Why SouthPark’s biggest redevelopment plan got pushed to 2018

With an influx of thousands of apartments headed to SouthPark, worries about traffic and congestion have been at the forefront as Charlotte City Council approves more and more new developments in the area.

But approval from City Council is only one of many steps in a years-long development process. And as the plans for redeveloping the 27-acre Colony apartments at Sharon and Colony roads show, development plans are often pushed back as timelines stretch and slip.

The developers, owner Synco Properties and partner Schlosser Development Corp., originally planned to start demolition and construction at the aging apartments in 2017 and open parts of the first phase, which would include new apartments, in 2018. Now, however, that’s been pushed back: Demolition won’t start until mid-2018, and the first phase to open won’t be until 2019.

“We realized we needed additional time for the complex pre-construction process required of a mixed-use project like this,” said Tim Hose, CEO of Synco. “The later start date also provides our residents with ample time to plan their relocation and find a new place to live.”

The Colony apartments date to the mid-1970s. City Council approved the rezoning plan in January, for the redevelopment that’s expected to total about $400 million.

The redevelopment plans call for demolishing the 353 existing apartments and building in their place 990 new apartments, a 225-room hotel, 250,000 square feet of office space and 300,000 square feet of retail space, including a grocery store. Although some nearby property owners raised concerns about traffic and congestion, neighboring residential areas, such as the Barclay Downs Homeowners Association and the Morrison Condominiums, supported the proposal.

The Colony redevelopment will constitute the largest single block of new apartments in SouthPark. There are currently 2,611 new apartments that have been approved and are on developers’ drawing boards.
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Charlotte Observer
By Ely Portillo

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