Affordable apartments planned uptown. Land gifts make ‘cost-prohibitive’ site viable.
More than 100 units of mixed-income housing in uptown Charlotte will be open to renters beginning in 2022, developer Laurel Street Residential says.
The project, at the corner of Seventh and Alexander streets, will have 105 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Fifty units will be income restricted and affordable for households between 30% and 80% of the area median income. The other 55 will be market rate.
Construction will begin early next year and units are expected to be ready for residents by 2022, officials said.
The development will be built in partnership between Laurel Street and Little Rock Community Development Center, a nonprofit affiliated with Little Rock AME Zion Church next door to the planned site.
It will use land donated by the city and the church and last year received $1.5 million from the city’s Housing Trust Fund and $3.2 million from the private Charlotte Housing Opportunity Investment Fund.
It’s a plan “to bring an inclusive community for people of all ages and incomes to the First Ward neighborhood,” the Rev. Dwayne Walker, senior pastor at the church and board chair and founder of Little Rock CDC, said in a statement.
Scarcity of affordable housing in uptown has been a persistent concern for city and county leaders, who have emphasized the importance of putting affordable housing close to jobs, transportation and other amenities.
Among the recent affordable developments uptown is a plan by Inlivian, formerly the Charlotte Housing Authority, to build 368 apartments —110 of them below market rate — on land it owns at Eighth and Tryon streets.
Land costs in these desirable areas often make developments cost-prohibitive, said Dionne Nelson, president and CEO of Laurel Street.
“We are thankful to Little Rock AME Zion Church and the City of Charlotte for their willingness to dedicate land to this effort and to the City of Charlotte and local businesses and constituents for their support of mixed income housing,” Nelson said in a statement.
Two historic “shotgun” houses that sit on land planned for the development will be moved, Laurel Street representatives have previously said.
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 12:05 PM with the headline "Affordable apartments planned uptown. Land gifts make ‘cost-prohibitive’ site viable.."
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