Mecklenburg County has filed a lawsuit against Donahue Peebles Jr., the Miami Beach developer county commissioners selected 10 years ago to build Brooklyn Village in Second Ward. The county says Peebles has “failed to deliver” and “made hollow excuses” for not building anything in the ensuing decade.
Brooklyn Village was envisioned as a massive mixed-use development of apartments, offices, retail and hotel space. It was meant to atone for the destruction of the historically Black neighborhood of Brooklyn in the 1960s, and The Peebles Corporation – one of the nation’s most prominent Black developers – was chosen for the rebuild in 2016.
Former Commissioners Pat Cotham and Matthew Ridenhour objected to the decision at the time because The Peebles Corp. had a reputation for litigation and lengthy delays with projects. But a majority of the board backed the Florida firm.
Brooklyn Village Partners – a subsidiary of the Peebles Corporation – did clear the land for the first phase of the project, on a parcel of land across from the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center.
But it never started vertical construction. Peebles Jr., who was the point person for Brooklyn, blamed a glut of apartments in Charlotte under construction and said it was too difficult to obtain financing.
The developer has since sold that property to another developer, First & Early Partners.
But Peebles' master developer agreement with the county still covers two other parcels of land.
Last summer, Peebles missed a deadline to demolish the empty Board of Education building on the second phase of the project. The county then declared the developer in default.
In its lawsuit, the county said that “as deadlines approached, they blamed asbestos in the old Board of Education building. But Defendants knew about asbestos in the building since at least 2018 – when the issue was identified during the due diligence process and chose to ignore it. When pressed on the lack of vertical construction, Defendants claimed "market conditions" did not allow for construction, yet they refused to produce a single document supporting that claim when the County asked. Meanwhile, other developers have announced and commenced multi-family projects throughout Charlotte.”
The lawsuit filed in Mecklenburg Superior Court seeks to force Peebles to demolish the building. It also seeks damages from Peebles and from Monte Ritchey of Charlotte, a partner on the project.
The lawsuit was first reported by the Charlotte Business Journal.
