850 people use these Mecklenburg centers daily, but a planned expansion is at risk
Mecklenburg County commissioners are assessing whether to proceed with building three more community resource centers, with some saying the money can be better spent elsewhere.
Mecklenburg currently has two community resource centers in west and east Charlotte, offering one-stop access to county agencies and community groups that help address housing, food insecurity, health and more. Three additional locations are planned in the east, southwest and northwest portions of the county.
But in late March, county staff pitched the idea of pausing some future construction projects while reassessing financial realities, prompting multiple commissioners to suggest they’d be open to changing up or scrapping the resource center plans.
“I think there are other models we could use. I don’t think we need them like we thought,” District 5 representative Laura Meier said at the meeting.
But others on the board are less sure of their stance, and a final decision is likely still a ways away.
“We’re trying to ask the questions now, before we go bake in another $200 million or whatever the number is in something that may not be needed,” board Chairman Mark Jerrell told The Charlotte Observer.
What are community resource centers?
Mecklenburg County opened its first community resource center, Valerie C. Woodard, off Freedom Drive in west Charlotte in 2018. The Ella B. Scarborough Community Resource Center followed on Stitt Road in northeast Charlotte in 2023.
“If you can’t get it done here, you can’t get it done,” then-deputy county manager Anthony Trotman said at the opening of the second facility.
The Woodard center saw 93,232 visitors in its first year for an average of 379 per day, according to county data. That number fell significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person services were limited. Visits increased through 2025, with an average of 408 customers per day from January through March 2026.
Visits at the Scarborough center lagged the Woodard facility in its first two years but have increased, county data show. It’s averaging 446 customers per day so far in 2026.
Those numbers are “within a reasonable projected range,” county spokeswoman Betsy Abraham told the Observer.
The three other planned facilities are on Cagle Avenue off N. Sharon Amity Road in east Mecklenburg, off Nations Ford Road between Tyvola Road and Interstate 77 in southwest Mecklenburg and at the site of the existing Northwest Public Health Clinic northwest Charlotte.
Abraham said the county has spent some money on design and planning fees for the east location and master planning and architectural programming fees for all three of the planned locations.
“No public record exists” to show how much the county has spent in total on community resource centers, Abraham said, adding that “most of the funds already spent” went to the existing two facilities.
Mecklenburg spent $64.5 million on the Scarborough center, the Observer reported previously.
Will Mecklenburg County scrap future community resource centers?
Cost is a factor in deciding whether to move forward with the other planned community resource centers, Meier told the Observer.
“They’re expensive,” she said. “... There was a time that they were needed. I think that time has passed.”
Meier said she doesn’t think the existing facilities are being utilized as much as expected and that the money that would go toward future locations could be better spent on other priorities.
“We have so many other projects to do and to complete,” she said.
At-large commissioner Arthur Griffin said he wants to see more data before making up his mind, including what ZIP codes visitors to the existing facilities are from, what features of the current locations are most and least used and whether the services offered at community resource centers are helping improve residents’ health and economic outcomes.
“It may be that the CRC is just impractical, and this won’t work. That might be the case. But how do I know that? How does the public know that?” he told the Observer.
Griffin said the county also needs to be mindful of ensuring access throughout the county to vital services, especially as other facilities continue to age, and consider whether more promotion is needed to inform the public about what the community resource centers offer.
The possibility of pivoting to new recreation centers came up during the commission’s initial discussion. Meier and Jerrell noted the county could explore a “hybrid model” that incorporates some of the features of a resource center into a recreational facility.
“We’ve heard loud and clear from certain sectors of the community and certain corridors that what they want are those regional rec centers right now,” Jerrell said.
The board chairman said discussions of what to do with the planned community resource centers and other major projects will be “a longer term thing” and will likely involve collecting more community feedback.
“We should constantly be evaluating the community needs, what the community wants and where and what investments should be made,” he said.
This story was originally published April 6, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
