Charlotte’s Epicentre developer to build retail center in booming area of Lake Norman
The developer of the former Epicentre entertainment complex in uptown Charlotte plans to build a retail center in a booming area of Lake Norman.
Afshin Ghazi’s Terrell Town Center Area 2 project is scheduled to be built on 10 weed-filled acres at N.C. 150 and Sherrills Ford Road, across from the Terrell Post Office.
The development, 33 miles northwest of Charlotte, will include a grocery store, four retail buildings, a drive-through restaurant and a convenience store, according to a site map Ghazi submitted with his rezoning application to the Catawba County Planning Board.
The former Terrell Country Store was a North Carolina tourist attraction that operated in a Civil War-era building on the site. Its owners were evicted in 2019 so the building could be razed for future development, The Charlotte Observer reported at the time.
The Planning Board voted 8-0 in November to recommend Ghazi’s project to the county Board of Commissioners, which approved the rezoning by a 4-1 vote Dec. 16. Commissioner Barbara Beatty, who voted against the rezoning, could not be reached for comment by The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday.
Just to the west lies the Village at Sherrills Ford, a 206-acre, Publix-anchored mixed used community.
Townes at Sherrills Ford, a subdivision that abuts Ghazi’s project on Sherrills Ford Road, is already sold out, according to its property listing. The property was approved in 2018 for 153 townhomes and 200 multi-family senior living homes, Catawba County records show.
Just beyond Townes at Sherrills Ford is the Long Island Marina Showroom.
Many more subdivisions and apartment complexes, both completed and under construction, line N.C. 150 east into and through Mooresville.
Ghazi, a Charlotte-based developer, declined to discuss his project when reached by The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday.
In an August 16 letter to Catawba County Planning Director Chris Timberlake about his plans, Ghazi argued the area already has enough housing.
And the site is too small for a mixed-use project, he wrote.
“The area, as you have mentioned, is in need of retail to support the residents that have already moved to the area, as well as those who are moving into the area,” Ghazi told Timberlake.
“Traffic on Hwy 150 taking all of the residents in this area to Mooresville is only exacerbating the already bad traffic along Hwy 150,” according to Ghazi’s letter.
An average 13,500 cars pass his project site each day on N.C. 150 and 4,900 cars a day on Sherrills Ford Road, according to Ghazi’s rezoning application.
Mooresville Mayor Chris Carney has blamed his town’s chronic traffic bottlenecks partly on the 48,000 cars with commuters who, he says, drive N.C. 150 daily from Sherrills Ford into Mooresville.
This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 8:19 AM.