Mecklenburg County to vote on spending over $15 million for major 7th and Tryon project
The Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners will vote Tuesday on spending $15.6 million to help fund public improvements tied to a major uptown redevelopment.
The developer, Virginia-based Metropolitan Partnership, requested a public-private partnership to fund $24.4 million in public improvements, such as 250 parking spaces, an outdoor plaza, extended bike lane and street rebuilding and improvements.
It’s the next step in starting construction of the $600 million 7th and Tryon project that’s expected to bring a new office tower, apartment building, plaza and other improvements to a roughly two-square block of uptown.
While technically a separate project, a new $154.5 million, 115,000-square-foot Main Library branch along with two theaters at Spirit Square, will be incorporated into 7th and Tryon.
The library, theaters and 7th and Tryon project will be connected by plazas, county officials have said, meaning there’s been a lot of coordinating of design between the two.
The county will vote to pay for its share of public improvements with tax increment grants.
A tax increment grant, or TIG, typically works like this: a developer builds new taxable property, and the city and county then rebate the developer a portion of the new tax dollars to help pay for the project.
The grants are provided on a reimbursement basis only, and are only paid out once the entire project is complete, according to the city of Charlotte’s website.
The county will pay its share over a 15-year period, or about $1.1 million annually, according to county documents.
The city of Charlotte has not yet voted on its $8.8 million share of tax increment grant improvements; a presentation on the tax grants is expected next month and a vote would happen at a subsequent meeting, a city spokesman told the Observer.
Revitalizing uptown at 7th and Tryon streets
The $600 million 7th and Tryon project includes construction of a 17-story, 400,000 square foot office tower along 6th Street and a 354-unit apartment tower.
It also includes public parking, an outdoor community plaza around 6th and 8th streets, 200-room hotel and plenty of retail, according to the latest county documents.
The bulk of the county’s tax grant share, or $13.7 million, will go toward building 250 public parking spaces. The office tower will have 100 of those spaces; the apartment building will hold the remaining.
That comes out to $54,897 per spot. The development team was originally planning on building the parking below-ground, county manager Dena Diorio told commissioners this month. That option proved too expensive, she said. It would have cost around $80,000 per spot.
Roughly $5 million of the grant will go toward building the plaza, including decorative pavers, art, seating and landscaping. The developers will also extend an already-existing bike lane along 6th Street.
The project is viewed as a step toward revitalizing a roughly two-square block section of uptown.
Two years ago, Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners voted to move forward with selling public land as well as allocating $14.5 million for affordable housing units on property next to the development and elsewhere in the county.
Last year, commissioners approved nearly $3.8 million for four affordable housing development projects underway by nonprofit developer DreamKey Partners.
The money will come from the sale of the 1.5 uptown blocks designated for the Seventh and Tryon project.
Uptown construction timeline
The next step in the project would be for the city, county and Bank of America to close on the land sale within six months, Mark Hahn, the county’s director of asset and facility management, told commissioners this month.
Demolition and construction would then start with an estimated completion date around mid-2025.
As of October, the plan was for the new Main Library and theaters to open in late 2025, according to county spokeswoman Pam Escobar. The total cost of the new library and renovations to the McGlohon and Duke Energy theaters is $154.5 million, Escobar has told the Observer.
The library and Spirit Square closed to the public this fall.
This story was originally published March 14, 2022 at 2:02 PM.
