Executive Report-September/October 2011

Posted by Realtor® Reflections Magazine on September 1, 2011 · 1 Comment 

Win-win
Association enhances property; midtown gains, too

By Anne Marie Howard

If you’ve visited the association’s corner of the world of late — or are planning to attend the annual Candidate Fish Fry Sept. 22 — you’ll see a big change.

The office building the association owned at the corner of Kenilworth Avenue and Greenwood Cliff is no longer there. We had it demolished this summer as part of a “property swap” with the City of Charlotte to complete the intersection at Pearl Park Way into our property and thereby make our property more attractive for potential redevelopment sometime in the future.

It’s a big win-win for everybody — the association, the City of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation, and Duke Energy.

In January 2007, our Realtor® and property manager Roger Cobb with NAI Southern Real Estate commented that the Baxter Street bridge realignment (now known as Pearl Park Way) was key for us. “My goal is to ensure that there is access to the stop light directly from (the association) property,” he said. We began meeting with the city in mid-2007 about the project.

Not long afterward, all of the players could see how we could collectively contribute to making this prime midtown area better. Things got bogged down a couple of times, but we found solutions. Every step of the way, our Association Board of Directors approved the plan.

Overview of changes

We have donated a small amount of property along Kenilworth to allow Duke Energy to relocate overhead lines at the Kenilworth/Pearl Park Way intersection.

The land donation, coupled with one from Mecklenburg County, also provides space to add a middle turn lane on Kenilworth and a necessary widening of the road. The turn lane will be highly beneficial to our members and the public on this busy thoroughfare. We expect the lane to be done by late fall.

That’s not all.

The county and the association each donated a small amount of land to allow the city to extend Pearl Park Way, a new street through Little Sugar Creek Greenway that currently dead-ends into Kenilworth. The city is building the extension and constructing connectors, or driveways, into our parking lot and into Pearl Street Park. The city projects the extension and connectors to be finished by no later than the end of the year.

So why demolish the building?

From the beginning, the association purchased the property for the land, not the building. The land is in the heart of midtown and contiguous to the rest of our 5.4 acres. The other building and parking lot we own, in addition to our headquarters at 1201 Greenwood Cliff, is in much better shape and has high occupancy; even though, it, too, was purchased for the land and not the building. That site is 1225 Harding Place.

With the construction industry less robust than it was several years ago, we obtained a much better price on demolition, a benefit from the length of time it took to accomplish this deal.

We strongly believe that removing the building and the intersection improvements we received in return make the property much more desirable for redevelopment. Based on an Urban Land Institute assessment of our property in October 2008, our 5.4 acres is a prime candidate for mixed-use development. It could be suitable for office, residential, retail, a hotel or some combination thereof.

While this makes our property more attractive, don’t get the idea that we’re about to make a move. We are sitting tight. I just wanted to let you know what’s behind “the new look” at the association — that we’ve enhanced the association property’s desirability and helped midtown in the process. A true win-win.

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