Every morning since November, my wife and I have woken to the beeps of bulldozers in reverse and the cracks of clearing brush. Across the street from our condominium complex, built in 1965, crews are leveling four lots to make way for a new development. The general process has repeated itself over the past few years along this block, tucked behind Park Road Shopping Center, four miles south of uptown. This time, it’s four houses built in the 1950s, to be replaced by 16 townhomes. Starting price for each: about $600,000.
It’s a common scene in Charlotte’s “close-in” neighborhoods, those that adjoin or are within a few miles of uptown. Investors snap up ranch-style and other houses from yesteryear’s suburbs and in their place build custom homes twice their size or, where zoning allows, townhomes and apartments that seem to fill out every inch of once-expansive lawns.
From the perspective of this block, it’s a happy story. The young couple bought that three-bedroom for $237,000 in 2014 and sold it to the developer for $465,000 last fall. They’re certainly not complaining. “Don’t mess this up for us,” the woman told a neighbor who approached her with a petition in 2018, when word spread about The Drakeford Company’s plan to ask the city to rezone the property. The neighbor feared tree loss and traffic increases. But opposition fizzled when developers noted the zoning in place allowed them to build the same number of units.
Denne historien er fra April 2020-utgaven av Charlotte Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra April 2020-utgaven av Charlotte Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
‘This Is How We're Going to Make Your Child Better'
Pediatric neurosurgery is technically and emotionally complex—and traditionally dominated by men. As Novant’s first female pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Erin Kiehna Richardson has had to learn the intricacies of a demanding field and battle sexism along the way
The Dumbledore of CMC
A surgery resident wrote a series of children’s books and created a special kind of medical magic
LGBTQ HB2+5
Five years after the furor of House Bill 2, the LGBTQ community—in Charlotte, in North Carolina, and across much of the nation—fights attacks on new fronts
Oh, Snap!
New ‘selfie museum’ in Concord celebrates the 1990s
ALLISON LATOS
The WSOC anchor on her hard trek from one episode of loss and grief to another—and the meaning of resilience
GOOD HEALTH
For years, Charlotte has been one of the largest American cities that lacked a four-year medical school. The health care professionals who finally made it happen overcame a series of setbacks, false starts, and failures, and they plan to use their clean slate to create a new kind of community asset
Summer Partee
From woodwork to retail, the kindergarten teacher-turned-designer has learned how to do it herself
Uptown or Downtown?
Archives illuminate how long we’ve argued over the perennial question
NOW OPEN NOVEL ITALIAN
Paul Verica brings a simpler version of the city’s hottest food trend to NoDa
TOP DOCTORS 2021
The annual list you can't without
