City planners expect plenty of new shops and
restaurants to open on Central Avenue over the next few years, expanding
the business district that has blossomed in east Charlotte's Plaza-Midwood
neighborhood.
But they won't be your typical strip centers and
chain stores with big parking lots.
The Charlotte City Council will vote on new rules
next month that would require developers to build pedestrian-friendly
projects that front the street.
The rules are part of a new plan for Central Avenue
designed to accelerate its redevelopment while protecting its character.
In addition to the new zoning rules, the Plaza Central Pedscape plan calls
for more on-street parking, crosswalks, trees, benches and
pedestrian-level lighting -- which planners hope will attract new
businesses.
"The goal is to move away from the disjointed
shopping centers that have parking lots in the front to something more
pedestrian," said Charlotte-Mecklenburg planner Kent Main. "Over
time, we hope to remake the area into a more urban neighborhood."
Gary Frame, who has lived in the Plaza-Midwood
neighborhood for eight years, said the changes can't come soon enough.
"I live two blocks from Central and The Plaza
so I walk to the grocery store; I walk to Thomas Street Tavern," he
said. "This is a really unique business district, and it needs to be
preserved and protected."
As vice president of the Plaza-Midwood neighborhood
association, he has spent many hours negotiating with developers, trying
to convince them to build pedestrian-friendly buildings.
"When the CVS (pharmacy) went in, the
neighborhood had to persuade them not to have all the parking in the
front, not to have a huge drive-through in the front," he said.
"That's the kind of thing the pedscape plan will do for us."
The plan covers about a mile of Central Avenue from
Independence Boulevard to Nandina Street. Planners say they want the
entire street to look more like the retail area near The Plaza,
Commonwealth and Pecan avenues -- where Nova's Bakery, Fuel Pizza Cafe and
other stores front the street.
They envision a second highly walkable retail area
at the Central Five Points intersection near Louise Avenue. And along the
rest of the street, they will encourage multistory buildings with stores
or restaurants at street level and homes or offices above.
The plan also calls for:
• Improving the Central Five Points intersection
by extending curbs and adding an island where 10th Street veers off
Central.
• Adding a pedestrian path from Thomas Avenue to
The Plaza to connect the parking areas behind buildings.
• Creating a street between Commonwealth and
Clement avenues.
In the streetcar era, Central Avenue was one of
Charlotte's the city's most vibrant business centers. Lined with
restaurants, fashionable shops and even the city's first Harris Teeter
grocery store, it attracted shoppers from the fast-growing neighborhoods
of Plaza-Midwood, Chantilly, Elizabeth, Commonwealth-Morningside and
Belmont.
After World War II, however, people moved farther
from the city as part of the suburban boom. The widening of Independence
Boulevard was another blow, as it cut off many neighborhoods that shopped
in the area. Strip centers that catered to cars moved in, many of the
stores closed down and the area became neglected.
In the last decade, however, the district has been
on the upswing. The county opened a new library branch at Central and The
Plaza, and the city spent $1 million on new sidewalks and crosswalks of
brick pavers and Victorian-style street lamps. New businesses began to
move in.
The new development rules will ensure that
developers build in a way that will preserve the neighborhood's character,
Main said. They will go into effect immediately if the council approves
them on Feb. 16.
There's no timetable on other, more costly
improvements in the plan, such as installation of benches, street trees
and pedestrian lighting. The City Council will consider such improvements
as part of the budget process this spring. "You can't get money for
something you don't have a plan for, so we had to do the plan first,"
Main explained.
Planners have not yet estimated the cost of the
improvements, he said.
Monte Ritchey, who is planning a mixed-use project
and a condominium complex along Central, said he believes the plan will
attract more developers to the area.
"It will free up developers to be more
creative," he said. "We don't like to sell a bunch of promises.
We like to sell from knowns -- and plans are known entities."
