Reject developer’s plans for landmark Lake Norman waterfront site, board advises
A South Carolina developer’s planned revitalization of one of Lake Norman’s landmark waterfront sites would dump too much traffic onto already overloaded N.C. 150 and should be denied, the Mooresville Planning Board advised Tuesday night.
The board voted unanimously against Columbia-based Arnold Family Corp.’s planned redevelopment of the shuttered Queens Landing entertainment complex. The site is beside the McCrary Creek Access Area public boat launch, near the Iredell-Catawba county line.
The board’s vote followed a public hearing where seven residents and a lawyer for an adjacent residential development said the project would further clog a highway already experiencing intolerable backups.
“You can’t go two miles from where we live without it being a 45-minute drive,” Steve Schaffer of nearby Paradise Peninsula Road said.
Despite Tuesday’s vote, however, the property already is zoned commercial, allowing for three-story multiuse buildings, Planning Board members acknowledged at the meeting.
The Planning Board is an advisory panel that makes recommendations on zoning requests to the Mooresville Board of Commissioners, which has the final say.
Commissioners will schedule a similar public hearing on the developer’s plans at one of its regular meetings at Town Hall, 413 N. Main St., on a date to be announced. The board typically votes on zoning requests the same night of such hearings.
The Observer first reported about the developer’s plans, which call for 172 multifamily units in two six-story buildings. Each building would include five stories of housing and one for parking.
Buildings would include elevators, large windows and high-end finishes, developer Ben Arnold told the Planning Board Tuesday night. “It’s a Class A-plus multifamily project,” he said.
He said construction would not begin until the state widens N.C. 150 along that stretch. He said he believes the widening will begin in 2025 and finish in 2027, which prompted groans from skeptical audience members.
“We’re not a flipper builder,” Arnold said. “If this is built, we’re here to stay.”
Erika Martin, assistant director of Mooresville Planning & Community Development, confirmed 2025 as the widening start date, but she explained that it’s up to the state contractor as to which stretch of N.C. 150 will be widened first.
The $269 million widening project will stretch from U.S. 21 in Mooresville west into Catawba County.
The Queens Landing redevelopment would bring luxury apartments and public access to the lake, Cindy Reid of Cornelius-based Irvin Law Group told the board. “It’s something Mooresville can be very proud of.”
The audience broke out in laughter at Reid’s comments, prompting Planning Board Chairman Steve McGlothlin to warn, “Folks, if you can’t be quiet, we’ll empty the room.”
A two-story building with space for a restaurant/bar and a conference center would remain on the 6.5-acre property, according to the developer’s plans.
The greenway as part of the redevelopment would include walkways to a 10-foot-wide multi-use path along N.C 150, according to the developer’s plans.
The first phase of the project would include the marina and refurbished restaurant-commercial building. Phase two would be the buildings with multifamily housing.
Plans also include covered and open dining, a recreational swimming pool, and an open landscaped area for various activities. Access to existing boat docks would be available.
An art plaza also is planned, and more shrubbery and other vegetation would be planted along the waterfront.
The planned redevelopment excludes two longtime sightseeing, dinner-cruise boats that berthed at Queens Landing for decades. Arnold Family Corp. bought the property last year for what public property records show was $7.5 million.
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Deborah Harwell, a Mooresville and Myrtle Beach resident who owns the boats, had them moved and anchored together elsewhere on the lake when the developer told her the company wasn’t interested in them, the Observer previously reported.
The 149-passenger Catawba Queen and 93-foot Lady of the Lake boats await a place to be permanently anchored and once again host passengers, according to the Queens Landing voice mail message.
This story was originally published October 10, 2023 at 8:37 PM.