In Plaza Midwood, doubts about the streetcar

The Gold Line would extend down Central Avenue. What would that do to businesses?

You’re reading Transit Time, a weekly newsletter for Charlotte people who leave the house. Cars, buses, light rail, bikes, scooters … if you use it to get around the city, we write about it. Transit Time is produced in partnership between The Charlotte Ledger and WFAE.

---

The transit plan includes $845M for Gold Line extensions. But as a November vote looms, some merchants fear the construction could doom their businesses — and erase the neighborhood’s funky vibe

Khassim Wade, who runs a vintage clothing tent in Plaza Midwood, says he worries about the effect of future streetcar construction on his business. Extending the Gold Line along Central Avenue through Plaza Midwood is a part of the transit plan voters will weigh in on in November. (Photo by Daniel Larlham Jr.)

by Daniel Larlham Jr.

For Khassim Wade, who operates Vintage Youth, a small pop-up vintage clothing tent outside Plaza Midwood’s Fuel Pizza, the prospect of having streetcar service down Central Avenue has him of two minds.

On the one hand, he sees himself possibly using the streetcar to get to some of his favorite bars and restaurants on weekends. On the other, the Ballantyne resident would have to drive through the related construction in order to set up his tent.

“Traffic is already super congested on the street, at least from my point of view, so I really don’t know how that would work,” Wade said. “I don’t know how they would operate [the streetcar] without, like, heavy construction. They would have to push back these sidewalks or something.”

Wade, who feels that the heavy construction along Central would probably have an impact on his business and ultimately cause people to avoid Plaza Midwood altogether for some time, isn’t the only area business concerned about a possible streetcar extension.

Many business owners in Plaza Midwood, while not opposed to public transit per se, worry about many of the details of extending the Gold Line and say that the process of building it could doom their businesses. They say Plaza Midwood — known for its quirky, small, independent businesses from guitar shops to tattoo parlors — might not come out the other side maintaining its charm.

The extension of the Gold Line streetcar is one piece of the massive $25 billion transportation plan that voters will weigh in on in November. The bulk of the money would come from increasing the county’s sales tax from 7.25% to 8.25%, a hike that the city says would add $240 a year in sales taxes to the typical Mecklenburg household.

Business and political leaders say the plan — which would build rail, add buses and expand roads — is needed to cope with the region’s staggering growth and to provide more options for residents to get to work.

The transit and transportation plan up for a vote in November would extend the Gold Line streetcar to the east and west. (Courtesy of city of Charlotte)

The Gold Line streetcar, which started service in 2015 and was extended in 2021, is an east-to-west line that cuts through uptown, running from Sunnyside Avenue in Elizabeth to French Street in west Charlotte. The city’s transit plan calls for a third phase that would extend the line down Central Avenue to Eastland Yards and, on the other end, up Beatties Ford Road to Rosa Parks Place. The expansion would add six miles and up to an additional 17 stops, according to the city’s website.

The extension would cost $845 million and take about five years from design to completion, according to Charlotte Area Transit System documents presented to a regional transit panel in January. That’s less than building the Red Line commuter rail to northern Mecklenburg ($1.4 billion) and building the Silver Line light rail from uptown to the airport ($2.1 billion).

Extending the Gold Line to the east and west would cost an estimated $845 million, according to a CATS presentation in January. That’s less than the construction of the Silver Line and Red Line. (CATS presentation)

In Plaza Midwood, Matthews and much of east Charlotte, there’s lingering disappointment that the Silver Line light rail won’t extend all the way to Matthews and would instead stop at Bojangles Coliseum, under plans approved in May. Plaza Midwood and east Charlotte would get a streetcar, which has underperformed ridership projections and has struggled with providing reliable service.

Russell Fergusson, owner of the Plaza Midwood restaurant Dish, has begun saying to others: “In the case of Charlotte transit, silver is worth much more than gold.”

“[I am] very pro-Silver Line, wish it was going further, and all the way out to Matthews and all the way up to the airport. Very positive on making the bus system work better. I have staff that utilize the bus system, and it’s a challenge for them.”

Fergusson believes that the Gold Line — construction of which will likely cut sections of Central Avenue over time — will do much more harm to the area than good. Businesses in the area already have their own challenges to face, especially those occupying older buildings, which added road construction could exacerbate.

Plaza Midwood has also dealt with its own share of private construction, Fergusson added, and a major development just recently reduced the number of parking spaces, temporarily increasing the number of spaces used with contractors taking them up, and altering the area in terms of walkability, ultimately impacting the businesses’ bottom line. He foresees the Gold Line project as worsening these issues for a longer period of time.

“If they close Central Avenue for three months on the block that I’m on, I’m not sure my restaurant is making it to the other side of that.”

The streetcar would run through the center of Plaza Midwood’s business district, a narrow stretch with commercial buildings close to the street. Some merchants worry about the effects of construction, which hurt businesses in nearby Elizabeth when the second phase of the Gold Line was built. (Photo by Daniel Larlham Jr.)

Worries about repeat of Elizabeth’s experience

Phillip Gussman, former president of the neighborhood association and a current member of its land use group, is hearing much of those same feelings on transit from business owners in Plaza Midwood. Much of that concern, he says, comes from watching the impact streetcar construction in Elizabeth had on businesses there.

While the area has had its fair share of new businesses and the establishment of a social district in recent years, bringing with it additional foot traffic to Plaza Midwood, some businesses are still feeling the effects brought about by the pandemic. Gussman says that the construction might leave the area without many of its staples.

“The whole city watched almost everything on Elizabeth Avenue close during that time,” Gussman said. “We look at our spaces and don’t see much reason why all of a sudden we, our businesses, would fare that much better.”

Bridge-crossing concerns

Both Gussman and Fergusson brought up a particular concern in the plan’s feasibility: how the city plans to deal with the streetcar passing under a 100-year-old railway bridge on Hawthorne Lane that floods when more than an inch or two of rain comes through.

“We’ve been in communication with CATS throughout this process. We’re not Johnny-come-latelys,” Gussman said. “And CATS has told me that it can go through water, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, but what is the height of water that it won’t go through?’ It’s an electric vehicle. It doesn’t want water coming up over its wheels, I’m sure of that.”

But another merchant, Blake Barnes, owner of Common Market, proclaims himself as one of the few people who’s not too concerned about the proposed construction.

At one point, for about a year, Commonwealth Avenue was shut down for reverse-angle parking. Another time, his business didn’t have parking for a full two years due to contractors parking in his spaces for construction at a property on the end of Pecan Avenue.

“I remember at first, I was like, ‘Oh man, they’re killing my business.’ Turns out, they were shopping with me all day every day. Now that they’re gone, I’m slowed down because people were used to not coming here.”

For Barnes, the flux and change of the urban environment he occupies is all part of owning a business. Still, he anticipates that his daytime traffic will likely slow at his shop, as well as at nearby coffee shops. He also foresees that restaurants in particular will likely feel the impact more than he will.

Blake Barnes, owner of Common Market in Plaza Midwood, says changes in the urban environment are part of owning a business. He says he hopes the addition of streetcar lines wouldn’t cause rents to soar. (Photo by Daniel Larlham Jr.)

Ultimately, Barnes hopes that a healthy amount of pedestrian traffic will keep alive his and neighbors’ businesses in the area and that the line wouldn’t cause commercial real estate to soar as it did when the Blue Line went in at South End.

Others believe that the streetcar just doesn’t make sense for the area, predicting that the streetcar will worsen traffic and be slower than other modes of transportation down Central Avenue.

‘Cool thing,’ but a ‘waste of resources’?

Nicholas Connell, owner of Derby City Skates, which began as an extension of his mother’s shop in Winston-Salem, opened the location in Plaza Midwood only about a year ago. Due to the niche nature of his business, he doesn’t foresee construction along Central impacting his business all that much. People looking for roller derby gear already come to find him from all over the Southeast and, being the only business of its kind in Charlotte, people go out of their way to find him.

But he still doesn’t necessarily support the extension down Central Avenue, believing that it’s a waste of resources.

“I don’t think the streetcar is going to benefit the area. I think it’s going to slow traffic. The streetcar already exists. I don’t see Elizabeth booming any more than it was 15 years ago. (In) west Charlotte, I know a lot of money and effort has gone into it, I don’t know that people utilize the streetcar as people would hope.”

“I think it’s a waste of money, I think it’s cool, it’s a cool thing, but personally, I just think it’s a waste,” he said.

Connell believes that the boutiques, restaurants and in particular the many coffee shops along Central Avenue will suffer. If people aren’t able to come and sit outside to do their work unimpeded by construction noise and debris, he says, they won’t come at all.

Daniel Larlham Jr. is a freelance writer. He can be reached at larlhamjr@gmail.com

---

Transit Time is a production of The Charlotte Ledger and WFAE. You can adjust your newsletter preferences on the ‘My Account’ page.

Did somebody forward you this newsletter and you need to sign up? You can do that here:

Other affiliated Charlotte newsletters and podcasts that might interest you:

• The Charlotte Ledger, Ways of Life newsletter (obituaries), Real Estate Whispers (growth and development), Fútbol Friday (Charlotte FC) and Toppman on the Arts (arts reviews) available from The Charlotte Ledger.

• The Inside Politics newsletter, available from WFAE.