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A skyline that sprouts new buildings at a dizzying pace. Neighborhoods dotted with new breweries and renovated mills. Thousands of new apartments springing up beside light rail lines. The signs of Charlotte’s booming prosperity are everywhere. But that prosperity isn’t spread evenly. And from Charlotte’s “corridors of opportunity,” it can seem a long way off, more like a distant promise than the city’s reality.

Charlotte small business to close a year after opening as part of community revitalization effort

The Pauline Tea-Bar Apothecary on Beatties Ford Road in northwest Charlotte is expected to close at the end of February, a year after opening.
Sherry Waters
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The Pauline Tea-Bar Apothecary
The Pauline Tea-Bar Apothecary on Beatties Ford Road in northwest Charlotte is expected to close at the end of February, a year after opening.

A small business that is part of an initiative to help revitalize a community in one of Charlotte’s Corridors of Opportunity is set to close next month, a year after opening.

The Pauline Tea-Bar Apothecary, located along Beatties Ford Road in northwest Charlotte, is expected to close at the end of February. Owner Sherry Waters opened her first tea lounge near Wilkinson Boulevard in west Charlotte about five years ago. She said that her second spot, which opened last January, is not drawing the same level of business. And like small business owners in fast-changing parts of Charlotte, her rent is rising.

"We just never saw the traffic we need to sustain it," Waters said. "That’s the first reason. The second reason is, even if we saw the traffic pick back up, the rent is being tripled of what we were paying.”

As first reported by Q City Metro, the group Historic West End Partners that Waters operates under, does not plan to renew its lease. Named after Water’s grandmother, the Pauline Tea-Bar Apothecary on Beatties Ford Road opened as part of the Historic West End Partners' “Thrive” revitalization efforts to preserve and attract Black-owned businesses.

Waters says the closure will allow her to focus more on her first location near Wilkinson Boulevard — another part of town where a lot of developments are happening. And she’s just as committed to ensuring her grandmother’s legacy lives on.

 “We got apartments about to open right across the street. So, we're going to have a lot of walk-in traffic," Waters said. “We're going to have long hours there, we are going to expand our capacity, and it will allow me to put some focus and intentionality with the team we’ve built.”

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Elvis Menayese is a Report for America corps member covering issues involving race and equity for WFAE. He previously was a member of the Queens University News Service. Major support for WFAE's Race & Equity Team comes from Novant Health.