Charlotte Windsor Park Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Video

Charlotte Windsor Park Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Video

Charlotte NC One of the Best Cities to Buy a Home

By Maurna Desmond, Forbes.com

Jul 22nd, 2008

Houston, we don’t have a housing problem.

The city’s $152,500 median home sale price is up 6.6% from 2005. It boasts a low vacancy rate and an oil-rich economy. Throw in a bubbling entrepreneurial tech scene, and you’ve got four factors that put Houston on the top of our list of best places to buy a home.

San Francisco, Charlotte, N.C., Jacksonville, Fla., and St. Louis, Mo., are other areas buyers can feel safe investing in.

We examined the country’s 40 largest metropolitan areas and looked at cities where home prices have appreciated over the last two years. We also measured tightening vacancy rates. These metrics indicate places where buyers are investing in homes in order to live, not just make a quick buck, and where the housing market is relatively solid. We culled our vacancy and home price information from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Association of Realtors.

The average vacancy rate across the major metro areas was 2.88%, and the average percent appreciation was just .07% over the last two years.

With lending tight, we also factored in the spread between a monthly rent check and a mortgage payment at the median level (assuming that the down payment was 10% and the fixed interest rate is 6.25%). Encino, Calif.-based real estate brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap provided stats on median monthly rents.

Cities where a mortgage payment was close to, or less than, the average rent were given a higher score. For instance, in Cleveland the average rent is $702, and the average mortgage is $565.78. With a lower monthly payment, tax incentives and the opportunity to build equity, it makes sense to buy here.

In stark contrast, San Jose, Calif., has an average monthly mortgage payment of $4,322.33, versus an average rent of $1,612.

Lots To Like In The Lone-Star State

Texas dominated our lineup of mortgage-worthy areas. Thanks to a business-friendly tax environment, many large corporations call the Lone Star State home, which creates jobs and tax revenue.

The University of Texas campus provides young blood and research-related jobs to No. 2 city Austin. This state capitol is a hip area on the rise. The vacancy rate has fallen by 37.5% in the last 24 months to just 1.5%, despite a lot of building in recent years. And buying isn’t much more expensive than renting. An average mortgage payment is $1,022.40, and average rent hits $767.

San Antonio, No. 5, and Dallas, No. 6, made the list thanks to affordable housing, which continues to appreciate.

In both cities, the median home price hovers around $150,000, and a monthly mortgage payment of around $800 is pretty close to what one pays in rent. If you can pony up the down payment, these are great areas to live.

Coast-to-Coast Sweet Spots

Philadelphia landed at No. 4, with homes appreciating by 9.1% in the last two years and vacancy rates staying low at 1.9%. This university town, which plays host to the University of Pennsylvania, certainly has its charm. A city on the rise with a tempting cost of living, Philly is a great place to buy a new home.

The South made a nice showing with Charlotte, N.C., Jacksonville, Fla., and Atlanta, Ga., making our list. Charlotte and Jacksonville have surged in price by 12.9% and 8%, respectively. Atlanta has seen huge amounts of growth and remains reasonable with a median home price of $172,000.

San Francisco, this year’s best city for young professionals, came in at a respectable No. 8. While housing certainly isn’t cheap in the City by the Bay, it is definitely in demand and continues to appreciate. For a buyer, San Francisco offers a culturally rich and beautiful city that is chock full of opportunity.

Windsor Park Family Gets ‘Makeover’

From Charlotte.com

Unreality in the form of “reality television” hit Sudbury Road on Monday.

About 9:15 a.m., host Ty Pennington and the crew of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” poured off their bus at the residence of the Kings with a bullhorn for the show’s traditional wake-up call – the part where a deserving family is surprised by the news they’re getting a new home.

And a few minutes later, Pennington & Co. poured off the bus and did it again.

And again.

Producers finally got the shot they wanted and moved on to new business.

By late afternoon, with the temperature hovering in the 90s, it was time to film the King family getting into a black stretch limo for the beginning of a weeklong vacation in Puerto Rico.

They got in once. Then again. And yet again.

Reality is, the King family won’t leave for the airport until today. That’s show business, reality style.

Another reality: their selection wasn’t a complete surprise. They had been told they were one of five finalist families in Charlotte under consideration for a new home. They were told to hang around, just in case.

None of that bothered the Kings. They looked like they’d just hit all six numbers in the lottery.

Paying it forward

This season’s theme on “Extreme Makeover” is community heroes. Curtis and Alisha King run a home day-care at their small home in the 4200 block of Sudbury Road in the Windsor Park neighborhood. They are more than flexible in the arrangements.

If parents work a night shift, their kids can stay over with the Kings. For free. Working a weekend shift? Same deal.

For six years, the Step By Step Home Daycare, capped at 12 children by regulations, ran at a loss. It has just become a break-even business.

“A lot of families just don’t have people to help them,” says Alisha King. And she knows what a difference it makes to have support.

With help, she climbed

Alisha King was a single mother at age 15 in St. Pauls, in eastern North Carolina. Only because others reached out to help her, she says, was she able to work multiple part-time jobs to support her son while she finished high school, went on to college at N.C. A&T in Greensboro to study computers and made a success of her life.

At N.C. A&T, she met her future husband, Curtis King, originally from Wilmington, an art design student.

They eventually moved to Charlotte and in 1999 bought the house in Windsor Park. A finished garage became their day care area.

But the one-story, 1,900-foot house built in 1961 was cramped and feeling its age. Worse, a mold problem took hold.

Their 7-year-old daughter Laila has been taken to the hospital several times with asthma attacks. And they were concerned about the effect of the mold on the children in the day care, though their business earned four out of five stars – 225 out of a possible 235 points – in its last inspection in February.

Neighborhood in transition

Sudbury Road took on the personality of a military depot as events unfolded Monday. Trucks arrived carrying generators, lights, production equipment, building supplies. Spaces were cleared for portable potties.

Police sealed off the block. And groupies materialized to catch glimpses of Pennington and the other designers – Michael Moloney, Ed Sanders, Rib Hillis and Didiayer Snyder – on the Charlotte project.

About two weeks ago, producers began approaching people on Sudbury, telling them a nearby family was a finalist for “Home Makeover” and asking whether they’d have their cooperation if a neighbor was selected.

“Not a single one said no,” said Diane Korman, a Los Angeles-based senior producer.

Today, the King’s belongings will be inventoried and removed from the house. At noon Wednesday, demolition will begin.

Then, if all goes well, in about 88 hours a new house will go up with volunteer labor. Next Monday, the Kings are to return to a life-changing home.

Justin King, 19, said his parents deserve the honor.

“It shows when you work hard and give it your all, good things happen.”

Glimcher Cedes Control of Eastland Mall

From the Charlotte Business Journal:

Eastland Mall owner Glimcher Realty Trust is walking away from shopping center after three years of trying to sell it.

The Ohio-based company has an annual mortgage payment on the mall of about $42 million, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Glimcher says it has notified its loan servicer that it won’t “fund any further cash deficits at the property.” In addition, the company says it is seeking the appointment of a receiver for the mall and the liquidation of the property.

Glimcher, which owns the inner section of the mall, said in January it expected to sell its ownership stake in the 1.1 million-square-foot retail center during the third quarter. Glimcher controls the core of the 32-year-old shopping center but not Eastland’s four anchor stores.

Last month, Dillard’s Inc. became the latest anchor tenant to close its store and put its property up for sale.

Dillard’s will close early next month. In a recent filing with the SEC, the company described its 162,000-square-foot location at Eastland as underperforming.

It’s unclear how Glimcher’s decision to cede ownership of the struggling mall will affect the city of Charlotte’s plans for the site. City Council members recently approved a $75,000 option to buy the Dillard’s parcel — the latest step in an effort to redevelop the shopping center.

In March, the city approved an identical option agreement for the vacant Belk Inc. store at Eastland. That store closed in February 2007, with the chain citing low sales and shifting shopping patterns to other Charlotte-area retail centers.

The city’s options for the Belk and Dillard’s stores end Dec. 30, with the potential for an extension until March 1.

The mall’s remaining anchors, Sears and Burlington Coat Factory, remain open.

The effort to remake the aging mall into a town center has lingered for years. The mall was built in 1975.

The city has hired the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Land Insitute to recommend potential uses for the site.

The redevelopment plan could include 275,000 square feet of retail space, 585 residential units, 15 acres of open space and 10 acres for a civic center. But it’s unclear when or if the redevelopment will move forward.

The Urban Land Institute says redevelopment of the mall, which is about 80 percent leased and has suffered from negative publicity, is crucial to the future of the east side of town. A mixed-use development at the site would probably require a $180 million investment, the institute says.

Senate Earmarks $18M for Charlotte Light Rail Extension

Federal support of Charlotte’s mass transportation plan is great news! I hope it further bolsters plans for the Central Avenue streetcar and light rail on Independence Blvd that will benefit Windsor Park.

From the Charlotte Business Journal:

The U.S. Senate’s proposed transportation budget for 2009 contains $18 million for expanding Charlotte’s light-rail system. That’s $8 million more than the Charlotte Area Transit System requested.

The proposed 11-mile rail line extension would run from Ninth Street in uptown Charlotte to Interstate 485 on the northeast side of town.

The federal money would be used for preliminary engineering and assessing the environmental impact of construction and operation of the transit line.

“This is great news for the Lynx Blue Line extension and residents of the Charlotte region as we continue to provide them with more transportation choices,” says Keith Parker, chief executive of CATS. “While we do not expect the transportation appropriations legislation to be enacted until after the presidential election in November, and there is no guarantee that the funding level will hold, this is a step in the right direction.”

If the $18 million is approved, CATS will have received capital funding commitments of $40 million since March for bus, rail and rapid-transit projects. The funding has come from a range of sources, including the N.C. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Transit Administration.

The light rail extension would be a continuation of the 9-mile track that parallels South Boulevard from I-485 near Pineville to uptown Charlotte.

Charlotte Among U.S. leaders in Population Growth

Latest Census figures also show Charlotte has become the 19th largest in the country.

From Charlotte.com:

Charlotte and Raleigh rank among the top 10 U.S. cities in population growth, and Charlotte has risen from the nation’s 20th-largest city to its 19th, according to U.S. Census estimates released Wednesday.

Also, Cary, a Raleigh suburb, is the fifth-fastest-growing U.S. city of more than 100,000 people, the Census Bureau says.

They’re all indicators of the Carolinas’ continued growth, which experts expect to continue despite indications that a faltering economy will slow the boom, at least for a while.

According to the estimates, all major cities and towns in the Charlotte region grew between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007. Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson, and Fort Mill and Rock Hill, S.C., are all showing population increases of more than 5 percent.

The Census Bureau distinguishes between growth rate and numbers of people. Charlotte, for example, grew by only 3 percent. But it gained an estimated 17,471 people, ranking it ninth among U.S. cities in number of new residents. Raleigh, with an estimated gain of 15,148, ranked 10th.

Other N.C. cities with smaller population increases had higher growth rates. Cary gained an estimated 8,259 people from 2006 to 2007. But its smaller size compared to Charlotte and Raleigh meant a high growth rate of 7.3 percent.

The estimates are “consistent with what’s been going on for some time in these areas,” said state demographer Bill Tillman. But the bureau’s estimates are a little more than a year old, and they may not account for recent downturns in the housing and job markets, experts said.

“Right now, the growth is slowing a little bit because it’s harder for people to leave where they were because they can’t sell their house,” said Tom Hanchett, a historian at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte.

Strong job growthThe bureau issues the estimates every year. They’re based largely on local governments’ building permit and housing unit data.

 

Charlotte had 17,471 more people in mid-2007 than mid-2006, according to the Census Bureau. Last year, the city also ranked ninth in population growth, gaining an estimated 14,403 people from July 1, 2005, to July 1, 2006. Raleigh ranked 12th last year.

Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia, credited strong job growth with bringing more people to the region but noted the trend is slowing with the economy.

Vitner also said the area benefited from not having housing prices surge here. “People who may have moved to Florida in the past now move to Charlotte,” Vitner said.

Many of those people are Northerners.

Roland Gardner, 59, moved to Charlotte 13 months ago from Alfred, a small town in western New York state. He said he took a job offer from an old friend who owns a car-appraisal business and wanted to expand to rapidly growing Charlotte.

Gardner had lived in New York his entire life but “wanted to do something different,” and now says he wouldn’t dream of going back home.

“I told my family, ‘If something happens to me, bury me down here. Don’t bring me back to New York,’” Gardner said. “The people are friendly, the weather, I just love it here. This is like heaven for me.”

Trying to ease the strainStill, Gardner said he has one complaint: traffic. “This area is growing faster than the roads are,” he said.

 

Strain on the road system is one of the inevitable consequences of growth, as are pressure on schools and the water system. County commission chair Jennifer Roberts and Charlotte Mayor Pro Tem Susan Burgess said Wednesday that those are among their main areas of concern as the area grows.

Planners at the Charlotte-based Centralina Council of Governments are trying to ease the pressure through a planning effort that includes the 75 or so local governments in the Charlotte region.

The idea is to begin regional planning for infrastructure, transportation, schools and other areas likely to be affected most by continued growth, said Rebecca Yarbrough, the COG assistant director who’s managing the project.

“We’re trying to get them to work together to craft unified policies,” Yarbrough said. “The real key is figuring out, how do we do it?”

The annexation issueAnother factor in the growth: North Carolina’s aggressive annexation laws, which allow cities to easily absorb unincorporated land and its residents.

 

Since 1987, the city has added an average of 13,219 people every two years through annexation, said Jonathan Wells, a program manager with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department.

Last year, Charlotte gained about 7,000 new residents by annexing neighborhoods in southern, northern and western Mecklenburg. But state officials forecast that Wake County will surpass Mecklenburg as the state’s most populous county in the next five years or so, Tillman said.

“Common sense would say Mecklenburg County’s eventually going to run out of room, and people are going to live in the surrounding counties,” he said. “What I don’t know – and wish I did – is, what’s the point at which the growth stops in Mecklenburg… I don’t know. The towns can’t annex into South Carolina, I know that.”

N.C. Research Campus Devleopment Good for Windsor Park

The NC Research Campus continues to be developed in Kannapolis. Once completed, the NC will be a massive employment center. This is good news for the whole region.

Windsor Park is bound to benefit from this growth. Centrally located and well connected to transportation corridors, Windsor Park is just 22 miles from the NC Research Campus. Google Maps estimats that’s just a 28 minute commute. Check out the route for yourself. This means that families living and working in different places in the Charlotte region will find that WIndsor Park is a good middle point and mutually convenient.

More from the Charlotte Business Journal:

The N.C. Research Campus is spinning off its next wave of development — apartments built to support the expected influx of workers to Kannapolis.

A Greensboro-area developer is the first to target research workers with a $23 million luxury apartment complex in Salisbury, 15 miles north of the bioscience center, which is expected to employ 5,000 workers by 2013.

McClain Barr & Associates is developing The Grand on Julian, which will contain 240 units off Interstate 85.

Scott Neely, president of Multifamily Associates, worked with McClain Barr on the project, finding the site and securing financing.

Neely is putting together a similar apartment project for Kannapolis that will target research campus workers. It’s called The Grand in Kannapolis.

Neely says he revived earlier plans for the Salisbury apartments after the research campus was announced. The first buildings in the campus, which is being financed largely by California billionaire David Murdock, will open this summer. The research there, headed by several members of the UNC system and Duke University, will bring a range of research operations to the former site of the Pillowtex Corp.

Also expected to flood the area: researchers and support workers in need of a place to live.

“Now it’s a historic community with positive growth,” Neely says.

Meeting the housing needs for the research campus workers has become a growing concern of developers.

Murdock’s Castle & Cooke North Carolina is developing several residential projects, including a 700-home golf course community called the Club at Irish Creek and a subdivision of less-expensive homes called Grants Creek in Rowan County.

Homes, condos and townhouses are also planned on the N.C. Research Campus property itself.

McClain Barr is overseeing development of The Grand on Julian and will lease and manage the complex on Julian Boulevard.

Rents, which will reach up to $1,100 for a three-bedroom unit, is “well above” the average for the Salisbury area, says Charles Dalton of Real Data, which tracks the multifamily market across the region.

“That may enable them to compete with Charlotte” for N.C. Research Campus workers looking for high-end units, he says. “Instead of going south to Charlotte, they will go north to Salisbury.”

Amenities at The Grand on Julian are designed to compete with anything in the market, Neely says. Those amenities include garages, granite countertops, an indoor basketball court and a 20-seat theater.

“It’s really for the working professional,” he says.

The 17.5-acre Salisbury project, financed by Capmark Financial Group, will be available for tenants in December, Neely says.

Concrete foundations have been poured at the site, with plans to begin vertical construction later this month, he says.

EST General Contractors of Dunn is the general contractor for The Grand on Julian project. Designer is PDI Architecture of Anderson, S.C.

Windsor Park Neighborhood Association Meeting for July 2008

Windsor Park Neighborhood Association — Next Monthly meeting — July 8th, 2008 6:30 pm — Windsor Park Elementary School

Windsor Park in East Charlotte is a Great Neighborhood for Gays and Lesbians

In their annual ranking, Gay Real Estate USA listed Charlotte, NC as one of the best places to live for gays and lesbians in the nation. According to their report, they “choose the Gay Ghetto Top 10 by cross-analyzing demographics against real estate sales data to discover those especially prized metropolitan areas throughout the USA that are most in vogue with the diverse GLBT community.”

Charlotte ranks #3 behind Atlanta and Portland.

Charlotte is one of the largest banking centers in the world, and is second only to NYC in that respect. But the “Queen City” also benefits from a powerfully funded arts community and offers wonderful museums, entertainment venues, and an eclectic mix of 19^th century neighborhoods and sleek urban downtown architecture. Neighborhoods like South End and NODA (North Davidson Street) enjoy a thriving GLBT presence and the city has other desirable and affordable enclaves including tree-lined Windsor Park.

Read the whole post of the Gay Ghetto Top 10 for 2008 for yourself here.

Slow and Steady Redevelopment on Central Ave Good for Windsor Park

Windsor Park is a vibrant neighborhood of established homes in east Charlotte. The Windsor Park Neighborhood includes the area surrounded by Kilbourne Drive (west side), to Eastway Drive (west side), to Shamrock Drive (north side), to North Sharon Amity (east side), to Central Avenue (south side), back to Kilbourne Drive.

From the Charlotte Business Journal:

Redevelopment of Central Avenue is Piece by Piece

Parcel by parcel, developers are remaking the face of Central Avenue near Plaza Midwood.

But they’re hoping the changes won’t compromise the character that attracted them to the neighborhood in the first place.

“People need a place to get away from the franchise, cookie-cutter places you find all over the city,” says Andy Kastanas, a part owner of Cosmos and The Forum uptown.

He is transforming a nearly 80-year-old building on Central Avenue into a restaurant and lounge. “This is one of the last outposts in the city for cultural developments.”

At least a handful of projects are planned or under way for about a half-mile stretch of Central Avenue between Louise Avenue and The Plaza. The only thing connecting the development: a desire by owners and tenants to be a part of one of Charlotte’s last “unique” neighborhoods. And most expect the proposed streetcar line that would run along Central Avenue through uptown and several new housing developments to boost the neighborhood’s popularity.

Kastanas is investing about $400,000 to rehabilitate the top floor of 1500 Central Ave. for what he calls a gastro-lounge. The building, constructed in 1932, needed extensive structural work, he says. The 1,900-square-foot restaurant, called Soul, will have about 60 seats and serve dishes such as sushi and tapas.

Downstairs, neighborhood tattoo artist Rodney Raines is opening a wine store and art gallery, which will also occupy 1,900 square feet. Raines, owner of Ace Custom Tattoo on nearby Thomas Avenue, plans to have monthly art exhibits and possibly outdoor seating at the shop, which will be called Twenty Two.

Bernadette Delgado, who owns the building, says she was picky about who she offered leases to.

“The thing that I was so cautious about was that I wanted something that would add to the neighborhood,” Delgado says. “I think the two will really complement each other and the neighborhood.”

Around the corner, the owners of the Jackalope Jack’s restaurant and bar will renovate a triangular building at 1212 Pecan Ave. previously occupied by The Steeple Club. Owners Rob Nixon and Andy Wilson plan to add two floors to bring it to about 8,300 square feet. “Of all of the places in Charlotte, this area has got uniqueness,” Nixon says. “It’s got an old downtown feel that no other place in Charlotte has.”

Other developments include:

•A restaurant and retail complex proposed by Conformity Corp. for the corner of Pecan and Commonwealth avenues. Construction of the building, which could be as large as 14,000 square feet, should begin in about six months and be complete by the end of 2009. “People are looking for spaces that are ‘real’ as opposed to contrived,” says Monte Ritchey, Conformity president.

•A 10,000-square-foot warehouse at 1117 Pecan Ave. occupied by a paint store. Sherwin Williams should be moving out by fall. The space would be ideal for an art gallery or yoga studio because of its large open space, says John Nichols, president of The Nichols Co.

•A 20,000-square-foot building renovated by Rudolph Moore Properties at 1401 Central Ave. The firm is investing about $3 million in the 1950s building, which will be home to offices and shops and should be complete within a few months.

•A 10,000-square-foot building being renovated for two restaurants at 1101 Central Ave.

•A 3,700-square-foot space in the Family Dollar-anchored strip center on Central Avenue proposed for a restaurant. John Hatcher, who owns the 10-acre tract the strip sits on, plans to add large windows along the Central Avenue side of the building and a patio. Hatcher has taken his time developing the site, which has been in his family since 1907. “People have great visions for what they’d like to see, but when you put the economics with it, it doesn’t always work out.”

Most of the developers involved in Central Avenue projects think the proposed streetcar line will bring more development.

“We’ve got to have the density to keep the area alive,” Nichols says. “The streetcar will only strengthen this area’s connection to the core of the city.”