76-foot fault? Developer and tennis pro disagree on SouthPark building’s shadow threat

Listen to this article

John Williams is worried about his tennis courts. City Councilman Andy Dulin is worried about the sacred property rights of Americans. And both men are chasing shadows.

As the resident tennis pro for Barclay Downs Swim and Racquet club on Inverness Road in the Barclay Downs neighborhood of Charlotte, Williams oversees lots of play on the club’s six courts throughout the year. Two of the courts are clay.

But if a new apartment project from Virginia-based Woodfield Acquisitions is approved by the Charlotte City Council, a 76-foot high tower might cast a harsh shadow over those courts. And Williams said that could damage the playing surface of the clay courts when the temperature drops.

“When you have a building of that size, it will keep a shadow on the back half of this court for a long time during the day in the winter months,” Williams said. “That means it is going to freeze. And you can’t play on that.”

The tennis club opposes the rezoning, but its bid to stop the apartment suffered a setback last week. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission’s zoning committee voted 7-0 to recommend of the rezoning request. (See “Zoning Committee backs apartment project”) The final decision is up to the City Council.

Dulin, whose District 6 includes Barclay Downs, has a private-ownership concern.

“The problem there is (the club members) don’t own the land next to them,” Dulin said. “And that landowner, by his God-given American right, has the ability to sell his land.”

The developer, Woodfield, has a contract to purchase the approximately 3.2 acres of land from the owner, Pinnacle Building, contingent upon the site’s rezoning from land for an office park to land for the apartment project.

Because of the current zoning, the owner of the 3.2 acres, without asking the City Council’s approval, could put up an office-park-type building that would be the same height as, or even taller than, the 76-foot structure Woodfield is proposing.

Nevertheless, in negotiations with the club’s owners, Woodfield has compromised on the size and position of the building, agreeing to reduce its height to 76 feet for the section facing the tennis courts as opposed to the 120 feet of other sections. Also, to assuage fears about how freezing temperatures would damage the tennis court, Woodfield had a shadow study done.

Chad Hagler, a partner at Woodfield, said Charlotte-based architecture firm Housing Studio handled the study as part of its services to Woodfield. Housing Studio also designed the apartment building.

“We spent a significant amount of money on the shadow study,” Hagler said, adding that such a study is an unusual wrinkle for a developer. “But we knew this was important to the neighbors, so we did it with three different scenarios. We studied the shadows cast by the trees that are already there, shadows cast by possible office buildings that could be built on the land and the shadows cast by our proposed apartments building.”

The shadow study used computer modeling to show the density and direction of shadows cast by the two hypothetical structures and the trees planted on the property line adjacent to the tennis courts.

The software simulated shadow conditions in winter, spring, summer and fall, taking into account the varying distances between the sun and the Earth during each season. A copy of the study obtained by The Mecklenburg Times shows shadows from the trees covering only a small portion of the courts through the spring and summer. During the fall, the trees’ shadows cover about a quarter of the courts. During the winter, the trees’ shadows cover approximately 95 percent of the clay court with the largest shadow coming after 3 p.m.

The possible office buildings cover only a small portion of the courts in shadow regardless of the season. Shadows from the proposed apartment building cover about half of the tennis courts during November and December with more shadows coming in the afternoon.

Hagler said some in the Barclay Downs community had implied that Housing Studio’s architectural services tainted the results of the firm’s shadow study, but he flatly denied any conflict of interest and called the accusations “absurd.”

When leaves fall

Williams, who has seen the shadow study, said it did not take into account the differences between the trees and the building.

He said that because leaves fall as the temperature drops, the shade the trees produce in the winter months is less extensive than in the summer, thus obviously much less than that produced by a solid building.

“Also, I’d call this dappled shade,” Williams said. “Because trees sway and move with the wind, they are not a steady shadow on one spot all morning long. That apartment building isn’t going to be swaying.”

Although it is called a clay court, the playing surface is actually a greenish-gray grit that covers a solid stone court underneath. To keep the powdery surface at the right consistency, Williams has a watering system installed underneath the clay surface. He said the constant watering of the grit makes it more prone to freeze at night during the winter months and then thaw during the day. With the shadows in place from the apartment building, Williams said, the court will never thaw enough to play on before it refreezes during the winter nights.

“These two clay courts cost us about $100,000 to install three years ago,” said Robin Perkins, treasurer for the club. “But they get a lot of use. I’ve been playing tennis at the club for 15 years, and now I only ever play on the clay courts.”

Williams said the clay courts are the most popular.

“The ball can deflect and bounce differently because of the friction of the court surface,” Williams said. “Playing on clay like this is the best option for players as they age, too, because the softer surface is easier on the knees.”

He said the watering system is necessary to keep the court in playable shape.

“I can’t just decide to turn the water off,” Williams said. “Without that moisture, the clay surface will dry out, chip up, turn completely gray and it will be like playing on sand. It won’t work.”

And Williams also said the lines on the court are strips of plastic nailed into the clay. Painting the lines on the court would be useless as the clay shifts and is kicked around by players. Once the moist clay freezes, it forces the nails up off the court and warps the lines.

“If your clay court freezes and becomes distorted like that, you can spend about $2,000 putting it back into shape after the winter,” Williams said. “One of the reasons we got a clay court is that here in Charlotte, we usually don’t have to worry about it freezing. If they build the tower, that just won’t work.”

Sunshine helps

The courts are manufactured by Charlottesville, Va.-based Har-Tru Sports. Pat Hanssen, director of sales and marketing for Har-Tru said the courts do freeze from the top down and then thaw from the top down.

“When the temperature begins to rise the next day and the sun hits the court it thaws first on the top and works its way down,” Hanssen said. “Any water that starts to thaw at the top tends to stay wet. Even if it thawed, the court wouldn’t be playable if it doesn’t have sun on it to help it dry out.”

Hanssen said the lower the temperature, the more impact will be felt on the Har-Tru court.

“If it is going down to 32 degrees and the next day the temperature is getting up to 50 degrees, I don’t think the building’s shadow will substantially affect it,” he said. “But if it gets down to 28, then the building’s presence could have a big effect on the court and make it stay unplayable longer.”

Hanssen said it was possible that at the lower temperatures the court could be damaged and need repairs, such as replacing the lines. But he said if the court sustained only a light freeze, the surface could be dried out and simply flattened back into place with a hand rolling tool.

Hilary Greenberg, president of the Barclay Downs Homeowners Association, said the issue with the tennis courts was a big deal for the club as a whole.

“That opaque shadow is going to be a problem,” Greenberg said. “Our position is you can resolve this simply by lowering the (apartment building’s) height.”

Greenberg said Woodfield had been very willing to meet with the community. “What they have not been good at is actually making the changes we request,” she said.

For Williams, the specter of the tower looms large over his plans for tennis leagues and tournaments at the club throughout the year.

“If we knock these two courts out of the ones we have to work with on our schedule, we have issues,” Williams said. “We have one of the largest tennis programs in Charlotte crammed onto four courts. There are a lot of fears I have from that big wall being so close to me.”

But Councilman Dulin is not convinced that the shade will be a problem.

“The study they did showed their project would cast a shadow on about half of the lower tennis courts for a very brief period of time in the winter,” said Dulin, who has read the shadow study. “The current trees cast more of a shadow than does the proposed building.”

Dulin said he hadn’t made up his mind about how he will vote on the rezoning request for the apartment project when it comes before the City Council on Sept. 24, a few weeks before Williams begins preparing for winter leagues, and the leaves begin to fall from the trees behind the clay courts.