Architect and developer turns over new leaf with hydroponic farming

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Ron Morgan used to be an architect and developer who took the buildings that symbolized the past of the Charlotte region — textile mills and furniture plants — and redesigned them as temples to urbanism and an eco-conscious future.

But, at 70, he reluctantly admits those days are behind him.

Morgan’s career has come to an ignominious end as a result of a poor economy, an unexpected bank merger and the real estate downturn.

“It isn’t really about buildings for me anymore,” Morgan said. “Not that I think we don’t need them. I just can’t do that anymore.”

The former visiting professor of architecture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte had built a distinguished career spanning some 30 years of urban design work and building redevelopment in Charlotte, Kings Mountain, Shelby, Mount Holly, Salisbury, Rock Hill and Greenville, S.C., and dozens of other cities.

His work throughout the 1970s and 1980s can still be seen among the buildings in the Queen City: Morgan left footprints on the design of the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture on South Tryon Street, a former AME Zion Church redesigned by Morgan and partners. And he worked on the former Queen City Foundry, an old industrial building Morgan and developer Ed Harris made into a Charlotte design landmark.

Now, he’s putting down roots in another career: hydroponic farming.

In 2012, he plans to unveil a new type of portable hydroponic farm that he expects to do nothing less than change the world.

“This is about sustainable agriculture on a very portable, very small scale,” Morgan said.

As his new venture begins to blossom, he leaves behind a legacy of projects he was involved in ever since moving to Charlotte from Berkley, Calif., in 1975.

He’s organized community groups, had a side career in sculpture and even ran for Charlotte mayor in 2001.

What would turn out to be Morgan’s final effort in redevelopment started out like many others had for him and his partner at the time, contractor Henry Holseburg.

In Morganton, a quaint Burke County city in western North Carolina, downtown was dominated by an old textile mill. The 160,000-square-foot facility was languishing and, beginning in 1998, Morgan convinced the City Council and Mayor Mel Cohen to not only redevelop the mill but also put City Hall in the facility.

“Morganton was the most ambitious and fully complete project I ever did,” Morgan said, “which is why it was so hard for me that it went so badly.”

Morgan has his own urban design company, Urban Ventures in Charlotte, a company he’s run since the 1980s. But for the Morganton deal, he and Holseburg formed a new firm, Morgan Trading Co.

Things started well, with financing for the project coming from Wachovia. Morgan bought the building for about $250,000. Over the course of the next 10 years, the project would become a $10 million effort.

“We started to hit delays almost right away,” Morgan said. “Wachovia merged with Interstate/Johnson Lane around that time, so our funding got caught up in the legal mess of the takeover. They really dropped the ball. I suppose it doesn’t matter if I say it like that now since neither of those companies exists anymore.”

Holseburg and his crew had the mill halfway refurbished — making way for City Hall and 40 residential units — when the money just dried up, Morgan said.

“So, the mill sat there, half empty, half open,” Morgan said. “We had tarps covering portions of it, and it would get rained on. We had so much water damage. This project was like my personal Vietnam. It was a war, and I’m just glad I made it out alive.”

Holseburg wasn’t so lucky. He died in 2005 from heart problems, and Morgan believes it was because of the stress brought on by all the problems stemming from the Morganton project. The project was finally finished and opened in 2008 by another developer, Greensboro-based Sun Chase American.

Despite having won awards on other projects during the same time frame and through the 1990s and 1980s, Morgan saw offers drying up in the development world.

“Part of it was just the economy, I’m sure,” he said. “But it is a small community amongst building and construction groups, and people talk. The Morganton project destroyed my credibility because it was so far over: over budget and over time by years. And so I was over, done. I would tell people I worked on that project, and they would call Morganton and hear about all those problems, and people didn’t want anything to do with me.”

It was a sad ending to a career that had seen great heights. Since arriving in Charlotte in the ‘70s, he made a name for himself in the region as the man who redeveloped downtowns.

“My first project in the Carolinas was taking an old mill in downtown Greenville (S.C.) and turning it into about seven condos,” Morgan said. “This happens often today, but back then people thought we were crazy.”

It didn’t sell well at first, but over time people moved in and the community flourished.

“Those units are still there,” Morgan said. “Another developer bought them in about 2004, fixed them up and flipped the property for about $40,000 profit. They are a good design.”

Morgan still has fans in Morganton, despite the flop that the mill project there became.

“He was known to be a visionary, and that is why we got involved with him,” Cohen said. “I’ve now been mayor for 26 years, and I can say Ron’s ideas were beneficial back then and they are beneficial today.”

Morgan’s development career might be in ashes, but as he describes the farm project his eyes flicker with inspiration.

“The entire thing can fit into a cargo container and be shipped anywhere around the world,” he said. “The unit is solar- and wind-powered, so it is perfect for places like Haiti where they are still suffering from lack of infrastructure.”

Morgan came up with the idea in conjunction with George Powell, a minister from Haiti and hydroponics expert. Powell, who died last year, designed the hydroponics project with Morgan.

The vegetable farms will be sold as kits. The idea is to enable people to quickly construct a small fishpond nearby for harvesting fish and fish waste products to use as fertilizer for the hydroponics crops in a process known as aquaponics.

Morgan is working with Johnson C. Smith University to put together a proof-of-concept model farm and plans to unveil it next year.

“The entire thing is self-sufficient and can feed about 40 people for a year,” Morgan said. “It really has the potential to radically alter the way we think of food production and sustainability.”

Regardless of where this new venture takes him, Morgan said he’ll always use the lessons he learned when he was a developer.

“I learned to trust my instincts when it comes to working with communities to make big ideas happen,” he said. “It is irritating to people around me, because everybody thinks they know the answer to how a project should go, but they haven’t done it yet.

“If you had to go to Vietnam, you wouldn’t just trust some trainer. You’d want someone who had been out in the jungle and was shot up and scarred to lead you through it. That’s who you’d trust your life to, the guy with experience.”

Baughman can be reached at [email protected].