New Hilton hotel planned for First Ward district

Hilton hotels announced today that it is launching a new hotel brand called Canopy by Hilton, and a representative for Levine Properties says one of the first of the new hotels will land in the First Ward district the real estate firm is developing in uptown Charlotte.

Canopy San Diego

Levine Properties broke ground last month for the public park that marks the start of a 12- to 15-year development plan that hopes to bring as much as $1 billion in new offices, shops, residences and hotels to a nine-block area around UNC Charlotte's Center City building. Levine Properties has several possible hotel sites in the area; one sketch of its plan for the district shows a 175- to 200-room hotel going in at Caldwell and Seventh streets, near the new park. Levine spokeswoman Colleen Brannan said it's too early to say where exactly the new hotel would go.

Construction could start in 2016, she said, and would take two to three years to complete. Hilton says it hopes to open the first of the new Canopy hotels in 2015. It has signed letters of intent in Charlotte and 10 other cities, from London to Portland.

Levine Properties President Daniel Levine said the Canopy brand's emphasis on building in attractive neighborhoods and showcasing local food, art and design makes it a good fit for the First Ward project, which he has said he envisions as Charlotte's answer to New York's Greenwich Village. "Hilton's selection of Charlotte as one of only 11 markets for its new lifestyle brand ... is further evidence that the Queen City is a national draw," he said in a statement. "Levine Properties is looking forward to delivering more hotel rooms to the center city."

Apartment complex going up on Morehead Street uptown

Ohio-based NRP Group is about to start construction on a 298-unit apartment complex on Morehead Street at Church Street. The five-story complex, called the Quarters at Morehead, will be located on a 2.4 acre tract bounded by Morehead, Church and Winnifred streets and Carson Boulevard. NRP closed on the property Tuesday. "We're so ready to start," NRP's Mark Tipton said. "If I could get out there tonight with a hammer I would."

He said the new apartments will be aimed at the growing cadre of young professionals working uptown, but added that he imagines professionals of all ages will like its proximity to major employers such as Duke Energy and the fact that Bank of America Stadium is just down the hill and around the corner. The complex will have one-and two-bedroom units, and also will feature some townhouse units and units with two-story mezzanines. Tipton said workers should be on the site within a week starting the project, with an eye on finishing it next spring.

It will be the latest in a rush of new apartments sprouting in and around uptown Charlotte. Some analysts say Charlotte could find itself with an over-supply of apartments this year, but Tipton, like others developing the newest apartment complexes, doesn't sound worried. "Multi-family living has come of age. People want to be close to their work and don't want to drive," he said.

Construction underway on luxury Stonewall Street apartments uptown

Construction is under way on Fountains Uptown, a luxury apartment complex at East Stonewall and McDowell streets.
Work on the the six-story, 230-unit complex began in early January, after Charlotte-based Proffitt Dixon Partners bought the 2-acre site from the city of Charlotte for $3.8 million last year. It will feature a two-level clubhouse, an elevated saltwater pool and a rooftop patio with skyline views. The project’s first units will be completed by mid- to late-summer with full completion in 2015, said Wyatt Dixon.

The project comes amidst an apartment complex building boom, with 14 projects under construction in uptown and South End, according to Center City Partners.


“We certainly see a lot of competition out there over the next 18 to 36 months,” Dixon said. “While we don’t have plans to begin pursuing other infill opportunities right now, we believe that quality urban living in Charlotte is here to stay. This will bode well for Charlotte’s long-term prospects. It will certainly be more challenging in the short term, however.”

Three questions Atlanta's 'Snowmageddon' raise for Charlotte

Several of my Facebook friends have posted this article from Politico, which takes a long hard look at the urban planning and development missteps that helped set the stage for the 'Snowmageddon' that hit Atlanta Tuesday. Basically, the writer, a longtime observer of Atlanta's history and development, concludes that the lack of a coherent regional mass transit system and fractured local government have left the Atlanta metro area vulnerable to gridlock in a fast-developing civic emergency. Judging from our story today, our local elected officials deserve a tip of the hat for correctly zigging where the Atlanta officials zagged.

Still, the whole thing left me with a couple of questions about Charlotte's growth and development:

Question No. 1: Will our mass transit and roads system keep up? The Charlotte-Mecklenburg region is growing. We're beginning to build the next leg of the LYNX light rail system. But it's just the beginning of our planned regional mass transit network, and at the moment, there's no money to pay for the rest of the Charlotte Area Transit System's 2030 plan.

Question No. 2: Is our regional cooperation strong enough? The region has a history of counties and cities coming together around broader civic goals like transportation and economic development. But the recent fight over Charlotte-Douglas International Airport exposed some serious cracks in our regional armor. And folks in fast-growing Ballantyne have been making noises for years about pulling out of the city of Charlotte and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Question No. 3: Is the changing nature of how people live, work and play reducing the chances that the next few stages of Charlotte's development will mirror Atlanta's descent toward the dark side of the suburban sprawl equation? I've attended a number of local and regional conferences recently in which major Charlotte developers (most recently SouthPark builder Johnny Harris) have stressed that many in the younger generation of workers/consumers simply aren't as attracted as their parents were to the idea of living in far-flung suburbs. They want to live near the urban core, with walkable neighborhoods, street-level retail and mass transit at the ready. The South End makes the obvious case in point.

Maybe what happened in Atlanta was just the product of bureaucratic bungling, and nothing more. But as Charlotte's population growth propels it inexorably toward the upper ranks of America's cities, these sure seem like questions we should all be asking.