North End’s Brightwalk community has become a catalyst for growth in this part of Charlotte
Before the North End got breweries — even before it got the popular Camp North End site — there was Brightwalk.
The redeveloped neighborhood is tucked between Interstate 77 and busy Statesville Avenue. Thanks to a public-private partnership that included the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership (now DreamKey Partners), the $125 million mixed-income community replaced the old Double Oaks neighborhood about a decade ago.
There are about 350 homes in the neighborhood, a mix of single family and townhomes, one Realtor, Jess Flinn, told The Charlotte Observer. That number doesn’t include apartments.
Flinn has sold sold extensively in Brightwalk and sees the community as helping to drive the growth coming to the surrounding North End. That growth includes possibly several thousand new apartments and major mixed-use projects along North Tryon Street.
Double Oaks sat on about 70 acres and included mostly small, single-story apartments that housed lower-income residents since it was built in the late 1940s, according to Charlotte Observer archives.
Longtime residents recalled the neighborhood as relatively peaceful until it slowly declined in the 1990s. Trouble became common, Observer files show, including stolen cars, burglaries and vandalism.
Driving through the well-maintained streets, it’s hard to imagine what stood there before. Homes are well-maintained and weeknights are quiet, with many residents out walking their dogs. Over the past decade, sales in the Brightwalk neighborhood have remained strong.
Up until about a year ago, Flinn owned a townhome in Brightwalk.
The starting point for single-family homes in Brightwalk in 2012 was in the $170,000s. Townhomes sold for around $130,000.
In recent years, as home values crept up in Charlotte, people started seeing Brightwalk as the next great neighborhood to buy or rent in, according to Flinn. She can recall conversations with prospective homebuyers who were surprised at how undervalued the neighborhood was given its close proximity to uptown.
In turn, home prices began doubling — and in some cases tripling — in value.
The townhome she lived in had about $100,000 in equity. She sold it a year ago for around $338,000 and it just resold for $415,000.
“This is a place where you can grow your investment and you’ll enjoy living,” Flinn said. She knows a number of people who have started in smaller units and then moved within Brightwalk to bigger homes.
“People are really rooted in the community,” Flinn said.
She’s also seen Brightwalk act as a catalyst for the growing North End neighborhood.
The AvidXchange Music Factory is about a mile away, driving or walking. Camp North End, the massive adpative reuse project on 76 acres that opened to the public in 2017, is less than a mile away. New spots like Heist Brewery & Barrel Arts, which opened a taproom in 2019 on Woodward Avenue, are just as close.
“(Brightwalk) opened up people’s eyes for what could be the next hot neighborhood,” she said.
This story was originally published July 21, 2022 at 12:00 AM.
