin apartments being too near-sighted for the future plan for the corridor, this block deserves the highest-available use as well.

[QCxpat]

Today 9:30 a.m.

Edited July 21, 2020 by QCxpat

[KJHburg]

decided to take a photo since the shot was good.  and yes I am still upset over losing the Polk Bldg for this.  Northwood Ravin does good work and love their Ballantyne projects and 550 Stonewall is good too but the KJ does not losing a one kind of building like the old Polk building.  

[dylansukkert]

Today