This TAP was engaged by the City of Charlotte Planning Department and sponsored by a grant from the Knight Foundation. The City of Charlotte recruited ULI Charlotte to address community engagement. As the city looks toward the next 20 years with the Future Charlotte Comprehensive Plan, many residents have expressed trepidation about changed development standards that could significantly alter the existing engagement process.
The City of Charlotte Department of Transportation (CDOT) asked the ULI Charlotte District Council to conduct a TAP to assist in exploring and expanding the use of Transportation Demand Management (TDM) practices throughout the rapidly growing metropolitan region.
TAP panelists reviewed briefing materials, met with key stakeholders, performed research, and provided guidance on strategies that the city, its regional partners, and the private sector could more effectively use to understand and utilize TDM within regulatory frameworks, as well as in partnership with the development community.
The City of Charlotte’s Sustainability and Resilience Office and the Planning, Design, and Development team are seeking feedback on proposed revisions to the Transit Oriented Development Environmental Bonus, as part of the Unified Development Ordinance process. So far, the City has not seen participation in the Environmental bonus, and therefore, are seeking feedback on some draft changes and elements of those changes to better understand what would encourage more participation, and more sustainable practices. These draft revisions are made specifically with a focus on supporting the City’s goals to reduce energy usage and our carbon footprint, as outlined in the Strategic Energy Action Plan.
The City of Charlotte’s Strategic Energy Action Plan (SEAP) creates the framework for the City of Charlotte to become a low carbon city by 2030 and for City buildings and equipment to be zero carbon by 2050. The City requested assistance through the ULI Technical Assistance Panel Program to investigate and refine the City’s desire to implement Resilience Innovation Districts (RIDs) as a policy tool for implementing the SEAP. The SEAP acknowledges the need for collaboration and partnership to achieve this goal, and positions RIDs as a tool for combining public and private investment in certain districts to demonstrate and incentivize projects that promote and help achieve
the City’s SEAP goals.
The City of Asheville asked the ULI Charlotte District Council to conduct a TAP to assist city leaders in addressing a surge of hotel development and associated visitors, particularly in the downtown area. The city responded to complaints over hotel design and the impacts
of general growth of tourism by implementing a citywide one-year moratorium on hotel construction. The moratorium was approved on September 24, 2019. The TAP panelists were asked to provide guidance and strategies that the city could use to respond to new hotel development proposals post-moratorium.
The Town of Waxhaw asked the ULI Charlotte District Council to conduct a TAP that would assist Town leadership in determining the highest and best use for several municipally-owned properties in the historic downtown district. Panelists were asked to study the potential land uses and economic viability of four “core” parcels, as well as five additional “peripheral” parcels that either serve a civic function for the Town or sit adjacent to other valuable parcels under consideration for redevelopment.
The core parcels that comprise the panel’s “Study Area” (listed below) are situated in a U-shaped area of downtown, bordered by McDonald Street to the north, W. North Main Street to the south, Broome Street to the east and Hicks Street to the west.
The ULI Charlotte District Council was engaged by the Town of Huntersville (TOH) and the Lake Norman Economic Development Corporation (LNED) to study the potential land uses and economic viability of an area that is defined herein as the “Holbrooks Road Study Area.”
In addition to the 41.29-acre parcel south of Holbrooks Road that is currently owned by the TOH, the Holbrooks Road Study Area encompasses additional, privately-owned parcels that are vacant and well-suited for development. As stated in the sponsor briefing materials, “the 2007 East Huntersville Area Development Plan calls for residential growth in this area.” However, the TOH and LNED have commissioned the TAP to determine what the “highest and best use might be for the town parcel and the surrounding area.”
The ULI Charlotte District Council was engaged by the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce/Guilford County Economic Development Alliance (GCEDA), with funding by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The intent of the TAP was to study the potential land uses and economic viability of an area that is defined herein as the “East Gate City Boulevard Innovation Corridor.”
The Innovation Corridor encompasses the Gateway University Research Park (URP) South Campus, as well as land parcels east of the Interstate 40/Interstate 85-East Gate City Blvd. interchange. Additional boundaries of the study area include McConnell Road to the north, Alice Avenue to the west, south of Sharpe Road at Yorkshire Drive, and Cedar Park Road to the east.
ULI Charlotte was engaged to provide a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) to the Lake Norman Economic Development Corporation (LNEDC) to examine land use opportunities in the Town of Cornelius related to a proposed interchange on interstate 77 at Exit 27.
On June 3 and 4, 2015, a one-and-a-half day ULI TAP was conducted with a panel of experts that consisted of real estate and land use consultants, a professional land planner, traffic engineer, and a commercial mortgage banker. The team was briefed by LNEDC and Town of Cornelius officials, toured the study area, and interviewed relevant stakeholders before discussing and developing recommendations. At the end of the second day, the panel made a brief presentation on its findings.
The southwestern edge of downtown Winston-Salem has been on the verge of major change for two decades, but until now, it has lacked a transformative project in scale to warrant significant consideration of private investment. This was radically changed in the last few years, with several projects underway, such as the new baseball park, West End Village (multiple phases), and major expansion and renovations to historic Sawtooth School of Visual Arts Building into the Downtown Arts Center. The private interests in each of these projects acknowledge the positive trend; however, they have not had the opportunity to focus on making meaningful sense of the connectivity of these projects to further benefit their projects and the future developable sites within this new development zone.
The TAP panel was charged with reviewing the Mooresville Mill Village area, which surrounds the former Mooresville Mill. During initial discussions with the Town of Mooresville, ULI identified key issues the TAP panelists were asked to address. On April 24, 2008, ULI Charlotte conducted a session addressing these issues. The session consisted of a tour of the study area, an interview with key stakeholders, preparation of the plan and a presentation of the recommendations to the public. The report is intended to provide general considerations that the client might wish to use in future planning for the Town of Mooresville.