Mecklenburg Times: News for Mecklenburg, Union and Iredell counties Real Estate, Development, Construction, and Community News in the Charlotte area and throughout Mecklenburg, Union and Iredell counties
As demand for apartments soars across the Charlotte area, THS National will be giving Elizabeth Square apartments a roughly $150,000 new paint job.
Starting next month, the Charlotte-based construction company, which specializes in apartments, will begin painting the exterior of the 267-unit, roughly 200,000-square-foot building at 730 Hawthorne Lane starting.
“It is a pretty large amount of surface area that faces Independence Boulevard,” said Kevin Higgins, THS’ owner and president. “This is just the road frontage of the building, so what I would call the entire right side. We’ve done a lot of work with RiverStone Residential, which manages that building.”
Elizabeth Square apartments
The apartment market continues to thrive in Charlotte. This month, Charlotte-based Real Data said the average occupancy rate for the metro area — Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Gaston, Iredell, Union, and York counties — is at 93.3 percent, up from just under 93 percent in September.
Real Data said the average rate for an apartment in Charlotte is $786 a month. That’s up 0.76 percent since $780 in September, when Real Data’s last report on the area’s apartment market was published.
In March 2011, Real Data said the average rent in Charlotte was $733.
In the six-county area, Uptown has the highest average rental rate — $1,216 a month — according to Real Data, which surveyed 108,327 units in apartment communities with at least 50 units.
“We are very busy with remodeling jobs, because apartments are in high demand,” Higgins said, adding that, in the past year, THS’ has found itself doing lots of renovation work. “And many buildings in the past few years weren’t making much money, so sometimes the managers skipped a few routine or yearly maintenance things that needed to be done. Now that they are drawing a profit again, some managers are calling us to do a little catch-up work.”
Woodfield Investments, based in Arlington, Va., developed Elizabeth Square apartments in 2009. The $39.9 million project sits on 3.37 acres.
ELIZABETH SQUARE AT A GLANCE
Units: 267
Developer: Woodfield Investments of Arlington, Va.
Development costs: $39.9 million
Completed: spring 2009
Property acreage: 3.37
Construction type: dense garden/structured parking
Source: Woodfield Investments
Baughman can be reached at [email protected].
