Ideas for the Empty Stores

Have you noticed that Pike's has gone out of business in Birkdale? As a group of us were sitting out at the wine bar tonight we were musing about what would be a good fit for that location. Someone also pointed out that the space on the corner behind the old Pike's is also vacant. So with two spaces to think about here is a listing of our ideas about what would be a good fit for these locations.

The Front Side Prime Corner Slot: We all agreed that this would probably do best as another Red Rocksy type restaurant. The new owners definitely need to make more use of the outdoor seating possibilities. Pike's did not use its prime location real estate well enough. That corner gets the most sun in Birkdale and only Brixx uses the outdoor seating. I also suggested that they could transform the street side windows into sliding ones that open up horizontally which will allow the indoor and outdoor spaces to flow together. It was also suggested that a restaurant call 'Restaurant X' from Davidson could move in. Restaurant X's Irish owners serve a great fare. We also came up with a BY style bakery/deli. I know that the bagel bin is great but it would be awesome to have that in Birkdale vice driving over to Northcross. Plus, the bakery could sell all sorts of other breads and really good meats.
As for the space behind the former Pike's, someone suggested a performing arts studio so that parents could drop their children off and enjoy the time in Birkdale. Perhaps, this could be the bakery location? How about a personal training studio? A massage/spa place? We all felt that since it was off the main street that it would be tough for a retailer or traditional restaurant to survive in that space. We also though that it was odd that the store front has been under construction continuously for at least the past year. Who knows, maybe they've had a succession of tenants drop off after they already started remodeling.
Well, whatever fills these voids we hope that they do well and offer us all some new service and yet another reason not to drive somewhere else when we don't have to.

The Huntersville Herald

Does everyone get that local paper in their mailbox on a weekly basis? I'm talking about The Huntersville Herald which usually has a run down of local development projects and upcoming issues with the school board, town boards, police departments, and sports. I mostly like reading about the new developments and new roadway plans that the towns are considering. I would put the Huntersville Herald on par with the Charlotte Observer's Lake Norman section published on Thursdays and Sundays. The Charlotte Observer has better color layouts but The Huntersville Herald goes into much more depth on each specific story. Post a comment below about which newspaper you like better for your local news source. Even better, if you know of another informative local source, then post a comment about that as well.

The Herald's websites says that it is published by 5 PM each Friday, which figures that it gives them the entire work week to get it finalized. The Herald is a Mecklenburg Newspaper Group, LLC and is mailed for free to residents of Huntersville and Cornelius. Everyone else pays $35 per year for a subscription. I'm guessing that the newspaper is soley advertising supported since it is mailed out free and its website is plastered with ads for advertising in the paper. I'm amazed that a free ad support newspaper that serves such a relatively small community can survive.

Since finding their online website, I've been reading most of the articles on the papers website related to developments around the village. Right now I'm reading a complicated story about the future developments of Cornelius' planned Robbin's Park which is currently next to the Greens at Birkdale but which could be swapped to a further location. Anyways, if you want to read up on really local news then The Huntersville Herald is a great source.

A Time to Sit - Starbucks, Wine Bar, or Cafe Mia

This is my favorite time of the year for sitting outside. I especially love the mornings which are still crisp and slightly cool but which warm up slowly when the sun arises.
Morning. Here in Birkdale my favorite place to sit outside in the mornings is at the Starbucks. The coffee is ok but what I really enjoy is the people that Starbucks attracts. It is energizing to see so much life in one place and to see people starting their day on such a nice morning. Its amazing how many business meetings take place over a cup of Joe at Starbucks. What is also amazing is the number of people willing to brave the wind, dew, or just about any elements in order to sit outside. I myself prefer sunny days but this past Sunday I even saw a woman sitting out under the overhang during that slogging rain storm we experienced.

Noon. Although I haven't had too many noontime meals in the village we mostly prefer Brixx (Brick oven Pizza) or Red Rocks (Not sure how to classify this one) for their lunch time fare.

Evening. Choices here vary depending on what we seek. If sitting out to enjoy wine is our desire then the Wine Bar is the place to be although we often have to wait a bit for outside seating and then fight for chairs to boot. If we desire beer then I highly recommend Brixx with its various foreign beers. You can't beat the Sampler beer platter which lets you sample four exotic beers at a reasonable price. Or even better is its Saturday night $2.50 beer special. We've sat outside many a night in the summer at Brixx listening to the live music. Lastly, our favorite ice cream, coffee, and conversation stop is Cafe Mia. Marco and Mia, the owners, and, yes, he is Italian, and double, yes, the cafe is named after his wife, Mia, have a wonderful selection of Gelato Ice Cream. It truly is delicious. They also have great Italian coffee which is way better than Starbucks. (On a side note they recently started serving a breakfast and a lunch but we haven't checked it out just yet).

So those are our choices. Of course there are more that we like at Random times: Jason's Deli (Good place for a dog too to sit out with you), Galway Hooker, Eez, and lastly just the plain old benches in Birkdale are nice too.

The Village at Lake Norman

Friend or foe? Will the potential Village at Lake Norman compliment or compete with Birkdale Village. The Huntersville Herald and Urban Planet both have interesting facts and thoughts about the proposed development. 900,000 feet or retail, 300 living units, a new Hwy 77 exit 26, Westmoreland expanded to 4 lanes - Wow! These are some big numbers and changes for what is currently a country road!

The debate online seems to center around whether this will create a traffic nightmare or is this the density that Charlotte needs to have to accommodate the influx of new residents. I'm in favor of the latter, density, only if it means that other lands are set aside for preservation and green space. What is the likelihood of large amounts of green space being preserved? Probably close to Nil. So what I think will happen is that we will have the density and around it we will have the typical sprawl and in the end we will be stuck with horrendous traffic. Sorry if that discourages anyone from moving here but, hopefully, the three towns community can figure out how to build more roads and expand the current greenway plan. Someone on Urban planet made an interesting comment:

"This would mean the Lake area would have Exits, 23, 25, 26, 30, 32, 33, 36. Anywhere else in the state, this would be it's own metro area."

Wow, I did not think of it this way. That is allot of exits in one short stretch of highway!

On the other hand it would be really cool to live in between two awesomely planned mixed use communities and to be able to walk between the two on the McDowell Creek Greenway, click to read previous post. I imagine that if they could incorporate enough commercial space then people could truly live, work, play here North of Charlotte. As soon as a plan for this development comes out then I will try and post it here to this blog.

"When you add in Bryton and the Langtree mixed use new urbanist developments, this means that 2,100,000 sq ft of upscale retail space has been announced for Huntersville, Davidson and Cornelius. If you add in some smaller TOD projects on the proposed rail line, this number rises to about 2.5 million sq. ft. This is an amazing amount of retail if all of it is built "

Another great comment from Urban planet. I also wonder how many Birkdale developments are possible along one stretch of highway. I just remembered that Bryton is being planned between Exits 18 and 23. That too will be a massive mixed use community. It will definitely be interesting to see how this all develops. Of course, I would rather see more Birkdale's then the Harris Blvd strip mall after strip mall style development. If you never go to Harris Blvd then you are probably lucky because it has lots and lots of lights and lots of strip malls.

Of course, my load officer also made a comment that as traffic gets worse people will want to live in mixed use because then they don't HAVE to drive anywhere if they don't want to. Ok, so now that I am wrapping up this random thought debate, I want to add a caveat for any friends from the DC, NY, or Boston metro areas. The traffic here is NOTHING compared to what is normal in those metro areas! We are many years away from being that bad. But I guess that everything is relative.

Birkdale vs Northlake

I attended a BBQ this evening at our friends new house in Wesley heights just West of Charlotte. Most people at the party live north of Charlotte and we were discussing the relatively new Northlake Mall off Exit 18 on Hwy 77. The party was predominantly women (seems to be a Charlotte thing I'll have to write about in a future post). Most agreed that they were not particularly fond of the new Northlake Mall. However, they all expressed concern that since many of the same stores were at both Northlake and Birkdale that Birkdale would eventually suffer.

Thankfully, the Charlotte Observer reported the following:

With Northlake mall now six months old, it's showing no signs of harming its nearest major competition, Birkdale Village. Some retail observers thought the proximity of the open-air Birkdale to the Northlake traditional enclosed mall, along with the fact that several major stores are duplicated in both spots, might lead to a shakeout.
But there's plenty of demand to go around, experts say. "There's really not been any negative impact from the mall," said Darryl Cater, spokesman for Inland Real Estate Group of Companies Inc., Birkdale's ..."

I for one hope that Birkdale maintains its strong appeal. Northlake may not be much now but with both a Lowes and a Super target opening right across from the mall it might become more attractive in the future. I personally think that it is a shame that the city of Charlotte let them build Northlake like they did. At first the developer went to the town of Huntersville which turned the developer down. So Charlotte being the great neighbor that it is let the developer build the mall right on the city/town limits. Why isn't Northlake Mall a mixed use development itself. I mean that Hwy 77/Exit 18 is the epitome of poor planning and sprawl at its best. On one corner there is Harris Corners Parkway a commercial office complex. On two corners are currently or soon will be big box stores. And, lastly, there is the mall. I did the math assuming that 1500 people work in Harris corners they will have to make 180,000 car trips a year through the intersection just to get lunch. Why doesn't the mall have commercial buildings above it. Workers could walk down to the food court or shop in the mall, parking could be consolidated since workers work on weekdays and malls are crowded on weeknights and weekends, and land around the mall could have been preserved for walking trails or something.

Well, enough ranting about better possible land uses and back to the original thought of this post. Will Northlake threaten or compliment Birkdale? Is there room enough North of Charlotte for both and all of the other retail that is planned for the area? I personally think so - except maybe in the dead of winter. Let me know what you think.

While searching for information about the developments around Northlake I found this interesting Urban Planet website that describes how Northlake Mall came about and has many local reactions to its development.

Here's Northlake Under Development:

Peter Gordon's "City Lite" Blog

Peter Gordon's blog has an interesting article that described Birkdale and others like it: Legacy in Plano near Dallas; Atlantic Station near Atlanta; Santana Row near San Francisco. This blog sight relates a WSJ article that talks about New Urban developments that are modeled after traditional downtowns. The gyst of the article is that Birkdale style developments are becoming more popular. Some places like Bishop Road are so large and complete that some residents never need to leave since that place also includes a business park.

As a kid I used to wonder what it would be like to live in a large mall. At the time a new mall had opened near our house and it looked so cool. Now I despise traditional malls as loud, noisy, traffic nightmares. I guess that someday people will live on Mars on indoor malls. In retrospect what attracted me about malls was the action and the sense of life. I think Birkdale and developments like it offer the sense of life with the ability to enjoy the outdoors and to do more than just shop. This is an interesting quote about Birkdale style development vs the traditional mall:

"Only one mall has opened in 2006, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, a New York City-based trade group. By contrast, more than 60 so-called lifestyle centers -- outdoor shopping areas with plazas, fountains and pedestrian streets -- are planned to open this year and next."

I wonder if that one mall was Northlake of Highway 77, Exit 18?

Saturday Morning Bootcamp

Ever wonder who all those people were running up and down Birkdale Commons Parkway or running through the village on Saturday mornings carrying random things like 10 lb bars and backpacks? Well, they're all a part of Mike Scotto's and Terry Vaughn's Bootcamp experience.

Its a unique outdoor fitness challenge. Mike Scotto started it indoors at the Birkdale Fitness Center (Fitcare) last spring and it was called High Intensity Team Training. Terry then took it outdoors and since starting his class in September we've had great Saturday weather ever since.

The class usually starts about 9:30 AM in front of the Birkdale Fitness Center and lasts about an hour to an hour and a half. This is a great self paced work out that will leave you feeling challenged and fulfilled all weekend long. Plus, its a fun group of people. Terry and Mike usually mix the classes up between runs, sprints, and muscular workouts. We had an out of town visiting friend take the class with us and she was cursing us for a week afterwards. Of course she ran track in high school and wanted to strut her stuff - you don't have to push that hard first time out (Diethra, thinking of you).

The more then merrier so come on out. And if you see us running by cheer us on to work harder and to push ourselves.

Check out Terry Vaughn's website:

http://www.highintensityteambuilding.com/index.php

McDowell Creek Greenway

Birkdale will eventually be connected to the Mecklenburg Country Trailways system. McDowell Creek which runs right behind Birkdale is part of that plan. Above is the map of the Birkdale Village piece of the trail that will incorporate our current pond walkway and will run right behind the movie theater. Here is the link to Mecklenburg County's McDowell Creek Page and Map:

http://www.charmeck.org/Departments/Park+and+Rec/Greenways/Upper+McDowell+Creek.htm.

This section of the Greenway will initially run 1.5 miles from West Moreland Road to Sam Furr. It will connect Birkdale, Stratford Forest, the future Robbin's Park, and the Alexander Chase neighborhood. The design is largely complete and they should start construction this summer.

I wrote Jason Pauling, Mecklenburg County's Greenway Planner, to suggest that the trail might be better off running beside the village along the gas line that runs between the village itself and the Greens at Birkdale Houses. Here is his great response:

"Thank you for your email and questions. The issues at Sam Furr relate to the fact that we will not be able to go under Sam Furr at this time due to the fact that the box culverts are too small, plus we do not own any land next to the creek and would have a tough time trying to get through the Birkdale golf course. Therefore, the best crossing would be at the intersection of Birkdale Commons Parkway and Sam Furr Road as you have mentioned. We would most likely widen the sidewalk along Sam Furr, which is currently 5-feet wide and separated from the road by a planting strip. We have not researched the possibility of using the gas easement, but I will do that and let you know if it looks feasible. Birkdale Commons Parkway contains sidewalk and bike lanes, and is a good overland connector for the greenway to continue. The next leg of McDowell after that will most likely extend from the end of Birkdale Commons Parkway, back to the creek, and then run behind the Wynfield neighborhood toward Gilead Road, where it will connect to the Torrence/Lower McDowell Creek system."

I also asked about a future possible connection to the northcross shopping center and eventually to the light rail stop at Sam Fur/73 and 115. Can you say weekend morning walks to the Bagel Bin? He replied:

"As far as a connection to Northcross, there is a tributary of McDowell Creek called Caldwell Station Creek that runs behind the Northcross Center. Not sure if it runs all the way to 115, but it gets close. I think that developing a greenway along this tributary is something that would be in the Town of Huntersville and Town of Cornelius Greenway Master Plan. It's a good idea, although getting under I-77 would be a challenge and major cost factor. Check with Michael Jaycocks with the Town of Huntersville Park and Rec. dept. to see if this creek is in their master plan. His number is 704-766-2228. In the meantime, We will be improving the existing boardwalk/bridge crossing at Townley Road, which will provide a connection to Northcross Drive, where there is a CATS Park and Ride lot. By using the greenway and the boardwalk/bridge, you would avoid having to get on Sam Furr Road. Safety of bicyclists and pedestrians, and connections to a number of destinations is our primary goal."

I look forward to the day a few years from now when I could
eventually Bike for miles on the interconnected Greenway system of Mecklenburg County.

Best Bagels in Charlotte!

From New York or at least the North East? Do you miss great bagels? Well a Long Island Pharmacist turned baker has moved to Huntersville and opened The Bagel Bin. It's in the North Cross shopping center - that's the one with Lowe's and Target at the intersection of 21 and Sam Furr. Well, the Bagel Bin is kind of behind Target on the right side while looking at it. I only describe all this because the first time I looked for it I couldn't find it and I didn't realize that there were more stores that continued around the right ride of the shopping plaza.

Anyways, the Bagel Bin is the place for great breakfast food and its only a short distance from Birkdale. We love to start our Saturday morning at the Birkdale Fitness center and then drive over to the Bagel Bin for bagels before heading home to cook up some bagels and eggs. Don't get there too late because they close by 1 PM I think. Also, expect to stand in line for about 15 minutes. Yes, they are worth the wait! Just think, it is their popularity that brought all those people in front of you.

The Village Beginnings

Did you know that Birkdale Village was an Equine Farm? I had heard dairy but the developers website actually says equine farm. It's also amazing when we meet a local who tells of riding their bikes as kids up Sam Furr to the intersection of Hwy 21. At that time there was no highway entrance or exit and both 73 and 21 were just two lane roads. What is equally amazing is how few locals we meet in our travels around the area. That's part of what we like about this place. Almost everyone here is new and that makes everyone so much more willing to reach out and engage their neighbors in line at Starbucks, the Bagel Bin, or anywhere really for that matter.

While designing Birkdale the developers took extra care to ensure minimal conflict between the various uses. For example, the street lights are lower to the ground than typical street lamps and have lower watt bulbs so that the apartments above are not bothered by the light. However, to ensure that the retail had enough light and that pedestrians felt safe they added many more street lights than normal as well.

Did you know that Birkdale village has 15,500 parking spaces. Yes, that's fifteen thousand! I find this hard to believe because there just doesn't seem to be that many spaces. Especially so on nice summer nights when you see cars waiting in line for parking spaces - thankfully, we live in the Greens at Birkdale and don't have to worry about parking.

Did you know that Birkdale Village was patterned on a Nantucket village, which has two to three story buildings with offices/residences above first floor shops. Of course, Birkdale's buildings are much larger than a typical village building.

Here is an except about the humble beginnings:

"In Northern Mecklenburg County, just North of Charlotte, suburban developments and golf course communities are quickly replacing what was once farmland. As the population continues to grow, residents have expressed concern that the area lacks a sense of place and community. Pappas Properties, LLC, and Crossland, Inc. kept this concern in mind when they developed Birkdale Village, a mixed-use, village style town center. The center combines 233,000 square feet (21,646 square meters) of street-level retail and 54,000 feet (4,924-square-meter) movie theater surrounding a town green where residents and visitors gather for community events."