Developers want to slice off more than 11 acres of
North Charlotte's industrial underbelly and transform it into a
neighborhood.
Herrin Towers, the tentative name of a project
planned at the northeast corner of Herrin Avenue and Spencer Street, will
include a minimum of 190 residences, said Babak Emadi of Urbana Urban
Design & Architecture.
He and his Urbana partner, Jonathan Bahr, are
participating in the venture with majority owners Jim and Margaret
McDonald and Dean Harrell.
McDonald Services Inc., which builds and refurbishes
large compactors for the recycling industry at the site, has begun moving
the operation to Union County.
Harrell owns R.D. Harrell Co., the development
company that will oversee conversion of the industrial property to
residential.
Emadi, the point person for the estimated $30
million project, sees it as an extension of the thriving NoDa arts and
entertainment district.
The hub of NoDa is about a half mile away at North
Davidson and East 36th streets.
That intersection -- sometimes referred to in
earlier times as Charlotte's "second square" -- is at the heart
of a revitalization movement that began in the 1970s as dancers, actors
and artists moved in and restored aging mill houses.
Today NoDa has evolved into a trendy district of
eclectic galleries, shops, restaurants and performance venues combined
with new and renovated commercial buildings and residences.
Herrin Towers would include eight single-family
homes along Herrin Avenue plus townhome-style condominiums in a
neighborhood similar to First Ward's Garden District.
The site development plan shows interior streets
designed around pie-shaped wedges of green space, common areas for
residents and sculptures created from metal salvaged from the industrial
site.
The single-family houses would be designed in
Craftsman architectural style with shingles, brick accents, oversized trim
and front porches to mesh with older homes across Herrin Avenue.
Four buildings would be constructed with flat roofs
so residents could have terraces on top. And one row of buildings would
face a neighborhood park.
The most unusual units -- and the inspiration for
the project's name -- would be four residential "towers" along a
railroad track bordering the site.
Each four-story unit would have three living levels.
The top would be wrapped in glass for panoramic views of the skyline and
the ground level would be a garage.
Emadi said the developers plan to preserve two old
buildings on the site -- the original Herrin Oil Co., a 600-square-foot
brick structure, and a 23,000-square-foot warehouse with a bow-truss roof.
The smaller building likely would be used for
offices, and the larger one would be converted to about 25 residential and
office lofts, each about 900 square feet with a mezzanine.
Emadi's firm has designed other revitalization
projects in NoDa with an emphasize on preserving the neighborhood's
character and scale.
Residents have grown wary as more developers arrive
with projects to capitalize on the neighborhood's personality, popularity
and proximity to uptown.
Emadi said Herrin Towers' developers decided to keep
it more than 90 percent residential, because "we didn't want to
compete with downtown NoDa. We didn't want to pull any of the energy away
from there."
The development entity -- Half Moon of Union LLC --
has filed a rezoning petition with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning
Commission to clear the way for redevelopment of the acreage.
Approval probably wouldn't come before late spring,
and they don't anticipate starting construction until summer.
The first project likely would be conversion of the
warehouse. After that, work would proceed methodically from the outer
edges along Herrin and Spencer streets to the railroad track along the
back of the site.
Another developer, Gateway Homes, has begun site
work for up to 200 townhomes with commercial space on about 14 acres on
the opposite side of the track.
Emadi said the development team hopes to bring in
local builders for the various residential components of Herrin Towers.
The project likely would be completed over three to five years, he said.
Prices haven't been determined at this early stage.
The developers anticipate residential units would cost about $120 a square
foot, which Emadi said is the average cost in NoDa.
He said most units in Herrin Towers would range from
1,200 square feet to 1,500 square feet, which would put the asking price
at roughly $144,000 to $180,000.
Development in NoDa is in full swing along North
Davidson Street, with Winter Properties' conversion of the 100-year-old
Highland Park Mill No. 3 to apartments, Crosland's Lofts 34
residential-retail building and Gateway Homes' latest condos.
The next phase will involve one of the
neighborhood's landmarks: Fat City Deli.
Crosland hopes to start by late this year on a
project that would preserve the colorful facade and combine it with a new
building of residential lofts atop shops, galleries and restaurants.
Doug Smith
