Hotel planned for Elizabeth neighborhood that doesn’t have one. City still must weigh in
A Durham-based developer filed plans this month to rezone a roughly half-acre site in Elizabeth and build a six-story boutique hotel. If approved, it would be the only hotel in the neighborhood.
Developer Lucrum 7 is seeking to rezone the site at 1733 E. 7th St., at the corner of Lamar Avenue, from business to mixed use. Plans call for a 80,000 square foot hotel with close to 7,000 square feet of retail.
Near Independence Park, Elizabeth is outside of uptown and has a mix of residential, office and retail. It sits near two hospitals. There is no hotel now in Elizabeth but it’s not clear if there ever had been one.
Sketches show a proposed hotel lobby off Lamar Avenue. The 47 rooms would be spread across all six floors, according to the rezoning application.
The site would have 47 parking spots. The building would be capped at 73 feet and have a rooftop deck. Retail would be located on the ground floor.
It’s not clear when the rezoning application would appear before the City Council for a public hearing. The hotel is slated for a late 2023 opening, according to a news release sent by Lucrum 7 spokesperson Shannon Pearson.
House would be demolished for hotel
Construction of the yet-to-be named hotel means the current building on the site would be demolished, Pearson told the Observer in an email.
That existing house is about 13,000 square feet, according to Mecklenburg County property records.
Royal Gardens, a garden retail shop, operated at the site for 25 years, said Lara Sweet, the daughter of Andrea Sweet, who started the store and ran it with her husband, Larrie. The Sweets closed the store in December 2019.
Lara still runs the company with her brothers, Jared and Garth, just without the retail component. They serve the Charlotte area with landscaping and maintenance.
Sweet’s parents rented the building from the owner to run the retail shop. They sold plants, pots and fountains, among other items.
Lara Sweet remembers it as a community spot where the family would offer customers a sandwich if they were hungry or give popsicles to kids. Neighborhood dogs could often find a nice place to take a bath in one of the fountains.
“It was a true family business,” Lara Sweet said. While county records list the house being built in 1935, Sweet always recalls being told it dated back to around 1913.
Lucrum 7 will try to salvage and reuse materials from the existing structure for the new project, Pearson told the Observer.
“We are thrilled to be joining this community and take seriously the responsibility of upholding the history and beauty,” Pearson wrote in the email. “We will be working with the Elizabeth Neighborhood Board to ensure we stay closely connected and that lines of communication are open.”
Other Elizabeth development
There has been other recent development activity along this stretch of road in Elizabeth.
Crescent Communities is the developer behind Elizabeth on Seventh. The three-story, mixed-use project will feature office and retail space at the corner of E. 7th Street and N. Caswell Road.
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The building is nearly complete. The first food tenants were announced last month, the Observer reported. Rosemont Market and Wine Bar will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner plus wine, coffee and beer along with grab-and-go meals.
An official open date has not been set, but Rosemont is targeting a late summer opening, a Crescent Communities representative told CharlotteFive.
The team behind Rosemont also helps run The Crunkleton, located across the street, and Cheat’s Cheesesteak Parlor, also in Elizabeth.
This story was originally published March 24, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
