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Just two years ago uptown Charlotte seemed ready to burst with high-rise housing.
Billionaire Donald Trump and other developers disclosed plans for up to 20 projects, including two 50-story condo towers.
Today, seven high-rise residential projects have been completed inside the Interstate 277 loop.
Trump is long gone and only one giant tower – the Vue in Fourth Ward – is under construction. It's up to 41 floors and is expected to reach its full height of 50 in August.
The once giddy uptown market is plodding along. Two projects were converted to apartments; another will be 50 percent rental units. And one proposed high-rise is still preselling condos but hasn't set a start date.
Nearly 300 recently finished condos are listed for sale by developers uptown, about 350 are available in projects under way or planned, and individual owners are reselling about 275 units, based on statistics complied by The Littlejohn Group.
“What happened is no different from what happened to home sales in general,” said David Furman of Centro CityWorks, which developed the 28-story TradeMark and 17-story Courtside. “Negative news is much higher profile when it is uptown.”
He believes people still want to live near entertainment, dining and cultural facilities in the urban core and will return when confidence rebounds.
“We sort of seduced ourselves into thinking all of the go-go market was for real,” Furman said. “Part of it was flippers – investors just trying to get their 10 percent and move on.”
When home sales recover, he said, “those guys will be gone. We will get back to a real market.”
Developers could start building again within three years, said multi-family analyst Emma Littlejohn of The Littlejohn Group.
She said the uptown housing market got hammered by both the collapse of the financial markets and the turmoil surround the city's banking giants.
Mortgage lenders held back at the same time the market was deteriorating for center-city financial services jobs.
With their jobs uncertain, many potential buyers dropped out of the uptown condo market.
Uptown condo prices range from just under $100,000 to $5 million.
Before the downturn, there was no consistent supply as buyers posted deposits and waited for units to be completed, said Maggie Collister of The Littlejohn Group.
But as sales slowed, she said, the supply grew, leading to too many units selling for $300,000 and up and not enough priced below $250,000.
Fourth Ward Square Apartments, which was to have been redeveloped as The Citadin high-rise condos, instead decided to convert existing apartments to condos for prices starting at $99,900.
Its quick sellout indicates that demand for lower-priced units is strong, Collister said.
Two other major projects just outside the loop – Metropolitan in midtown and Royal Court in Dilworth – have begun moving in condo owners.
Uptown, of course, the glamorous dwellings are the tall towers – those glass condos in the clouds that are reshaping Charlotte's skyline.
The Vue – the last among the 20 proposed projects to actually get off the ground – will be the only luxury condo tower to hit the market in 2010.
“The Vue is in a great spot,” Littlejohn said. “It will be the only 50-story condo tower.”
Nearly half of its 409 units, $319,000 to $2million-plus, are under contract for sale, and purchasers are expected to start moving in next summer.
Vue sales associate Rob McCrorey said interest is growing now that home hunters can check out the amenities and see the skyline view from a just-completed model unit.
A major Vue competitor disappeared after a legal dispute between developers halted the 50-story 210 Trade condo tower planned for the EpiCentre project.
For an accounting of what happened with the other uptown high-rise and residential mixed-use projects proposed two years ago, see the graphic on 1D.
Doug Smith: 704-358-5174; dougsmith@charlotteobserver.com
