The Charlotte Hornets, along with two real estate companies, are buying the former EpiCentre site. Now known as Queen City Quarter, it was once the hub of uptown nightlife. Can it be that again? For more, Tony Mecia of The Charlotte Ledger joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: EpiCentre was the place to be uptown 15 years ago. What happened?
Tony Mecia: Yeah, it was quite a happening place. There were all kinds of people that would come out, go to the EpiCentre. Howl at the Moon, Suite are some of the places that people would go. But what happened was that, after being popular for a few years, it started running into some problems with perceptions about crime. At the same time, South End was starting to take off. The people just sort of — they want the next new thing. A lot of them moved elsewhere and now go out in other places. There were vacancies. The center had some financial problems. So it's been sold, and they're trying to figure out what to do with it because it's a pretty prime piece of real estate.
Terry: Well, what are the plans for the property now? Why are the Hornets getting involved?
Mecia: The new owners have not said what specifically they're hoping to do, but they want to restore it to a place of vibrancy, make it a destination again. One of the partners that's involved has some experience with the EpiCentre before. As far as the Hornets’ involvement, we are seeing this trend towards sports teams wanting to control more of the land around their arenas. You've seen this with the Carolina Panthers, where they're helping build a music venue right next to Bank of America Stadium. I think the involvement of the Hornets signals that they have a grander vision than just playing basketball games in the Spectrum Center.
Terry: Let’s go now to small backyard homes in Charlotte. The city is considering another round of funding for them after an initial program proved popular. How popular? And, I guess, first remind us what small backyard homes are.
Mecia: What we're talking about here are what are officially known as Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs. These are essentially small homes in people's backyards that, in previous years, were called mother-in-law suites. It's a place for someone else to stay who's not really part of the main family. The thinking is the city wants to encourage them in order to provide more housing options because they can be cheaper than buying a regular single-family home.
So the city, at the end of last year and early this year, accepted applications to help pay for some of these. It said it received 297 applications for these ADUs, and they were only able to provide funding for a portion of them, giving out roughly $80,000 per unit. They're looking at doing it again because they said there's such a demand for it. They do require that the rents be below market rents. They would like to encourage that, so the City Council talked about that a little bit this week. Haven't made any decisions, but it's something they'd like to move forward with.
Terry: Finally, The Ledger this week had a story about Charlotte becoming a disc golf mecca. People are actually moving here just for that. For those under the misconception that there's only one kind of golf: What is disc golf, why's it so popular, and why Charlotte?
Mecia: If you've ever seen those kind of weird contraptions at parks that kind of have a metal pole and the metal net around it, that's what those are. It's like regular golf except using frisbees instead of golf balls, and obviously using your hands instead of golf clubs. It’s a lot cheaper than regular golf, where typically you spend a lot of money on green fees and equipment and shoes and things like that. These are in public parks in many cases. There are 37 courses in Mecklenburg County. There are tournaments and championships here. Charlotte's really being put on the map as a disc golf destination.
Support for BizWorthy comes from the law office of Robertson & Associates and the YMCA of Greater Charlotte.
