The city of Charlotte is scouting designated underserved neighborhoods to buy property to help lift small businesses, provide housing, and address other needs, the city’s economic development chief said yesterday.
Tracy Dodson, assistant city manager in charge of economic development, told City Council’s economic development committee that her department is targeting tracts in multiple neighborhoods that are part of city government’s Corridors of Opportunity.
Those designated corridors are:
- Beatties Ford and Rozzelles Ferry roads
- Albermarle Road and Central Avenue
- Freedom Drive and Wilkinson Boulevard
- Graham and North Tryon streets
- Sugar Creek Road and Interstate 85
- West Boulevard
“We are targeting some very strategic land acquisitions in a couple of corridors and have property under contract,” Dodson told the committee. “We’re in the very early stages of bringing something to you all. We’re not quite ready, but we’re investigating several pieces of property that we believe can have multiple wins.”
The full council would have to approve any land acquisition. In an interview after the meeting, Dodson declined to specify the location, cost or sizes of the targeted property.
She disclosed the city’s potential land purchases as part of a 90-minute update on the Corridors of Opportunity program started in 2020.
To date, $42.25 million of $62.25 million pledged by council to improving the six corridors has been approved or allocated. Most of the money has been or will be used for improvements and additions to troubled neighborhoods, including plazas, crosswalks, traffic signals, support for small businesses and job development, and so on. The remaining $20 million not in hand will be evenly split as part of bond referenda this year and in 2024.
The Charlotte Business Journal took a closer look at where the infrastructure work has already begun, and the reasons why leaders hope public money will spur strategic private investments. Click here to read more.
