SilverLake Business Park owners want rezoning to keep tenant from leaving

The owners of SilverLake Business Park in Charlotte want to rezone more than 21 acres at the park as part of a plan to keep a long-term tenant.

Property owners SilverLake I, II, III and IV are asking for a heavier zoning classification so that Polygal, a tenant at SilverLake since 2003, can expand its operation to include light manufacturing at the business park at Westinghouse Boulevard and D. Ducks Lane between Stockport Place and South Tryon Street.

The rezoning from Industrial 1 conditional (I-1 CD) to Industrial 2 conditional (I-2 CD) will include four out of five buildings at the site.

Polygal operates out of approximately 50,000 square feet of the 565,000-square-foot business park, said Lorin Stiefel, manager at Charlotte-based M. David Properties, a family-owned property-management firm that operates SilverLake.

Polygal wants to extrude plastic in the facility rather than continue to import large plastic sheets from Israel, Stiefel said. The new zoning, if approved, would allow the company to produce sheets of plastic larger than what is available from Israel, saving Polygal time and money, according to the company.

The rezoning is needed if Polygal is to stay at SilverLake. If the rezoning is approved, Polygal said, it might invest as much as $10 million in machinery and hire an additional 25 to 50 people at the site during the next three to five years, according to documents submitted with the rezoning request.

The Charlotte City Council will hold a public hearing about the rezoning March 19, with a decision expected in April.

Stiefel said SilverLake is fully leased, except for one 25,000-square-foot space, accounting for a roughly 4 percent vacancy rate. The first buildings at the site were constructed in the mid-1990s, she said.

SilverLake recently signed a new tenant in November. Pennington Seed, a division of Central Garden and Pets, is distributing grass seed out of the 49,550-square-feet space in the SilverLake II building, Stiefel said.

Lane Holbert, a senior vice president with Cassidy Turley in Charlotte, was the leasing agent representing SilverLake in the deal. Bryan Crutcher, a first vice president with CBRE in Charlotte, represented Pennington.

Ramsey can be reached at [email protected].