Mecklenburg County’s public-private partnership with The Peebles Corporation to build Brooklyn Village in Second Ward has hit another roadblock that could jeopardize the project.
Peebles sent the county a letter last month asking for more time to demolish the empty Board of Education Building, on Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. Peebles is contractually obligated to raze the building by July 28.
The Miami Beach-based developer wrote that asbestos in the building is an unforeseeable issue, known as a “force majeure” in legal terms. Peebles said the county must give it more time.
Mecklenburg Commissioners discussed the developer’s extension request in a closed session last month, according to multiple officials who were part of the discussion.
Commissioners and county staff, including manager Dena Diorio, were skeptical in the meeting of whether Peebles will ever build anything. It’s been nine years since the county selected Peebles as the lead developer and six years since the two parties entered into a development agreement.
As of now, the county intends to uphold the late July deadline for demolition, according to people in the closed session. That could mean the beginning of the end of their nearly decade-long partnership — and possibly touch off litigation between the two sides.
Diorio couldn’t be reached for comment. The Peebles Corporation didn’t respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
WFAE has requested a copy of Peebles’ letter through a public records request on Tuesday, but the county hasn’t provided the document.
Brooklyn Village is meant to be a massive project with thousands of apartments, stores, office and hotel space. It’s meant, in part, to make amends for the destruction of uptown’s African-American community in the 1960s in the name of urban renewal. The Peebles Corporation is one of the largest Black-owned development firms in the nation.
Even before the request to postpone the demolition, Brooklyn Village was troubled.
Peebles demolished the Bob Walton Plaza building and done site work for the first phase of the project, off Brooklyn Village Avenue near the Mecklenburg Aquatic Center.
But last fall, Donahue Peebles III, the firm’s executive vice president, said market conditions weren’t favorable to build a 550-unit apartment complex. In February, he suggested building a smaller 200-unit complex made up of all subsidized, affordable units.
Many commissioners were enthusiastic about that idea, but the city of Charlotte this spring initially declined the company’s request for $13.5 million from the Housing Trust Fund. Peebles has withdrawn its request from the city.
Peebles has said his company has done what’s required. He has said it’s spent more than $15 million buying the land and preparing to build, and wants to move forward quickly.
“We’ve lived by the letter of our agreement, and the nature of the master redevelopment agreement is that as long as we uphold our end of the bargain, there is not an opportunity to terminate,” Peebles said in an interview in late April.
He added: “The goal is to help an economically disenfranchised part of the city and to undo past wrongs.”
The Peebles Corporation’s other North Carolina project is also in trouble.
The Durham City Council could vote Thursday on ending negotiations with Peebles on a plan to redevelop an old police station downtown. Durham said that when Peebles was selected last summer, it requested just under $4 million in direct city subsidies and a $57 million loan.
The new request is for $78 million in direct subsidies and no loan.
