The New North State

FINALLY today plans were disclosed for the redevelopment of the old North State Chevrolet site by the new baseball stadium downtown. The article from the News and Record follows below if you missed it. The Triad Business Journal reports that a grocery store may also be in the mix for the $60+ million development.



Shops, homes planned near ballpark
2-24-05
By Nate DeGraff, Staff Writer
Updated 4:30 p.m.
GREENSBORO — The owners of the North State Chevrolet property revealed their plans for shops and hundreds of homes today, hoping that the city will help pay for the massive downtown project.
Blueprints for the development, dubbed “Bellemeade Village,” show a sweeping mini-town straddling Smith Street, complete with retailers, a hotel, underground parking and more than 300 apartments and condominiums. A new road would slice through the project, which sits on a choice 6-acre tract just beyond the left-field wall of First Horizon Park.
The tract is owned by brothers Steve and Jim Jones, who are planning a giant mixed-use development for the site. (Photo courtesy of Jim and Steve Jones)
More details will be revealed this spring. Construction could start within a year.
“It’ll be the largest urban development Greensboro’s ever seen,” said Steve Jones, who co-owns the property with his brother Jim.
Some of the funding for the $70-$100 million project could come under Amendment One, a change in the state constitution which gives local governments the authority to borrow money for certain economic development projects without going to a bond referendum. Voters narrowly approved Amendment One last fall.
Ray Gibbs, president of Downtown Greensboro, Inc., said Amendment One money could fund 5 to 10 percent of the Bellemeade Village project. The funds would be used for parking and streetscapes, he said. A proposal could be brought to the city this summer.
"It really is exactly what Amendment One talks about," Gibbs said Thursday.
The developers approached city officials Wednesday with a prospective request for assistance. In a meeting with Mayor Keith Holliday, Council member Tom Phillips and City Manager Ed Kitchen, the developers asked about the city possibly borrowing money to build a parking deck and pay for roadway work around the project.
The city may opt to use Amendment One, which means the loans would be paid off with the increased property taxes the owners would pay. For instance, the city could build a parking garage that would be used by the residents and retail shops.
Phillips said the city’s involvement is still in the “conceptual” stage and no promises had been made to the developers. Holliday said that the city would do what it could to make the Bellemeade Village project work, but he said that more details would be needed before any city aid is pledged.
But Holliday and others said they liked the plans for the land and said it would be a great addition to downtown.
“These guys are trying to think outside the box,” Holliday said. “Hopefully it’s well received.”
Phillips agreed that the shops and homes will do well near downtown.
“There’s so much traffic that goes past there, I can’t help but feel that it will succeed,” Phillips said.
Holliday noted the irony that the developers want to add a street only a block away from where the city closed Lindsay Street to make way for the new stadium.
“With the baseball stadium, we closed a street,” he said. “With this one, we’re adding a street.”
If built, the project will also likely spur more development at the downtown’s northwest edge.
One hot tract is the Guilford County office building at West Lindsay and North Eugene streets. The building now houses the county’s tax collection department, but those offices will move to the nearby Independence Center as long as the county makes good on plans to buy it.
That would leave the old tax collections complex empty. Developers have been inquiring about the property for months.
“I would think the board (of commissioners) will probably put it on the market as soon as we can vacate it,” said David Grantham, the county’s property management director.
Bellemeade Village could also be a boon to existing businesses that don’t see much walk-up traffic in that part of downtown.
“I think it’d be great,” said Jimmy Contogiannis, who co-owns Acropolis, a nearby restaurant. “Because once everything gets built, you’ll have more people who are able to walk to the restaurant.”