Remember that Disney film "Up?"
In it, an old man refuses to sell his aging house while modern development springs up around it. It looks like it’s playing it out in real life in Charlotte’s Optimist Park neighborhood between uptown and NoDa.
For more, I’m joined by Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: So, what’s going on Tony? What’s being built around the house, and why is the homeowner holding out?
Tony Mecia: This involves an apartment complex that's being built at 21st Street and Brevard Street. You know, there are apartment complexes being built all over the place — this one is a little bit unusual if you drive by it, because it's built around this small house that's on less than a tenth of an acre. It was a house built in 1947 and there's a resident there that just liked the house and did not want to move. So that resident didn't sell to the developer, but the developer went ahead anyway — and now has a couple of seven-story apartment buildings right behind that lot. And there's another big apartment complex across the street. The house is kind of boxed in on a couple of sides. It's worth $283,000, the county says it's four times what it was worth just a few years ago. So, you certainly see property values going up there, as well as a lot of other places in Charlotte.
Terry: This sounds like the Thirsty Beaver situation over in Plaza Midwood.
Mecia: Well, it is drawing a lot of comparisons to that. I talked with the developer Space Craft as well as the construction company Swinerton. They've tried to do what they can to work with the homeowner and they say they have a very collegial relationship. They drop off food at the house. They try to be good neighbors. The Thirsty Beaver situation over in Plaza Midwood was a little bit more contentious. The owners there, that dive bar, you know, had had kind of said, ‘Look, they're trying to push us out. We're not getting pushed out.’ But over here in Optimist Park, it's a little bit more friendly, it sounds like.
Terry: Well sticking with the topic of apartment complexes, the Ledger had an article this week looking at how the apartment gym is changing, and you liken it to a fitness arms race, right?
Mecia: Yes, apartment gyms are going really upscale. A lot of these apartment complexes are upscale and have amenities that you wouldn't have thought of just years ago. We talked to one specialist in apartment complex gyms who said it used to be, she would get a budget of $50,000 to do a gym and now it's more like $100,000, $120,000. They're getting tricked out with all kinds of things — high-tech bikes, yoga rooms, stretching cages and even high-tech smart mirrors so that people can take selfies of themselves as they work out and post them on Instagram. Because what good is working out if you can't tell all your friends about it on social media?
Terry: What’s the bigger context here when it comes to apartments trying to get tenants with a lot of apartments being built and rents in some hot areas staying steady or even going down?
Mecia: Yeah, there's a lot of competition among apartment complexes, especially new luxury apartment complexes, to try to get some of these people in the door. They're doing all kinds of things. I think they're trying to, maybe sort of, one-up each other. So I think it really is part of the competition and trying to get residents in and make it a full experience. That an apartment complex isn't just a place where you sleep but, you know, you have a life, you work out, you get a coffee, you relax at the rooftop pool or what have you.
Terry: Let’s end on an item from this week’s Charlotte Commercial Real Estate Whispers column. You report a new office tower on Morehead Street might have the green light?
Mecia: It might. There's a building permit that's been issued for an office tower on the site of the old Uptown Cabaret and Midnight Diner. You might recall that Riverside Investment & Development had plans for two towers on the site. One is a 42-story apartment tower, that is under construction. The other is a 35-story office building, and with the office environment nowadays, that was on hold. But now there's been a building permit issue that seems to suggest that that project might be a go. I reached out to the company. They didn't want to comment on it, but it looks like, potentially, things could be in motion there, which would be another big tower there on Morehead Street.
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