MOORESVILLE CATCHES CONDO BUZZ CHARLOTTE.COM 8/10/05 By Doug Smith Staff Writer Mooresville's downtown business district is getting its first new condo building. That might not turn heads in Charlotte, where seven condo high-rises have been announced over the past several months, but 30 miles to our north, this looks like the next big thing. "We think it's kind of like the first firecracker that gets lit at the New Year's Eve parade," said Mooresville Planning Director Tim Brown. Cornerstone Real Estate Development LLC plans 18 residential units selling for about $355,000 to about $499,000 in a four-story building with retail space on the ground level. The project -- called 100 North Church -- will be on a pivotal corner where leaders of the 23,000-population town want residential development. "It's cut right out of the fabric of our downtown master plan," Brown said. "It's really going to infuse interest in our core." Much of Mooresville's recent growth has occurred around Lake Norman and Interstate 77. The town's large concentration of NASCAR teams earned it the nickname Race City USA. At Exit 33, Lowe's 157-acre corporate campus is expected to employ 4,500 workers by 2010. But downtown? "It's our silent success story," Brown said. "If you look at what has occurred in a half-mile radius of our downtown core over the past two years, it's close to $30 million in investment from the public and private sector." That includes expansion of the public library, the Charles Mack Citizen Center and town hall plus renovation and reuse of several buildings. Across the region, small towns are trying to re-create the urban experience with neotraditional developments that encourage pedestrian activity and reduce car trips by mixing residential and commercial development. Brown said Mooresville's downtown became "stagnant" about 20 years ago, but the inventory of old buildings left standing -- some dating to the 1800s -- provided a solid base for revitalization. Today, downtown merchants range from a specialty kitchen shop to a hardware store founded in 1899. At peak times, traffic is heavy and parking space on Main Street is in tight supply. The missing piece has been people living downtown. Mooresville Mayor Al Jones said "maybe two or three residents" live downtown in commercial buildings with second floors renovated for apartments. "We have a very vibrant downtown," he said. Town leaders believe Cornerstone's condo project "will be a plus," Jones said, because with the residential "we will get new retail, too." Bob Amon, chairman of the town's planning board, is renovating an 1880s Main Street building for an upscale restaurant within a commercial cluster that houses his insurance office. The restaurant, to open in October, will have seating for 310 people and upstairs space for meetings and banquets. Amon believes a new dining option -- within walking distance of 100 North Church -- will be an amenity for the condo owners, who will help support it. Cornerstone's Tom Kilroe and Bruce Guild have plans for a variety of residential sizes and price ranges on other property they own downtown. But they wanted to start with a showcase project that combines big-city amenities with the ambience of small-town living. The most likely buyers, Kilroe believes, are people who have traveled extensively and seen similar projects in large cities, downsizing empty-nesters, and young professionals. Mooresville officials say other residential developers have expressed interest in downtown and likely will join in if Cornerstone succeeds. Brown said the downtown master plan has identified sites for up to 800,000 square feet of additional residential development that could include new two- to four-story buildings and renovated structures. Two looming issues -- parking and transportation -- will affect the pace of development. Downtown needs more parking to accommodate shoppers and residents. Kilroe had proposed partnering with the town on a 350- to 400-space parking deck as part of his condo project. The town board decided instead to develop directional signs to existing parking lots and hire a consultant to seek sites for a deck. Mooresville and Iredell County are studying the possibility of cooperating with the Charlotte Area Transit System to extend a commuter rail line to the town by the end of the decade. When leaders started talking about the line roughly 10 years ago they believed Mooresville residents would be the primary users, commuting to jobs in Charlotte, said Mayor Jones. "Now, with all the growth we're seeing at Lowe's and Ingersoll-Rand, it could work both ways -- people commuting from Charlotte to jobs in Mooresville," he said. Said Brown: "You throw transit into the mix and it would make for an exciting chapter in the history of our downtown core."