‘Something cool.’ Here’s when historic Dilworth building moves after escaping demolition
Dilworth residents in early August may see an old brick building floating through their streets.
Restaurant owners Jeff Tonidandel and his wife Jamie Brown are getting closer to moving the 121-year-old historic Leeper & Wyatt structure 750 feet to an empty parking lot near the former Bonterra restaurant that they own at 1829 Cleveland Ave. Aug. 9 is the tentative moving date, according to Tonidandel.
They made plans to save the building, at 1923 South Blvd., last year after getting approval from Charlotte City Council and Historic District Commission members. The structure at the edge of Dilworth and South End faced demolition because of an apartment project.
Wolfe House & Building Movers, Duke Energy, nearby businesses, architects, engineers and masonry professionals are involved in the process.
The cost for the moving project was not disclosed, but Tonidandel said it was over the “seven-figure” range.
Saving history
The Leeper & Wyatt building was a grocery store for more than 50 years and served the Atherton Mill and Dilworth communities. It is the oldest brick commercial property in the area and one of about 400 historic landmarks in Mecklenburg County.
New South entrepreneur Daniel Tompkins built it, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks organization. The Rev. Hugh Leeper and Pleasant Wyatt operated the building in the early 1900s. After Leeper got out of the grocery business by 1908, it became known as the Wyatt Company.
Wyatt’s son, C.L. Wyatt, managed the store after his death in 1948.
The post-World War II decline of Charlotte’s inner neighborhoods and competition from new supermarkets forced neighborhood businesses like the Wyatt store to close. Ownership changed several times after C.L. Wyatt died in 1971, and it operated as a night club, antique store and gym, according to the historic landmarks commission.
Brown and Tonidandel took action to save the building after Nashville-based Southern Land Company announced plans to build a high-rise apartment building on the corner of East Tremont Avenue and South Boulevard. Southern Land said it wasn’t feasible to keep the old building around because of the city’s plans to widen South Boulevard, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
After a plan to reuse the building for commercial purposes fell through last year with lot owner Clearwater Development Partners cost, the couple’s Tonidandel-Brown Restaurant Group decided to step in and take ownership of the project.
What’s going on now?
Construction workers are digging at the new Cleveland Avenue site to make way for the old building’s foundation, according to Tonidandel.
“Then we’ll kind of coordinate everything and pick it up and move it,” Tonidandel said.
Duke Energy crews will install utilities at the new site and move power lines, along with other preparation work, which will take a few weeks.
“Duke has been a great partner,” he said. “They really worked hard to make it work and figured out a great plan for us. I know it’s not an easy thing to cut power lines right here on South Boulevard with everything going on over there.”
How will the building be moved?
Building movers will use steel beams to serve as a base for relocating the building, Tonidandel said.
They’ll cut holes in the sides, back and front of the building to slide the beams in and carry the load after jacks raise it up.
The building will break from the basement foundation before it’s placed on large hydraulic dollies to move to the new location. Getting the building to the Cleveland Avenue location will take several hours because of the time it takes to turn corners.
“And a lot of that is getting everything right and making sure that the building is sitting exactly where it is supposed to sit,” he said. “We’ll have a lot of the foundation built already. So, they’re basically just setting it down. “
The depth of the new foundation is about 5 feet. After it’s placed, workers will start putting in bricks to make sure the building is leveled.
What’s going inside?
Tonidandel and Brown enjoy turning old buildings into restaurants and they’re planning to do the same for the Leeper & Wyatt building.
“We haven’t figured out what the actual name is, the menu and that kind of stuff,” he said. “So, we’re working through that.”
But in the meantime, the massive project of moving a building older than a century will be the main priority this summer.
“We were excited to have it, be stewards of it and try to do something cool with it,” Tonidandel said.
This story was originally published July 8, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
