Dilworth's uneasy growth
By Barbara Thiede, Charlotte Business Journal
Carolinas Medical Center is planning a major surgical tower expansion, office buildings, a large parking deck and a new energy plant. Latta Pavilion, a high-rise building housing retail and apartments, has sprung up on East Boulevard. Developers are eyeing Dilworth's major arteries for more multifamily and mixed-use projects. The city has worked up designs for changes to make major thoroughfares friendlier for pedestrians while encouraging high-density growth.
Current and future projects promise to redefine Dilworth, at least along the streets that form its perimeter, and are sparking mixed and strong reactions from residents. Some see recent growth as a threat to its continued vitality. Others see the development -- much of it high-density or high-rise -- as a natural step in the Dilworth's evolution and a means to help curb sprawl.
If there's one thing backers and detractors can agree on, it's that the century-old neighborhood has never been more popular with home owners and commercial users than it is now.
Jill Walker, an 18-year resident and board member of the Dilworth Community Development Association, says city planners and developers are using the language of smart growth and high density to justify projects that contribute to neither. The area, she says, "is not adequately sized to accommodate their ideas." She says their comparisons of East Boulevard with Brooklyn Heights in New York or Newberry Street in Boston are "like comparing a mouse to an elephant."
David Walters, a professor of architecture at UNC Charlotte and a 10-year Dilworth resident, disagrees. Walters is unhappy about neighborhood resistance to recent development. Proximity to uptown means "there is no other possible definition (for Dilworth) than an urban neighborhood."
The neighborhood, Walters argues, offers ample opportunity to evolve into an attractive urban enclave. "Greenfields are the only other option for new urban villages if central neighborhoods resist their evolution," Walters says. Hostility to urban development inside Charlotte will inevitably cause more sprawl and more stress on the environment.
Residents who favor more mixed-use development suggest that opponents are primarily motivated by worries about property values.
"There are people who have lived in the neighborhood who have seen their homes appreciate," says Mary Hopper, a Dilworth resident and eight-year member of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission. "Homes have gone up to a million or a million and a half dollars. Suddenly they want to pull up the drawbridge."
"The fundamental issue that's at stake," Walters adds, "is whether wealthy neighborhoods can opt out of their responsibilities for smart growth."
Some residents say they would have been perfectly prepared to accept development if it had been scaled to fit the neighborhood. "A lot of people in our neighborhood just don't want to see any change, whether it's four or seven stories," admits Gregg Watkins, a Dilworth resident and DCAD board member. Watkins cites Latta Pavilion, a seven-story mixed-use development he contends is too big for the neighborhood. He believes the new parking decks at the hospital and its expanded energy plant will produce more cars, more exhaust and more eyesores. "We've been involved in skirmishes with the hospital before, but this seemed the death blow."
Walker says many of the stores at Latta Pavilion carry high-end merchandise and will need the support of shoppers from outside Dilworth. Pitched as a neighborhood center, "we've been sold a bill of goods from developers," she says.
Dennis Richter, the developer of Latta Pavilion and Dilworth Crossing, says neighborhood opposition was fueled largely by a fear of change and a misunderstanding of his projects. He doesn't anticipate a flood of additional high-density housing across the neighborhood, but he believes the area bounded by Kenilworth and Scott avenues between East Boulevard and Romany Road will see some. "That's going to be a high-density corridor," he says.
Richter dropped the height of the upcoming Dilworth Crossing apartment development from four to three stories to better blend in with neighboring housing.
John Cock, a principal planner on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission, acknowledges the critics of Latta Pavilion but says, "If you live there, you will be in the most complete neighborhood in Charlotte in terms of having all amenities."
A year ago, Cock oversaw the creation of the pedscape plan, which analyzed major streets in Dilworth and suggested ways to develop medians to encourage getting around by foot. The primary intent of the plan, which suggests tree-lined boulevards with mixed-use development, was to make major streets aesthetically pleasing and more comfortable for pedestrians and bikers.
Cock says residents shouldn't worry about towering infill projects springing up along quiet streets. "Where the changes are going to occur is on the periphery and in the major thoroughfares," he says.
Despite the tensions, DCAD President Julia Vance says developers are communicating about Dilworth projects. "The people making decisions at the hospital are Dilworth residents," she says. "They want to work with the neighborhood." She believes Dilworth's charm will be preserved.
"We're constantly struggling with what's the right mix," Vance says, "and because Dilworth is so highly desirable, we have been bombarded with the desire for development."
Opponents sometimes overlook the area's longstanding mix of uses. Danny Pleasant, deputy director of the Charlotte Department of Transportation, says, "Historically, Dilworth had a combination of sizes and single-family homes. There were apartments and bus lines on East Boulevard, and the neighborhood was characterized by a high level of connectivity. The area offers natural opportunities for combining living, shopping and working."
That mix of uses fits well with changing American demographics, Walters argues: In the next two years, some 80% of new households will be formed by single people or couples without children. These household are increasingly opting out of large homes on large suburban lots. "They deserve the opportunity to live in an attractive neighborhood with a lifestyle that will reduce pollution by driving less," he says.
Proponents of Dilworth's increasing urbanization say appropriate building designs should allay concerns and help the neighborhood serve as a model of development.
"Charlotte needs Dilworth and places like Dilworth to become affordable, vibrant urban neighborhoods," Walters says.
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