You can probably picture one right now: A vacant, overgrown piece of land, maybe fenced off, where nothing ever seems to get built even though everything around it is booming. These lots dot Charlotte, blank spaces in a sea of construction that become permanent question marks. The Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter this week dug into the question of what plagues some of these more prominent spots. The Ledger’s Tony Mecia joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: Your story starts with "the granddaddy of them all," the famous or infamous undeveloped site at Gleneagles and Park Roads that has sat vacant for decades in one of the hottest parts of town. You also mention the corner of Providence and Fairview, the Colony site in SouthPark, and the Manor Theatre site in Eastover. So why are these high-profile sites just sitting there?
Tony Mecia: I talked to a number of people in the development and real estate industry, and they said every place is different. But one of the things that a lot of them tend to have in common is if you have an owner who is well capitalized, who has a lot of money, and isn't really feeling the pressure to sell and develop, they can be more patient. That's part of it, is the ownership.
Then you have financial conditions change. A lot has changed since COVID. The market has shifted, interest rates are higher. And then some sites are just sort of difficult to develop. The one you mentioned at Gleneagles, there's a lake or a pond in the middle of it. Other sites have environmental considerations. So it really is site specific, but it does seem kind of odd sometimes.
Terry: Tell me more about how these development deals work and why changes like the interest rate jump in the last few years can hobble even fully fleshed out ideas. We're talking about really long time frames, right?
Mecia: Developers tell me that a lot of these deals are very complicated. Especially mixed-use ones where you might have one developer taking care of the apartments and one doing retail, one doing office. There are a lot of people involved. Then as you mentioned, the financing can be very tricky too where maybe you closed on a property or you have a piece of property under contract, but then financial conditions change and interest rates go higher and all of a sudden you realize it's going to cost you more and maybe you can't get the rent that you needed to make the deal work.
Terry: Another long-time Charlotte restaurant is set to close. Bar-B-Q King on Wilkinson Boulevard opened in 1959. What made it significant and why is it closing?
Mecia: Well, it is one of the ten oldest restaurants in Charlotte. Anybody driving out toward the airport, you'll drive by it and you'll see it. It's kind of like it was in the 1950s. It's a drive-in. People come and take your order curbside from your car. Like a lot of these older restaurants, there are some development pressures. There is a lot of construction going out Wilkinson Boulevard now. Land prices are getting higher. The owner says the land is sold. It looks like it's going to become a bank.
Terry: Now, an update with Aldersgate, the east Charlotte retirement community. We’ve talked at length on this segment about the financial difficulties it’s faced in recent years. Remind us all about that first and then tell us what the latest is.
Mecia: It had fallen on some financial difficulties in the last few years, unable to pay some vendors and issue refunds to residents and their families. The state stepped in with supervising its finances. But now it's been righting the ship and it agreed this spring to merge essentially with another nonprofit called Givens Communities in Asheville. And now Aldersgate says that its name is going to change, is now going to be called Givens Aldersgate. A little bit of a change there for a long time Charlotte retirement community.
Terry: Finally, you might not be able to afford an engagement ring like Taylor Swift's $250,000 one, but a Charlotte jeweler is making a slightly more affordable option that resembles it. So Tony, what does that mean for those about to be in their fiancé era?
Mecia: Bailey's Fine Jewelry in SouthPark has designed a couple of hand-engraved 18-karat yellow gold rings, one with a just over a 2-carat center stone that goes for $17,000, another with a 1.2-carat center that goes for about $8,500, that are said to resemble Taylor Swift's engagement ring. So Marshall, it seems like a really nice way to say 'you belong with me.'