Council seeks details on Sedgefield development

The developer of a proposed 60-acre revitalization project along South Boulevard in the Sedgefield community has requested that the city’s Zoning Committee delay its consideration of the plan from its Sept. 24 meeting to Oct. 29.

The request was filed Tuesday by Keith MacVean of Moore & Van Allen PLLC, following a public hearing Monday at which the Charlotte City Council, neighbors, planning staff members expressed reservations about the current plan. The deadline for developer Marsh Properties to submit plan revisions has been pushed back from Sept. 19 to Oct. 24. The full City Council is now anticipated to vote on the plan Nov. 17.

Marsh Properties LLC is hoping to “revitalize” the Sedgefield community with a 60-acre project on the east side of South Boulevard on both sides of Poindexter Drive and Elmhurst Road.

Marsh filed the rezoning request in May of this year for the $190 million proposed redevelopment of the Sedgefield Shopping Center, as well as a Sedgefield neighborhood.

Jamie McLawhorn, president of Marsh Properties, and Jeff Brown, who’s representing the property, both spoke at the hearing.

“We have three geographies to consider,” Brown said in reference to the project’s development plan.

Marsh hopes to put in 980 multi-family housing units, 100,000 square feet of office space, and 98,000 square feet of retail stores. The site currently has 303 housing units, all of which will be torn down to make way for the new units.

Although the new housing units will be in apartment buildings, the site’s unit density will rise to more than 18 units per acre.

McLawhorn and Brown said the site’s current housing units are experiencing plumbing and electrical issues, and that keeping up the units has become costly.

In light of these issues, they said this project would give Sedgefield the opportunity to “start from scratch.”

The development period is projected at eight to 10 years, which city Planning Manager Tammie Keplinger said is not “uncommon” for projects this expansive.

McLawhorn and Brown described the proposed plan as “long-phase development.”

Community opposition

But those who were representing the opposition at the hearing said there were immediate problems that superseded the undertaking of a long-term project.

Deborah Robinson, president of Sedgefield’s Neighborhood Association, said the neighborhood’s crosswalks are in bad condition, and that these conditions were putting pedestrians’ safety at risk.

“Everyone is talking about pedestrian safety, let’s start here,” she said at the hearing.

The opposing representatives also mentioned the lack of bike lanes and dilapidated sidewalks in the neighborhood.

“If you’re going to put 980 units in a neighborhood, and you want people to use all the amenities around you, your have to make the adjustments in your infrastructure to do that,” Robinson said.

Those who were opposed also said that the increased number of housing units would increase traffic in the area, and that construction would contribute to this as well. They said tripling the number of housing units on the site would also triple the number of cars going in and out of the neighborhood.

Robinson said the city needs to work closely with Marsh Properties to assure South End residents that the project is shaped for the neighborhood.

Lack of details

The City Council showed signs of interest in the development plan, but agreed with opposition comments that the development plan lacked sufficient details at this point.

Brown and McLawhorn failed to provide a timeline beyond the project’s initial stage in their response to the council, which expressed concerns about 10 years of ongoing construction.

Brown said the retail portion of the site may start to be developed in the first half of 2015.

Council member Ed Driggs also asked Brown and McLawhorn how Marsh would accommodate the neighborhood’s residents during the construction of housing units, to which they responded that the project will be “slow, steady phase development.”

The council also encouraged Marsh not to “ignore” schools, because its plan could make it difficult for the surrounding schools to accommodate new students that move to the Sedgefield neighborhood.

“The development allowed under the existing zoning would generate 114 students, while the development allowed under the proposed zoning will produce 894 students,” according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s prehearing staff analysis. “Therefore, the net change in the number of students generated from existing zoning to proposed zoning is 780 students.”

The council closed the hearing by saying it was in favor of redevelopment in the Sedgefield community, but also advised Marsh to carefully consider its long-term approach.

“We have a choice, we could have gone and zoned just the South Boulevard portion, (but) to implement community plans it’s so much better to do a master plan,” Brown said.

The project’s timeline

Completion of the first phase of the project, which will be retail space, could be late 2016 or early 2017, according to the project’s most recent community meeting report.

“The remainder of the development areas will be developed over time, (perhaps over as long as a 10 year period) with a variety of housing types which could include some for-sale products,” the report read.

Brown declined to comment on the opposition at the hearing, or provide any further details about the project’s timeline.

Almost half the site’s allocated retail space will be dedicated to building a new Harris Teeter grocery store.

This marks the return of the grocery store chain to the Sedgefield community; the second Harris Teeter that was ever built resided in the Sedgefield Shopping Center from 1960 until 1988. The store will be modeled after its mid-20^th century predecessor, and smaller shops will provide outdoor spaces for gathering and views from rooftop dining, according to Marsh.

For more details on Marsh’s redevelopment plan near South End, visit https://bit.ly/YSUmUp.