Still under construction, Lake Norman highway lures homes, mega mixed-use community
Mooresville’s four-lane East West Connector highway, still two years from completion near Lake Norman, has already attracted large subdivisions and a planned mega mixed-used community.
On a split vote Monday night, the Mooresville Board of Commissioners approved a rezoning for Mooresville Village, Charlotte developer Pappas Properties’ proposed 625-home mixed-use development.
The 98-acre community is planned where N.C. 115 will intersect the $34 million East West Connector. Work on the 1.7-mile connector began in January, near Interstate 77 Langtree Road Exit 31 in southern Iredell County. That’s a little over a mile north of Davidson Exit 30.
5% of homes will be ‘attainable housing’
Mooresville Village also will include a grocery store, bank, shops, offices, hotel, trails, open space and trails, according to the developer’s plans.
On Monday, Pappas Properties signed a lease agreement with a grocer for a planned 50,000-square-foot grocery building in Mooresville Village, CEO Peter Pappas told the Mooresville Board of Commissioners Monday night. Pappas didn’t name the grocer.
The grocer will open before any multi-family buildings in the development, project officials said.
Housing will include single-family homes, townhomes, cottages and apartments, with many geared to adults 55 and older, the plans on file at the Mooresville Planning Department show.
And 5% of the homes — 17 total — will be attainable housing, affordable to firefighters, teachers, nurses, police officers, retail workers and mail carriers, project officials said.
By right, the developer could have built 1,100 homes under current zoning rules, town officials said. Mayor Chris Carney, who cast the deciding vote in favor of the rezoning, said he might have voted differently if that many homes had been proposed.
“For years, we begged somebody to develop east of (Interstate) 77,” Carney said. “I have five or six grocery stores within a mile of my house” west of the interstate.
“You actually gave us what we wanted,” Carney told Pappas. “You gave us more commercial, more professional buildings, a grocery store and a hotel, which will help our corporate partners.”
He was referring to the nearby national headquarters of home improvement retailer Lowe’s and defense contractor Corvid Technologies off Exit 31; and the North American headquarters of industrial equipment maker Ingersoll Rand off Exit 30 in Davidson.
The Mooresville Planning Board in September voted 6-2 to recommend the rezoning to commissioners.
Monday night, commissioners Tommy DeWeese, Lisa Qualls and Will Aven voted for the rezoning. Commissioners Gary West, Eddie Dingler and Eddie Karriker voted against, citing so many homes packed together, resulting traffic woes and no nearby fire station.
Notable Pappas developments
Pappas’ development highlights include Birkdale Village in Huntersville and Phillips Place, Berewick Town Center, the Metropolitan, Sharon Square, Atrium medical offices and Little Sugar Creek Greenway in Charlotte.
Mooresville Village will be his first such project in Iredell County.
Pappas said Mooresville Village won’t be another Birkdale Village, which has far more retail. Mooresville Village will be a “wellness-focused” community with multiple trails, and wellness classes and meditation rooms in a proposed wellness center, he said.
Mooresville Village will have 279,900 square feet of commercial-retail space, according to the developer’s plans. Multi-family buildings will be four or five stories.
The development’s first three of four construction phases will coincide with construction of the East West Connector.
Ohio-based contractor Kwest Group is building the connector from N.C. 115 to Langtree and Transco roads near Exit 31.
Transit or traffic in Mooresville?
Pappas Properities hopes to complete the first three of four phases of Mooresville Village by 2028.
The developer also has reserved an acre for a transit station for Charlotte’s planned Red Line commuter rail.
The mayors of Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson have endorsed a funding proposal to extend the Red Line through their towns, but Mooresville Mayor Carney balked at having a station in his.
During interviews with The Charlotte Observer, Carney said only 2,500 people would use the station, per previous Red Line studies. Many would drive in from other counties, he said.
At the same time, transit stations are housing magnets, he said. And Mooresville has been saying no to apartments because the town already has so many, Carney said.
Subdivisions under construction
The East West Connector lies in a “rapidly transforming” area of the lake that also claims “significant employment campuses,” David Cole, a Mooresville town planner, told the commissioners Monday night:
The land in and around the proposed Mooresville Village “was always scheduled for high-intensity uses,” Cole told commissioners at a meeting Wednesday where commissioners discussed but didn’t vote on the items on Monday night’s agenda.
The connector also has lured two large subdivisions, Cole said:
▪ Courtyards at Lake Davidson, a development of 99 single-family homes, is under construction south of Bridges Farm Road, near where the connector will link to N.C. 115.
▪ West of the connector, Freshwater, a proposed development of 277 single-family homes fronting Lake Norman nears plan approval by Mooresville, Cole said.
Cole said large vacant tracts north and west along the connector also are likely to be developed “in the near future.”
The connector is scheduled to open in October 2026, assistant town manager Ryan Rase said at Wednesday’s meeting.
Phase II of the connector project will extend from N.C. 115 to Shearer Road/Rocky River Road in east Mooresville. The second phase is unfunded and has no timeline, town officials said.
This story was originally published December 17, 2024 at 6:00 AM.