New Brookhill measures development risks and reward – Charlotte Post

Brookhill Village is a developers dream.

The 36-acre parcel off South Tryon Street near Charlottes urban core is part of South End, a hot housing market with upscale retail, a booming housing market and on the light rail line. It also has low-income residents, run-down and shuttered homes and a complicated ownership structure that frustrated developers.

The latter, Brookhill Village advocates agree, saved the neighborhood built in 1950 from becoming another high-end enclave that displaces working-class neighbors. Developer Tom Hendrickson and neighborhood activist the Rev. Ray McKinnon are two of them.

In December, Hendrickson bought Brookhill Villages land lease for $792,000 with the intent of building New Brookhill, a mixed-income neighborhood. Hendrickson, who lives in Zebulon, closed on the leasehold rights in collaboration with community stakeholders that include South Tryon Community Development Corporation, which McKinnon leads.

The plan is considered daring for Charlotte: a near 50-50 split between below-market and market appropriate rents. Lookout Ventures Inc., owned by Hendrickson, will develop the property and a sister company, Brookhill Land Lease Ventures, is the leasehold tenant through 2049. Theres little time for a developer to recoup any investment before the land reverts to its owner, the family of original builder C.D. Spangler, which makes the project a gamble.

I think one of the saving graces, if you will, [is] the complicated nature of Brookhill, said McKinnon, senior pastor at South Tryon Community United Methodist Church and president of its community development corporation. It seems plausible that Brookhill Village would have been razed a long time ago, and those acres would look similar to what we have now, but for the complicated mixture. It was important and vital to get something done because currently the status quo is untenable either way, so those units are far past their life cycle. Capitalism has come into play here. Youve got units that are affordable because they were built to be affordable, but also theyve aged and so you can have rents that are averaging $475 because you don't bring them up to modern standards.

Affordability is what makes Brookhill Village attractive to its residents. Although crime plagued the community to the point where intervention by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police and the federal prosecutors, the vast majority of its residents are law-abiding, hard-working people. About 150 units are occupied, nearly a third of the sites peak occupancy of 418 units when it was built.

That's what makes Brookhill so amazing, photographer Alvin C. Jacobs Jr., whose work in the neighborhood is the subject of an exhibit at the Harvey B. Gantt Center said in a 2019 interview. It's been in existence [since] 1951. Brookhill has been holding it down. It's been a historically black community since the 30s. We've been holding it down in that section of the city. But now, since a particular company owns the land and another particular company also buildings, theyre stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. You've got people who've been doing everything in their power for years to not just exist but live, to take care of their families, to educate themselves, to work.

For a city that has struggled to keep pace with housing for everyone but the well-heeled, New Brookhill is a test case of possibilities. The development is required to adhere to previous agreements with the U.S. Attorneys Office, which in 2016 began the process of seizing property due to alleged drug activity, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police. The proposed project will meet the development guidelines of Local Initiatives Support Corporation guidelines, Freddie Macs Forward Permanent Loan Program and settlement agreement with the U.S. Attorneys Office.

I hope that over time, not only for Charlotte but across the country, we show how you can take an urban redevelopment project and bring it forward in a way thats sensitive to its history, Hendrickson said. Brookhill is unique, every place is unique, but there should be a way to be intentional about finding a way to redevelop a property without displacing the residents. And if you go about it intentionally, in most cases, I think you can find a way.

Architect and South End booster Terry Shook agrees.

I think it has the potential to be a good model for future affordable housing development, he said. It's unique in that there is a ground lease. You know that there's one owner of the land and one owner of the buildings on the land and that's what has created this unique situation and that's created this opportunity. In 2049, you know that the 99-year lease on the buildings will expire. I think the way in which this could be a model is if they do find a way to get the financing that they need to build it in this way could be an inspiring model for others who currently may believe it is impossible.

It takes creativityMcKinnon, who moved to Charlotte four years ago and works in the neighborhood, sees the recent developments as a major milestone after years false starts. Affordable housing, which is often seen as a government function, he said, can work with public and partnerships. The South Tryon CDC, for instance, works with Brookhill residents to articulate residents concerns as a liaison with the developer.

This is, I think, the third or fourth attempt since Ive been involved, he said. I think the thing that is so complicated [is] one, it's a land lease and not outright ownership. And you had the forfeiture lawsuit that was attached to the U.S. Attorneys Office. It's just hard in any deal to get 30% [average median income] units and to try to get as many as we feel are necessary. It takes creativity, I think, and persistence to try to make that work.

New Brookhill would include 324 multi-family apartments with three-story flats and two-story townhomes on 15.5 acres. Sixty-five units would be available at 30% of median income, 97 at 60%, two at 80%, and the remainder at market rates. The community, which will be built in phases to prevent resident displacement and relocation, would also include a community center, computer space, laundry facility, pool, pool house and recreation center.

We have to make sure that all the amenities are there to compete with those luxury apartment complexes that are right across the street, and we will be competitive, Hendrickson said. And the added benefit of that for the residents [currently] there in New Brookhill, is that they will go from some housing that you would not want to live in to having an apartment with market rate amenities in a community that at a market rate they could never afford. The amenities are there for everybody, so it should be a really significant step forward in their quality of life.

Past and perceptionsHendrickson is aware of Charlottes checkered history of relocating entire communities. Theres Brooklyn, the all-black neighborhood in Second Ward that was wiped away in the 1960s by urban renewal. Promises were made to residents that they could move back to the redeveloped community, but it never came to pass as government buildings, hotels and offices sprang up. Theres also gentrification in modern-day Historic West End, where escalating property values and a history of redlining where banks refused loans to black homeowners and entrepreneurs, pushed some African Americans out of neighborhoods. No one, he pledges, will be displaced from New Brookhill.

Brookhill is not Brooklyn, Hendrickson said. We have a specific plan we have the absolute capabilities of delivering on what we're promising.

Rebuilding the neighborhood will take money. Hendrickson says a $15 million funding gap needs to be filled before construction can start this year, he hopes with help from the public and philanthropic sectors. The goal is for current occupants to move into new homes in 2021. Demolition and construction will start with unoccupied buildings and proceed in phases. Residents in units to be demolished get priority to move into new housing for which they qualify.

Once those are in place and assuming between that and what others community leaders support we can get to get us to the gap funding then well be ready to shortly thereafter close on the transaction, so that we can pull down the construction loan and walk in the permanent financing and be moving very quickly, Hendrickson said.

Hendrickson, 63, sees Brookhill as a legacy project, not because of the money to be made, but to prove that a community of working- and upper-middle class neighbors can be built and maintained. Hes working against the perception of fast-talking developers eyeing a fast buck at the expense of keeping promises.

There's plenty of historical evidence where that stereotype is well founded in a lot of cases [but] in this case its not for several reasons, he said. Number one, I took this project on as a challenge and intellectually I said I think I can figure out something that can be that can generate a lot of good from a legacy project, and something no one else has been able to figure out.

I get a lot of satisfaction with that just in my heart and soul. I was born poor with a good name. I'll take my name with me and I won't be taking any money with me anyway, so I just want to make sure I do some good while I'm here on this earth, and doing the things that we would all want to do.

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New Brookhill measures development risks and reward - Charlotte Post