Category: Uncategorized

Still mad that the pedestrian bridge over I-277 that was to have paralleled the light rail/trolley tracks got scrapped? Then attend an open house Tuesday, 5-7 p.m., to hear about other connections being talked of between South End and uptown. More info here.

Staff from the city and a consultant are looking at several ideas, including a pedestrian and bike path to be built on the I-277-Caldwell Street Bridge, as well as capping the freeway. The idea to cap the freeway has been around since the Center City 2010 Plan, as a way to create land for a park to connect uptown with South End and Dilworth.

Don’t laugh, several cities have put roofs atop freeways and created parks. The meeting’s in Room 267 at the Gov Center uptown.

Could too much growth hobble Wake County? See what the Raleigh N&O has to say.

Also in the Capital City, Raleigh City Council on Tuesday will consider adopting permanent year-round water restrictions beginning this summer. Other N.C. municipalities with similar year-round restrictions include Cary, Greensboro and Fayetteville.

The Washington Daily News in Eastern North Carolina’s Washington County (county seat Plymouth) reports on efforts there to pass a land-transfer tax, and the N.C. Association of County Commissioners’ response to the state Realtors’ contention such a tax would slow growth.

And finally, here’s an idea that’s long overdue for Charlotte: Help increase the number of affordable places to live by relaxing the out-dated zoning rules against garage apartments, granny flats and other so-called accessory units. Here’s architect Roger K. Lewis from the Washington Post on the same, courtesy of Planetizen.com.

What do east Charlotte residents like about where they live? What would they improve?

Those topics generated some deeply felt remarks by a small group of East-siders at a Monday night discussion sponsored by AIA Charlotte (the American Institute of Architects’ Charlotte Chapter. The impetus for this is a project by AIA Charlotte that aims to study the Central Avenue corridor and come up with a vision for improving it, looking at issues of (their words) “safety, connectivity, transportation alternatives, walkability, open space, image and economic vitality.”

So they’ve been talking with residents. Monday night’s session was one stab at that. About two dozen residents attended, although it looked to me as if hardly any were from the Latino community (you can’t always tell from a glance, obviously) or the immigrant community (which takes in Asian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European as well as Latino).

Some of the comments:

— Residents like the diversity of the area and think that newcomers who move to the area do, too.

— They feel as though they get an unjustified bad reputation, especially about crime. “I have such good neighbors,” said one woman, a widow who’s lived in the neighborhood for 52 years.

— Roberta Farman, who lives in Medford Acres and who just resigned from the city-county planning commission, talked with affection about the great old trees and rural look of her neighborhood. “You’re 4 miles from downtown and could almost be in the country,” she said.

— “Someone needs to mention food,” said Tom Tate, school board member who lives in Plaza-Midwood. “Anything you want, you can find it.”

— Schools are an issue, although Tate said some schools in the area are like East Charlotte overall, in that they’re better than the perception. But people who move in with young kids will either move away or put their kids in private or magnet schools because of the reputations of Eastway Middle School and Garinger High School.

— Gentrification, as in rising property values and more upscale development, is generally welcomed. It’s coming out Central Avenue, they predicted.

— That said, Louise Barden whispered to me about two houses for sale, both on half-acre lots, on Progress Lane — a street lined with huge, Myers Park-worthy old oak trees. They’d be eye-popping steals in other neighborhoods. One with four bedrooms and 1,700 square feet and a tax value of $104,000 is to be auctioned this weekend. Another, with a pool and 1,900 square feet, but only two bedrooms, is listed at $195,000.

— There’s much concern about big boxes, dilapidated buildings and generally shoddy development left over from a few decades ago. ” ’60s strip centers,” one man said. “Their life cycle was 20- 30 years at most.” Residents want better guidelines for new development, so they’re not left with 2007’s version of those flimsy ’60s strip centers.

Life, as they say, is complicated. It’s precisely because those dilapidated old buildings are available, cheap, that they’ve attracted the rich mix of ethnic restaurants from all over the world. Start-up businesses tend to need cheap, old buildings.

On the other hand, as some of the residents noted, the grungy look of some of those falling-down 60s strip centers is likely to be a turn-off to the more upscale residents that gentrification is expected to produce.

The Naked City solution — I’ve written this before and I expect I’ll write it again — is for the city to revamp the standards for its older zoning categories, such as B-1. The old standards allow and in some cases even require suburbia — buffers, large setbacks, too much parking. Changing those standards for B-1 would mean when new places are built on old zoning they’d have a more urban look. Examples of new buildings on old zoning: Eckerds in Myers Park and Dilworth, the Bojangles at Third and Indy Blvd, and Burger King on Fourth Street in Midtown. Compare the Bo and the BK to the much nicer-looking buildings along Third street just off Indy.

Like the good planner he is, Kent Main of the planning department attended the East Charlotte meeting. I asked him if there were any plans afoot to change the old zoning standards. It’s on their long-term list, he said, but they’re deluged with other things (rezonings, TODs, etc.) so it’s back-burnered.

I caught up this week with Gardine Wilson, one of the co-proprietors of the Coffee Cup, the venerable soul food restaurant threatened with demolition. Beazer, the developer that owns the property, plans a mixed-use project there. Things don’t look good, though Wilson says he’s trying to stay optimistic.

City Council in March designated the 60-year-old building a historic landmark, but even that doesn’t prevent demolition. It just delays it by up to a year. So for now, the Cup sits forlornly amid several blocks that have been cleared of all buildings and vegetation. It looks like a mesa rising from the desert.

Wilson says they’re still negotiating with Beazer. The company doesn’t really want to try to build around the old restaurant building, he said. One possibility is selling some property to Wilson and co-proprietor Anthony McCarver, with Beazer moving the old building, or maybe moving into a new building. Which, as we all know, just wouldn’t be the same.

Wilson said Beazer is having experts look at whether the building can be moved, the same ones, he said, who moved the Ratcliffe Florist building on South Tryon Street.

I asked if he was optimistic. “I think Beazer is pretty well set on what they’re doing,” he said. “They’ve said they’d pretty much wait that year out (for demolition) and take it from there. Unfortunately, they do own the building.”

Among Wilson’s worries is that the business can’t survive if it’s forced to close for months of construction.

Another worry is that land nearby is now incredibly valuable. If your business is on expensive land (whether you’ve bought it or someone else has), it’s hard to make a profit if you’re a modest, 38-seat diner that traditionally offered good food at modest prices. You’d have to jack up prices, or add a lot more seats. Or both.

“We want to maintain the essence of what the Coffee Cup is – the warm feelings, the Southern hospitality,” Wilson said. “People come from all over the world. We had some folks in here from New Zealand last week. … They had us on the Travel Channel last week, on a show called ‘Taste of America.’ I got calls from Denver, Texas, Mississippi and California.”

Beazer, I’ll point out, hasn’t had much good publicity recently. Observer investigations have found rampant foreclosures in some of Beazer’s starter-home developments, and some loan applications with, ahem, problems. Last week the Observer reported that a Beazer executive in 2001 offered homebuyers $100 to rate the company highly on customer satisfaction surveys.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into whether anyone related to the homebuilder violated securities laws.

Seems to me Beazer needs a lot of good press.

Seems to me that working out an arrangement to let the Coffee Cup survive in place, business intact, would bring in a lot of community kudos.

I caught up this week with Gardine Wilson, one of the co-proprietors of the Coffee Cup, the venerable soul food restaurant threatened with demolition. Beazer, the developer that owns the property, plans a mixed-use project there. Things don’t look good, though Wilson says he’s trying to stay optimistic.

City Council in March designated the 60-year-old building a historic landmark, but even that doesn’t prevent demolition. It just delays it by up to a year. So for now, the Cup sits forlornly amid several blocks that have been cleared of all buildings and vegetation. It looks like a mesa rising from the desert.

Wilson says they’re still negotiating with Beazer. The company doesn’t really want to try to build around the old restaurant building, he said. One possibility is selling some property to Wilson and co-proprietor Anthony McCarver, with Beazer moving the old building, or maybe moving into a new building. Which, as we all know, just wouldn’t be the same.

Wilson said Beazer is having experts look at whether the building can be moved, the same ones, he said, who moved the Ratcliffe Florist building on South Tryon Street.

I asked if he was optimistic. “I think Beazer is pretty well set on what they’re doing,” he said. “They’ve said they’d pretty much wait that year out (for demolition) and take it from there. Unfortunately, they do own the building.”

Among Wilson’s worries is that the business can’t survive if it’s forced to close for months of construction.

Another worry is that land nearby is now incredibly valuable. If your business is on expensive land (whether you’ve bought it or someone else has), it’s hard to make a profit if you’re a modest, 38-seat diner that traditionally offered good food at modest prices. You’d have to jack up prices, or add a lot more seats. Or both.

“We want to maintain the essence of what the Coffee Cup is – the warm feelings, the Southern hospitality,” Wilson said. “People come from all over the world. We had some folks in here from New Zealand last week. … They had us on the Travel Channel last week, on a show called ‘Taste of America.’ I got calls from Denver, Texas, Mississippi and California.”

Beazer, I’ll point out, hasn’t had much good publicity recently. Observer investigations have found rampant foreclosures in some of Beazer’s starter-home developments, and some loan applications with, ahem, problems. Last week the Observer reported that a Beazer executive in 2001 offered homebuyers $100 to rate the company highly on customer satisfaction surveys.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into whether anyone related to the homebuilder violated securities laws.

Seems to me Beazer needs a lot of good press.

Seems to me that working out an arrangement to let the Coffee Cup survive in place, business intact, would bring in a lot of community kudos.

If you’ve tried to comment in the past couple of days and couldn’t, try again. I tinkered with the settings the other day and seem to have disabled comments by mistake. I think I’ve fixed it. If it’s still a problem, let me know.

A few tidbits from the City Council meeting Monday that didn’t get headlines, plus some national recognition for ImaginOn:

Council news: The council approved naming the new 1,200-seat theater being built as part of the Wachovia-cultural arts campus on South Tryon Street the Knight Theater.

No, you conspiracy buffs, it isn’t about the Charlotte Knights minor-league baseball team, which wants an uptown stadium. The theater will carry the name of John S. and James L. Knight, “for their involvement in and commitment to the Charlotte community,” and for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which gave a $5 million donation to the arts endowment campaign.

Yes, there’s a connection to the newspaper, but the newspaper is entirely separate from the foundation. The Knight family owned multiple newspapers, including The Charlotte Observer and the former Charlotte News. In 1974 Knight Newspapers merged with the Ridder newspaper company and became Knight Ridder, which last year sold itself to McClatchy, which now owns the Observer.

The Knight family set up a foundation, which makes major national journalism grants as well as grants in 26 communities that had Knight Ridder newspapers at one time, including Charlotte.

The council also OK’d naming the new Afro-American Cultural Center facility for former Mayor Harvey Gantt, who’s been active in politics, civic affairs and architecture since his mayoral terms in the 1980s. He’s most deserving of the honor, IMHO.

ImaginOn: The Project for Public Spaces, a well-known nonprofit group that helps teach planners and developers and others how to make the most of parks, plazas, markets and other public gathering spots showcases ImaginOn in its April newsletter. Take a look.

Reports of the death of the Scaleybark transit-oriented development were, as Mark Twain might have said, greatly exaggerated.

Two of the original three development groups are back in the game: Scaleybark Partners, led by Peter A. Pappas of Pappas Properties, and as of last week, Crosland.

After a Bank of America-led development group pulled out April 9, Scaleybark Partners, which had pulled out in February, asked to get back into the negotiations. Its new proposal is squishier on whether it is committing to build some of the things the city says it wants: affordable housing, and a parking deck. It doesn’t say it won’t build them, but doesn’t nail down that it will.

And last week, a group that had dropped out even before Scaleybark Partners, led by Crosland, wrote the city asking to get back into negotiations, too.

Here’s a link to the Scaleybark Partners proposal. At last Wednesday’s meeting of the City Council’s Economic Development and Planning Committee, the committee decided to recommend that the council tonight (Monday) vote to keep negotiating with the Pappas group.

But that evening the Crosland letter arrived (here’s a link to the new offer from Crosland). It says it’s offering $6.4 million for the 17 acres of city-owned and Charlotte Area Transit System-owned land.

The Pappas offer is for $3 million for the CATS land, 9 acres, and $3.1 million for the 8 acres the city owns. But the 8 city-owned acres would be in a Phase II, on or before Oct. 1, 2012.

And with this kind of deal, the purchase price you see isn’t always an apples-to-apples comparison with another deal. Which is a fancy way of saying I don’t know if the Crosland proposal really is more money for the city or not.

Jamie Banks, the communications/marketing manager for the city’s Economic Development office, tells me it’s off the agenda for City Council tonight. Want to see what IS on the agenda? Here’s a link.

Reports of the death of the Scaleybark transit-oriented development were, as Mark Twain might have said, greatly exaggerated.

Two of the original three development groups are back in the game: Scaleybark Partners, led by Peter A. Pappas of Pappas Properties, and as of last week, Crosland.

After a Bank of America-led development group pulled out April 9, Scaleybark Partners, which had pulled out in February, asked to get back into the negotiations. Its new proposal is squishier on whether it is committing to build some of the things the city says it wants: affordable housing, and a parking deck. It doesn’t say it won’t build them, but doesn’t nail down that it will.

And last week, a group that had dropped out even before Scaleybark Partners, led by Crosland, wrote the city asking to get back into negotiations, too.

Here’s a link to the Scaleybark Partners proposal. At last Wednesday’s meeting of the City Council’s Economic Development and Planning Committee, the committee decided to recommend that the council tonight (Monday) vote to keep negotiating with the Pappas group.

But that evening the Crosland letter arrived (here’s a link to the new offer from Crosland). It says it’s offering $6.4 million for the 17 acres of city-owned and Charlotte Area Transit System-owned land.

The Pappas offer is for $3 million for the CATS land, 9 acres, and $3.1 million for the 8 acres the city owns. But the 8 city-owned acres would be in a Phase II, on or before Oct. 1, 2012.

And with this kind of deal, the purchase price you see isn’t always an apples-to-apples comparison with another deal. Which is a fancy way of saying I don’t know if the Crosland proposal really is more money for the city or not.

Jamie Banks, the communications/marketing manager for the city’s Economic Development office, tells me it’s off the agenda for City Council tonight. Want to see what IS on the agenda? Here’s a link.

Quick: What’s the highest spot of ground in Charlotte?

Answer: Biddle Hall at Johnson C. Smith University on Beatties Ford Road.
JCSU threw a small party Tuesday to celebrate its 140th anniversary and to show off its recently renovated Biddle Memorial Hall, which dates to 1883. It’s the red brick building with a tall clock tower visible from I-77. In demolition-happy Charlotte it’s one of only a few buildings remaining from the post-Civil War era.

Biddle Hall inspires in several ways. Atop the city’s highest hill, the views from President Dorothy Cowser Yancy’s fourth-floor office are stunning. She’s eye-to-eye – across the chasm of I-77 and a chunk of uptown – with the Bank of America Corporate Center.

It’s also inspiring to remember that more than a century ago, JCSU students had to help build Biddle Hall. As a historically black college, it has never benefited from the wealth lavished on a Harvard or Yale, or even UNC Chapel Hill. For the not-so-long-before enslaved black residents of the South, the chance to attend what was then Biddle Memorial Institute and get an education must have felt like a mirage come to life.

The luncheon’s guests, almost all women, included a number of current and former elected officials as well as civic activists and philanthropists. That, too, made many of us there feel a quiver of pride in what women have accomplished at JCSU and elsewhere, once we got a chance. Like many colleges, JCSU began as all-male. It didn’t admit women until 1932, and Dr. Yancy is the school’s first female president.

Finally, from the numbers of alumni in attendance and referred to with such affection, I glimpsed the closeness of the JCSU family. Several, such as Charlotte civic activist Jeanne Brayboy (who isn’t an alumna), have families with numerous generations of JCSU graduates.

Fun trivia: Among the school’s alumni are former U.S. Rep. Eva Clayton, who with Rep. Mel Watt in 1992 became North Carolina’s first two black members of Congress since 1901; Vera and Darius Swann, whose lawsuit against Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools led to the U.S. Supreme Court ordering desegregation in 1971; John Rice, father of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Biddle Hall is one of Charlotte’s treasures – and not just for the black community but for the whole city. It’s worth a visit.

The hall’s renovation won a 2005 award from Preservation North Carolina. If you’d like to contribute to the school to help with upkeep of the newly restored hall, here’s a mailing address:

Send tax-deductible donations to Johnson C. Smith University, c/o Office of Development, 100 Beatties Ford Rd., Charlotte, NC 28216.

–Turns out the conservative business crowd has discovered, or may be discovering, the value of designing cities so people can choose to walk or bicycle as well as drive. We can only hope. The journal “The American: A Magazine of Ideas,” published by the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank with a libertarian bent and close ties to the Bush administration, has in its April issue online such an article: “Walk This Way,” by Brent M. Eastwood. Here’s a link.

–And in keeping with that article, here’s a lengthy but interesting look at the phenomenon of commuting from the New Yorker magazine online, “There and Back Again: The soul of the commuter,” by writer Nick Paumgarten. One finding: Average travel time for Americans keeps going up. Pay special attention to the section about studies that show commuting by car makes people unhappy.

“The source of the unhappiness is not so much the commute itself as what it deprives you of,” Paumgarten writes. “When you are commuting by car, you are not hanging out with the kids, sleeping with your spouse (or anyone else), playing soccer, watching soccer, coaching soccer, arguing about politics, praying in a church, or drinking in a bar. In short, you are not spending time with other people.”

“… On the train or the bus, one can experience an illusion of fellowship, even if you disdain your fellow-passengers or are revolted by them. Perhaps there’s succor in inadvertent eye contact, the presence of a pretty woman, shared disgruntlement (over a delay or a spilled Pepsi), or the shuffle through the doors, which requires, on a subconscious level, an array of social compromises and collaborations.”

It will make you think regardless of whether you think commuting is the last outpost of healthy American individualism or a scourge on the world or something between those two poles of opinion.

And a request from your humble blogmeistress: One of the people who sent me the link noted, “Would talk about it on your blog, but am too discouraged by the uncivil nature of remarks on both sides of issue. ” We have a lively forum going, but the insults and meanness of a few drive away others who want to add their voices, too. Please be aware of that dynamic if you add comments. All opinions are welcome.

–Finally, North Carolina now has the not-so-happy distinction of one of our Tar Heel rivers making the 10 Ten Most Endangered Rivers, a list put out by American Rivers, a nonprofit group pushing for healthier rivers. The Neuse, which flows through the fast-growing Triangle area and then through hog-farm country, snags the non-honor. Here’s a link to the press release. “… With more than a million people and two million hogs and woefully inadequate sewage treatment in place for both in the Neuse Basin, it is a river in deep trouble,” says the announcement. If you’re more interested, here’s a link to the Raleigh News & Observer’s article today. And here’s a link to my Raleigh-based colleague Jack Betts’ thoughts, on his blog, This Old State.