Get ready for penthouse living in historic downtown Mooresville business district
Penthouse living is coming to Mooresville’s historic Main Street downtown business district.
One lucky renter will get to move into one on the planned third floor of a 1906 brick building at 224 N. Main St.
Owner Joseph Strada of Bohemia, New York, got a key government approval Thursday night to convert the second floor of his building into two one-bedroom apartments and add a third-floor penthouse.
A penthouse is typically the most coveted apartment in a building because of its top-floor, most exclusive perch, according to Mansion Global.
The third story will be set back 10 feet, to maintain the integrity of the original building and ensure that the addition doesn’t “visually overpower the original building,” according to Strada’s application to the Mooresville Historic Preservation Commission for the exterior improvements.
Renderings by project architect Design Associates Inc. of Statesville were unveiled to the commission at its meeting Thursday. The commission unanimously approved the plans.
“It lifts up our downtown”
The penthouse will be the first in the district, Mooresville commissioner Will Aven, the Town Board’s liaison on the Preservation Commission, told The Charlotte Observer at Town Hall after the vote.
“It lifts up our downtown,” Aven said about developers adding living space above street-level businesses in their buildings. “And it makes it more vibrant.”
“Always having people downtown just helps” the district, Aven said, referring to people living there. And the town now has police officers assigned to the district around the clock, he said.
Only a few apartments are currently above businesses in the district, town officials said.
The Station Two22 luxury apartment mixed-use complex is further south, at 222 S. Main St., just past the longtime What-A-Burger.
Mill One, another mixed-use luxury apartment complex, is parallel to the Main Street district at 201 N. Church St.
The penthouse could inspire other owners to add apartments to their upper stories, Aven said.
‘I want this to be the standard’
Downtown Mooresville is “so beautiful,” Strada told The Charlotte Observer in a phone interview on Friday.
“But it’s happening outside,” he said, not so much on the vacant upper floors of buildings.
He hopes the penthouse will change that.
“I really love the downtown, coming from New York,” he said. “I’m not there to build something that’s slapped together. I want this to be the standard. I want to bring luxury.”
The penthouse will be 1,300 square feet and have balconies on both ends, Strada said. He also will replace the windows on the building, add an elevator and stairs, and remove the old interior staircase, he said.
The existing brick on the building will be cleaned and a second entrance added to the ground-floor storefront, according to his application. The second entrance will lead to a rear tenant space and to the apartments on the upper floors.
Upper-level windows will be replaced with new double-hung metal clad wood windows, and a new balcony and railing will be added. The balcony also will serve as a canopy for the ground-floor storefront.
Strada said he’ll start on the improvements once the town grants required permits. He said it’s too early to say how much rent will cost for the two smaller apartments and the penthouse.
Strada also received permits recently to build two 20,000-square foot warehouses in Talbert Pointe Business Park in Mooresville.