More urban apartments breaking ground beside Veterans Park

I'm starting to feel a bit like a broken record with the flood of new apartment communities cranking up these days, but here comes another one. Northwood Ravin LLC, which oversees the VUE and Catalyst apartment towers uptown, has broken ground for a $50 million, 403-unit project that will overlook Veterans Park, in the Commonwealth neighborhood. This one comes with a bit of a twist from the many other urban multifamily complexes going up. It's designed to be less dense, with 384 flats spread across a variety of two-, three- and four-story buildings. The 21-acre project will also include 17 two- and three-bedroom townhouse apartments and two for-sale single-family homes.

Morningside Village, as it's being called, will sit about a four-block walk along McClintock Road from the Harris Teeter at The Plaza and Central Avenue. It will include more green space than typical infill projects, the developers say. It will have inner courtyards, private gardens, dog parks, and even garden plots for residents. In a press release, David Ravin, president of Northwood Ravin, called the project "part of the next generation of apartment homes that will bring all the modern amenities in a convenient, urban location but will provide more living space within each apartment and the community as a whole."

The first of the apartments are expected to be completed in early spring of 2015.

Plaza-Midwood's Vyne apartments finishes second phase

Vyne on Central, a residential project that began as condos but got whacked by the housing meltdown, completes its resurrection as an apartment community this weekend. The community, located at 3220 Central Avenue, will celebrate the completion of its second phase Saturday with a 10 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Developers unveiled plans for the project in the Plaza-Midwood neighborhood just before the recession hit. They'd conceived it as an environmentally conscious 33-unit condo project. By 2009, with the housing market decimated, its backers resorted to offering potential buyers a free overnight stay in hopes of convincing them to sign contracts. Development group 759 Ventures, which also owns Edgeline Flats in NoDa, acquired the project and converted it to rentals last year. The new phase includes 65 one- and two-bedroom apartments.  The developers say the new phase, with rents starting at just over $1,000, is one-third pre-leased.

Chris Needham, the local principal of 759 Ventures, said the group is pleased with how the project turned out, and added: "The success of the leasing shows people love living near the fun environment of Plaza-Midwood."

Is Charlotte gobbling too much of N.C.'s job-recruitment pie?

A new report out today from the N.C. Justice Center, a progressive public policy think tank in Raleigh, is raising questions about whether bigger cities such as Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro and Asheville are gobbling up a disproportionately large percentage of the state's job-recruitment incentives since 2007.

Of the $840 million in incentives given out since then to recruit or grow industry, the majority went to the more urban and prosperous areas of the state, the study showed. Mecklenburg got 55 job development projects during that time and pulled in more than $303 million in incentives -- or more than a third of the state's total incentives for the period. That money came with promises that companies would create or retain more than 24,000 jobs in the Charlotte area. By contrast, rural Sampson County, located just east of Interstate 95, received merely $238,000 for two projects. Those projects promised to create or retain 187 jobs.

The state has been trying to do more to boost job growth in economically hard-hit rural areas. But as urban areas keep sprinting ahead, the challenge seems to loom increasingly large.

"North Carolina needs to spend less money on incentives in the most prosperous metros in the state, and start investing more in the roads, schools and job training programs most likely to create jobs and improve economic conditions in the state's most distressed and rural communities," said Allan Freyer, the report's author.

Charlotte makes top ten among best cities to start a career

Charlotte has landed at No. 9 on a new list of best cities to start a career in. Wallethub, a personal finance social network, released the list today. Wallethub analyzed 150 cities to come up with the list, studying everything from entry-level pay and job opportunities to "mating opportunities" -- i.e., the share of the population that has never been married. Charlotte ranked No. 7 in quality-of-life factors, No. 63 in professional opportunity factors, and came in at No. 9 overall, just below Dallas and above Houston.

Here's the top 10:

1. Washington, D.C.
2. Denver, CO.
3. Irving, TX.
4. Seattle, WA
5. Minneapolis, MN
6. San Francisco, CA
7. Austin, TX
8. Dallas, TX
9. Charlotte, NC
10. Houston, TX

Let's hear what you think. Is Charlotte one of the top cities to start a career in, based on your experience?

Sustain Charlotte honors 70 for green-friendly efforts

Sustain Charlotte, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting sustainable social, economic and land use policies, recognized 70 Charlotte area citizens and organizations Tuesday evening for their efforts. 

Eleven winners received the top awards before a crowd of more than 250 at the Third Annual Community Sustainability Awards + Earth Day Celebration at UNC Charlotte's Center City campus uptown. They were recognized for helping to advance ‘Charlotte 2030:  A Sustainable Vision for Our Region’, which Sustain Charlotte launched in 2010.

Among the winners:

• Outstanding Overall Leader,  David Walters, director of UNC Charlotte's Urban Design Program
• Oustanding Educator, Cindy Moss, director of global STEM initiatives, Discovery Education
• Transportation, Charlotte Department of Transportation
• Land Use, Charlotte Center City Partners
• Energy, N.C. Sustainable Energy Association
• Waste Reduction, Eaton Corp.
• Air Quality, Clean Air Carolina
• Food, Go-Go Fresco
• Social Equity, MGR Charlotte
• Water, Charlotte Public Tree Fund
• Sustainable Economy, PPRE Forevergreen

Charlotte rising on lists of top cities for millennials, new college grads

If you've been wondering what's up with the surge in apartment complex construction in Charlotte, particularly in and around uptown, a couple of new studies might help explain why developers have pushed apartment-building numbers locally to an all-time high.

Apartments.com is out this week with its Top 10 cities for recent college graduates, and Charlotte landed in the No. 2 spot, behind only Denver, Co. The list factored in both affordability of average rents for one-bedroom apartments, plus median income and unemployment rates. It also assessed whether a city had "a vibrant culture catering to active young professionals," according to a press release from the site.

Also out this week is Niche.com's analysis of best cities and neighborhoods for millennials. Niche.com, which grew out of the Collegeprowler.com college rating site, offers rankings and reviews of neighborhoods, schools and metro areas. Charlotte landed at No. 18 on its analysis of the 25 best cities for millennials. (Raleigh came in at No. 12).

Every time I ask a developer about the risk of an apartment bubble locally, they point to the kind of demographic trends animating both these reports. The young folks are coming in droves, the developers say, and they aren't ready to buy houses.

What do you think? Are enough young adults arriving in Charlotte to support the many new apartments going up around the city?

Report putting Charlotte in top five cities for sprawl a call to action, local groups say

Local groups concerned about suburban sprawl and congestion are taking note of a new report that lists the Charlotte-Gastionia-Rock Hill, S.C. area as the nation's fifth most sprawl-prone large metropolitan area. The report, out this week from Smart Growth America, a national research group fighting for sustainable growth and land-use policies, studied development patterns at 221 metro areas and 994 counties in the U.S. as of 2010.

Among metro areas with more than 1 million people, Charlotte ranked fifth in sprawl among large metro areas and 25th worst overall. Hickory ranked first overall in the study, which factored in residential and employment density, accessibility of the street network, strength of downtowns and activity centers, and the mix of homes, jobs and services in neighborhoods.

Shannon Binns, head of Sustain Charlotte, a group fighting for sustainable land-use and transportation policies locally, said it points out the need for the city to expedite the ongoing review of its zoning codes, which were last overhauled in 1992. The current ordinance is still predicated on suburban-oriented development, at a time when more young adults are preferring to live in high-density, transit-oriented areas such as the South End. The current ordinance "is so convoluted and lengthy," Binns said. "It's kind of like the tax code. It doesn't promote modern thinking about land use and development."

The Centralina Council of Governments, which works with government agencies in Mecklenburg and surrounding counties, also felt the study pointed out the need for thoughtful efforts to guide growth and development. It has been working on a three-year effort called Connect our Future that aims to build a 14-county regional framework for growth. The group has been holding meetings around the region, soliciting input from more than 2,000 people in its first phase alone, and more than 4,000 overall. When asked in one survey to name the transportation feature most important to them, about the same percentage of those responding mentioned having more sidewalks, trails and other safe places to walk (21 percent) as mentioned getting more roads (22 percent).

"What they support is exactly what Smart Growth America and other organizations have indicated is essential for growth that is healthy," said Jim Prosser, Centralina's executive director.

The project expects to publish by year's end a framework designed to give local governments guidance and advice on planning for growth. To give your thoughts, visit connectourfuture.org.