New Plaza Condos Announced

Plaza-Vu will be located at the intersection of Plaza Rd and McClintock Road. It will consist of 36 condos starting at 800+ sq. ft. and prices starting in the $190,000s. You will be able to walk to the Harris Teeter, The Penguin, The Common Market, Thomas Street Tavern, Fuel Pizza, Dish, Lotus, etc. Plaza is a hot neighborhood located in east Charlotte that was established in the 1920s as a streetcar suburb. It is super close to Uptown and is surrounded by Midwood, NoDa (The Arts District), and Elizabeth neighborhoods.

Fat City Lofts!

Fat City Deli and Bar used to be a super fun place to hang out at on a Saturday. They would have live music, great food, beer aplenty, and sometimes a little flea market. Well, Fat City shut down about 2-3 years ago and has been sorely missed ever since. The building still stands with the graffiti art intact, but windows have been broken, and it honestly just looks a little sad. New life is about to be put back into this NoDa landmark by way of a multi-use development which will actually incorporate the existing facade of Fat City! This development was announced in the Charlotte Observer on Oct. 10 and much excitement has ensued. There will be 26 condos ranging from 700 to 2,000 sq. ft. and prices starting in the low $150,000s to $400,000s. There will also be approximately 8,000 sq. ft. of street level retail which is becoming a staple in NoDa developments. The project is expected to be completed late 2007. Please feel free to contact me for more information lew1230@gmail.com.

NoDa is definitely one of the hottest places in Charlotte to live. During the early 1900s it was a cotton mill powerhouse and many of the mill houses and a few of the mills have survived to this day and are currently being renovated and rehabbed if they haven't been already. There are many condo developments and apartment complexes catering to the first time home buyers and artists alike. Every 1st and 3rd Friday there is a gallery crawl where people mill through the streets checking out the work of local artists while sipping on wine. Many of these spectators dine at one of the fantastic eating establishments such as Cabo Fish Taco, Boudreaux's Louisiana Kitchen, or Addie's Jamaican Cuisine after dancing to the rhythms of the drum circle and taking in the magic of the fire performers. Almost every weekend night and often during the week there are live performances at the Neighborhood Theatre or The Evening Muse...think bluegrass, undergrass, folk, indie-rock, jam bands. There is a bar for everyone in NoDa: Doggie Bar, Wine Bar, Pool Hall, and of course the infamous Mellow Mushroom Bar with their wide variety of beers on tap.

Need Room to Grow???

Do you have between one and three million dollars? If so, then you could be calling the corner of 4th and South Tryon your new home. The Trust is a one of a kind condo development in Uptown Charlotte catering to the very wealthy in search of penthouse-style living. Imagine luxury at it's finest. There are only 8 units in this development ranging from 3200 sq. ft. to 7000 sq. ft. This means your home is an entire floor or half of a floor, all with sliding glass walls to let the outdoors in. Private elevators open into each unit (I can't help but think about the movie 'Big' with Tom Hanks). The top of the line kitchen will include Viking Designer Series appliances and imported granite countertops. A wine vault and private dining room will be built in the building's original bank vault for entertaining. The Rooftop terrace amenities will include a putting green, fire pit, and an outdoor kitchen. The Trust is not new construction, but a conversion of the Modernist Era Home Federal Savings and Loan Building which was built in 1967.

If Uptown living isn't your cup of tea, then maybe you should consider the recently announced multi-use development in SouthPark. SouthPark is second to Uptown in regards to the number of workers, so it was quite a surprise when LNR Property Corporation out of Florida decided to do a multi-use development with plenty of residential units as opposed to an office building. The development, to be called South Fair Plaza, will be located off of the 6000 and 6100 blocks on Fairview Road and will consist of retail, hotel rooms, and residential condos. I will post more information as it becomes available.

Light Rail in Charlotte

Why NOW is the time to invest in the Center City, South End, New Bern/Tyvola, and South Charlotte areas. The LYNX Blue Line is going to run parallel to South Blvd with multiple stops in each of these areas and it is scheduled to open in Fall of 2007. This will be Charlotte's first mass transit system besides the CATS bus system and it has everyone talking. South Boulevard is going to be one of Charlotte's newest hotspots. Dilworth and Wilmore are already there, now we should start seeing the same type of growth and appreciation trickling southward.

Some developers caught wind of the light rail before others and are sitting pretty on land surrounding the light rail. One such developer is BlueSky Partners, LLC. They plan on building a multi-use complex composed of four buildings that will gradually decrease in height to blend in better with the pre-existing Dilworth neighborhood. I think this is an awesome concept and I hope they get the rezoning for this project. If they succeed it will bring almost 200 new loft-style condos to the area with prices projected to start in the low $130,000s for a 472 sq. ft. condo (please see first Blog entry). Look for these to start pre-selling in early 2007 with a completion in late 2008.

Crosland, Inc. has a nice 35 acres near one of the planned light-rail stations so we can expect to hear some plans for this property as well. Whatever they decide to do, we can count on one thing, it won't be another Arlington (Big Pink Building). Dilworth residents don't mess around when it comes to their neighborhood. They want to keep the quaint, tree lined streets with 1940s and 1950s bungalows looking the same. No eye-sores here.

Even Lowe's hardware had to agree to build residential condos around it's new location on South Boulevard to buffer it from the pre-existing homes in Dilworth.

The Wilmore side of South Boulevard will probably be more prone to larger scale condo/multi-use developments, but no word yet on what is to come. I'll keep my ear to the ground and keep you posted.

This city never ceases to amaze me. I love the confluence of the new and the old. My great-great-grandparents had two homes in Dilworth, both on Kenilworth, and they would be astonished at all of the development that is popping up just blocks from their homes. Keeping the old, historic neighborhoods is important and growth is inevitable, hopefully we'll see very tasteful new construction that compliments these historic neighborhoods.