All Forum Posts by: Josh Stack

Light rail leaders present proposed track alignment in Belmont

Posted Sep 17, 2020 at 10:24 AM

Leaders of the large and complex project to bring to connect Gaston County to uptown Charlotte via light rail held a virtual meeting Tuesday evening to provide an update.

Most recently, leaders brought the Charlotte Area Transit System’s LYNX Silver Line project into the pre-project development phase. Once completed, the Silver Line will stretch 26 miles from Belmont to Matthews, through uptown Charlotte.

Gaston County residents could board the light rail along Wilkinson Boulevard in Belmont and not only commute to their uptown Charlotte jobs, but also visit popular Charlotte destinations, such as Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, BB&T Ballpark, Bojangles’ Coliseum and Ovens Auditorium.

Project leaders are actively making refinements to the proposed alignment of the light rail -- also called the locally preferred alternative -- as well as looking at ways to incorporate residential and retail opportunities along the light rail in a pedestrian-friendly manner.

The pre-project development phase is scheduled to continue through 2024. The estimated cost of the entire Silver Line and finalized design plans will likely be presented after 2024.

Alignment of light rail

On the Gaston County side, the Silver Line would start near the intersection of Park Street and Wilkinson Boulevard – in the area formerly occupied by Sub Corral -- continue along the north side of Wilkinson Boulevard and cross the Catawba River.

The Silver Line would cross Browntown Road, Crest Drive, Wallace Avenue, Priscilla Street, Patterson Street and Hazeline Avenue in Belmont, and would not require the reconstruction of Wilkinson Boulevard.

Express your thoughts and questions on the LYNX Silver Line project by either taking a survey or contacting the project team.

“We don’t have to rebuild the road and that has a lot less impact and cost,” said Andy Mock, senior engineer for the Silver Line project. “Having a side-running conditional allows for the platform to be directly adjacent to the parking, which just takes out some barriers for folks to get out of their vehicle and get into the train.”

However, many cross streets and driveways in Belmont, as well as just east of the Catawba River, must be reconstructed and rerouted.

Mock said projects leaders are also considering starting the Silver Line between the two entrances of the Montcross shopping center along Wilkinson Boulevard.

This option would start the Silver Line either in the median of Wilkinson Boulevard or on the north side of the road.

Similar to many busy Charlotte intersections along the Blue Line, the light rail would cross over Park Street on a large, aesthetic bridge if the Silver Line began west of Park Street.

“Those are some different ideas we’ve been kicking around,” Mock said. “We do recognize that there are significant traffic issues there.”

Running the Silver Line in the middle of Wilkinson Boulevard would require the complete reconstruction of the road. Mock added that two more bridges would be needed to cross in and out of the median on either side of the Catawba River.

“The pro of that option is that it does maintain the side streets and driveways,” Mock said.

The proposed Silver Line alignment avoids impact to Kevin Loftin Riverfront Park, which sits just south of Wilkinson Boulevard at the Catawba River bridge.

Several studies dating back to 1998 led up to the Silver Line team identifying the proposed light rail alignment.

Mock said it’s too early to tell not only the cost of the entire Silver Line but also how many properties will be impacted by construction.

“We’re very far from understanding the footprint of this project and what the right of way needs will be,” Mock said. “Flash forward a couple years and we do complete the design... we will then approach each particular property owner with a proposal for the property that’s needed and we would seek to reach a settlement with each property owner acquire the property necessary for the project.”

Train to Gastonia

CATS leaders are also helping with a study alongside the Centralina Regional Council and Connect Beyond to eventually expand off the Silver Line project to connect 12 counties outside of Mecklenburg County, including Cleveland, Lincoln and York counties.

“Any kind of connections to downtown Gastonia or any jurisdictions along the U.S. 74 corridor would be a part of that effort,” said Jason Lawrence, CATS senior transit planner. “We will be wrapping up that study by the end of next year and will be coordinating with the LYNX Silver Line efforts.”

Gastonia City Council already agreed to provide $20,000 for the study, as well as $50,460 equivalent of employee staff time, according to previous reports.

Part of the study means honing in a unified vision for public transit across the region, according to Jason Wager, principal planner for the Centralina Council of Governments.

“We’re talking about over 5,000 square-miles and about 2.6 million people,” Wager said. “Trying to weave together across several different transit agencies and counties and jurisdictions, what does that regional vision look like? Right now it’s fairly wide open.”

You can reach Gavin Stewart at the Gaston Gazette.

Rural Gaston operation centerpiece of Tesla deal

Gavin Stewart 

The Gaston Gazette

A business partly based in Gaston County signed a major deal to mine for and sell lithium to Tesla, the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer.

Piedmont Lithium, an Australian corporation whose North Carolina office is based in downtown Belmont, has drilled and explored a rural piece of land near Cherryville over the last few years.

The company signed a binding agreement with Tesla this week to supply mineral concentrates, a source for lithium, for five years and extendable up to five more years.

Tesla’s interest in the lithium -- furthermore, Gaston County -- comes from its ability to power the batteries of electric vehicles.

The agreement begins once Piedmont Lithium delivers its first product to Tesla. Piedmont Lithium expects the first delivery will occur between July 2022 and July 2023, according to a press release.

Before mining begins, however, Piedmont Lithium must conduct a feasibility study and rezone the future mining land — 115 acres east of Cherryville city limits.

That land, off Hephzibah Church Road, sits on the Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt, which previously provided most of the western world’s lithium, primarily between the 1950s and 1980s, according to Piedmont Lithium.

Piedmont Lithium purchased the land for $3 million in August but hasn’t yet applied for a rezoning permit.

Though Piedmont Lithium has studied the area, a feasibility study is needed to further analyze the lithium deposits and its economic impact, as well as the legal process before mining can begin.

Piedmont Lithium leaders said they expect the study to begin before 2021.

The entire Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt stretches from Lincolnton into Kings Mountain and Cleveland County.

This is a developing story.

You can reach Gavin Stewart at the Gaston Gazette.

Warehouse could bring jobs to I-85 corridor

Adam Orr, Gaston Gazette

A Pennsylvania based investment firm is moving forward with plans to develop a more than 300,000-square-foot speculative warehouse space near the Gaston and Cleveland County line.

County officials said this week the space, which could cost some $15 million to build, could create more than 150 new jobs in Kings Mountain when it goes online in 2021, and could foreshadow the kind of future development you’re likely to see much more of along major transportation corridors like Interstate 85.

Donny Hicks, executive director of the Gaston County Economic Development Commission, said Equus Capital Partners has selected land just off I-85 near Canterbury Road and Woodlake Parkway near Hanes Brands and Bridgestone.

Construction would likely begin next spring, Hicks said, and the company is rounding out the due diligence phase of its research.

“There’s still site planning stuff to figure out and utilities with Kings Mountain,” Hicks said. “But the company anticipates moving forward sometime in March.”

A likely scenario for the space is multiple tenants, perhaps those looking for an e-commerce distribution hub, Hicks said, though 300,000-square-feet isn’t too large for a single occupant to scoop up.

“People typically think of these warehouses as just a shell that people stick some boxes in, but the market has changed,” Hicks said. “It’s gotten substantially more sophisticated, with automated systems seen in some of the larger buildings with a robotics component to facilitate shipping.”

In particular, growth in the e-commerce sector means you’re likely to see companies building out their infrastructure through a network of warehouses that store and catalog products that will soon end up on the front porches of consumers.

“That’s a relatively rapidly growing sector of the real estate market driven by the desire to have more distributed warehouse that lead to shorter delivery times,” Hicks said. “That’s only going to continue to grow.”

E-commerce sales make up just a fraction of total retail sales in any given year, with some statistics putting that number at 9.1 percent in 2017 and growing to just shy of 10 percent a year later. COVID-19 related stay-at-home orders may have pushed that figure to as high as 16 percent in the second quarter of 2020, according to the United States Census Bureau.

“That’s a market we’re going to see continue to grow,” Hicks said. “Which means a growth in smaller facilities to handle those ‘last mile’ mile deliveries.”

Even heavily automated facilities, like those in use by Amazon in Charlotte, require a number of employees to sort, catalog and ship inventory.

“It all depends on the end user or the number of end users, but a facility that size I’d comfortably put in the range of 50-150 employees on site,” Hicks said. “I’d expect more, however.”

@Jerryll Noorden

We are not running a typical campaign and we are not typical investors on the BP forums.  We are running a highly targeted campaign (200 mailers/mailing) within our home geography for multifamily between 5-75 units.  We will run a high touch campaign (18 touches) over 12 months with the ambition of being the seller's first call when they do decide to sell.

Since we are long term buy/hold of larger multifamily properties, we can afford to be targeted, patient and play the timing game with sellers who are on average older and have held for a long time already.

We are not creating a marketing machine to churn out wholesale flip deals; we aren't on that treadmill. My question was for @Erik Logan asking about how the results were for his campaign.  Do you have a something valuable to add to that?

Hi @Jerryll Noorden we have landed one deal through direct mail so we are going back to the well and see if it works again.  One deal will pay for the campaign and it's feels like better odds than we are getting from the brokers where the well has been pretty dry for the last few months

Did you get any response? Any success?

Originally posted by @Erik Logan:

I would really like to hear how these letters went also, I'm looking to send out a series shortly.  My thoughts are to send out a professional letter first followed by a hand written letter then a offer letter.  I'm thinking about spacing them out 4-6 weeks each.  

I would like to hear whats worked for other people.  

We had success in our first mail campaign.  Now embarking on a hybrid campaign.  Letters + post cards to a targeted list.  I'll update how it goes if anyone interested.

Groundbreaking planned for Kings Mountain casino

Gaston Gazette

By Joyce Orlando
Posted Jul 10, 2020 at 8:15 AM

The Catawba Indian Nation announced that groundbreaking for their casino will be this month (July 2020).

“The Catawba Nation is pleased to announce that we are having a groundbreaking this month on our resort in Kings Mountain. This important project will have a huge economic impact on the region, bringing thousands of jobs to the area,” said Catawba Indian Nation Chief Bill Harris.

Harris did not reveal a date of when the groundbreaking of the 17-acres of land off of Dixon School Road and I-85 will occur.

Economic future

On March 13, the Catawba’s announced the U.S. Department of Interior approved the land going into trust after a more than seven year wait.

Harris estimates that at least 5,000 people will be employed during the construction phase and another 4,000 when the facility opens.

While profit made by the casino will go to the tribe, the community will still see an impact as the city of Kings Mountain will provide the utilities to help power the gaming facility. Along with that, industries that spring up around the casino will add to the tax base in the community, said Kings Mountain Mayor Scott Neisler in March.

An economic impact study prepared by London & Associates shows the proposed facility could represent a $273 million investment in Cleveland County and, once operational, the facility could generate $208 million of direct economic activity.

North Carolina currently has two casinos, both owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Harrah’s Cherokee Casino opened in 1997 and Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Casino near Murphy opened in late 2015. Both of the casinos are managed by Caesars but owned by the tribe.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has opposed the Catawba’s building for years.

Moving forward despite opposition

Harris announced the groundbreaking on the heels of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians amending their lawsuit against the South Carolina tribe and the United States Department of Interior.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians filed an amended complaint on Monday to its federal lawsuit against the decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior to take land in North Carolina into trust for the Catawba Indian Nation of South Carolina to build a casino. The Cherokee say that the land is historically theirs and should not have gone to the Catawba.

“We are aware of Eastern Band of Cherokee’s (EBCI) amended complaint, which reiterates the same claims they made in the original. Based on their original complaint, the EBCI sought a preliminary injunction asking the court to block this project, and the court denied that motion because of the weakness of their case,” Harris said.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the EBCI and 12 “members” who live near the Kings Mountain site off of Dixon School Road. Additionally, the Cherokee Nation based in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, filed its own amended complaint, seeking to protect cultural artifacts on their ancestral land where the casino is planned.

Land claims

For the last several years as the federal government debated whether or not the land should be taken into trust for the Catawba Indian Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians have claimed that their neighbors to the south have no claim.

“Catawba has clearly demonstrated our connection to the land in Kings Mountain. Documentation from many historians shows that Catawba warriors were essential to the winning of the Battle of Kings Mountain as well as our long-term historical and cultural ties to the area,” Harris said.

The amended complaint by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians indicates that the tribe believes that the Catawba are encroaching on their land.

“Cleveland County is included as part of our service area in our 1993 Settlement Agreement approved by Congress which established our re-recognition as a federally recognized tribe. EBCI has never challenged this until now,” Harris said. “We are confident that the judge will find that the U.S. Department of Interior followed all federal laws and made the proper decision regarding our application.”

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A family shop that manages about 400 units, they are very service minded on the tenant and owner side.  

L&E Properties based in Mount Holly manages all our property in the area.  They are a small family firm but place high emphasis on customer service and communicating with tenants.

I can't have better things to say about them, they get my highest recommendation.

They cover Charlotte and west of Charlotte (Gaston/Cleveland Counties).