I like the green building. Cool design thatâll really add some architectural variation to uptown.
Theyâll probably end up value engineering the shit out of it though. Nothing ever looks as good as the renderings.
I lived by the track in Cornelius downtown till a couple weeks ago. Bought in that neighborhood partly for the promise of the red line.
For the last several years they had actually pulled up the rails just south of the crossing in downtown. There has not been a train go from charlotte and through Cornelius since. I have no idea why Norfolk Southern waited this long. I canât imagine the Foamex plant was enough business by itself to warrant the line.
They shut down recently and I think commercial traffic is now close to zero.
Freight trains still come periodically to Huntersville to serve the Southwire manufacturing facility across from Lake Norman Charter School on NC 115 (Old Statesville Rd).
I think several things have factored into Norfolk Southern Railwayâs decision to relent after years of stonewalling on the so-called LYNX Red Line.
First was to maintain ownership of the line in case NS lost its lease on the state-owned North Carolina RR route that runs from Charlotte to Greensboro (basically paralleling I-85) and then to Raleigh. (The original lease expired in 1993 but has been extended in NSâs favor since.) NS presumably could have upgraded the Charlotte to Winston-Salem (via Mooresville) to Greensboro route to preserve its heavily used Washington, DC to Atlanta main line. (Not sure if latter could have actually happened given the NIMBY world we live in etc.)
[Historical note - NS predecessor Southern Railway went to court in the 1930s to prevent Charlotte based Piedmont & Northern Railway from expanding northward to Winston-Salem and southward to Spartanburg. The final judgement resulted in a permanent injunction against the P&N, then owned by businessman James B. Duke. P&N was eventually absorbed by what is now CSX Transportation.]
Second is the financial and PR disaster suffered by NS in the aftermath of the horrific chemical train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio last year. NS will eventually pay at minimum hundreds of millions due to that unfortunate event.
Third is a recent hostile takeover attempt of the NS board of directors by investor group Ancora, which wants to oust the railwayâs management team due to what the former perceives as poor business practices. While the takeover wasnât completely successful - Ancora got three elected to the NS board but not a majority - it did result in some management changes at the NS HQ in Atlanta.
In other words, NS has a lot more to worry about these days than a seldom used branch line in Mecklenburg County.
Does Norfolk Southern own the big rail yard near NoDa that a planning group is pushing to try to get them to move it so it can be turned into a huge âCentral Parkâ for charlotte?
Maybe that could gain some traction now.
Donât know about you guys but I love that plan and I think it would be huge for the city.
Its proximity to downtown and the light rail could result in lots of valuable development around the park.
Yes, they do.
Cool. Thanks for the info.
They do, but they really have no incentive to sell it. Railroads donât like to part ways with right of way because laws for right of way they own is written so heavily in their favor. Acquiring new right of way is a lot more difficult today than it was when railroads ruled the land.
I see that park vision as DOA.
Wouldnât be selling the ROW, just the land occupying the yard. Already precedent for doing so within the industry.
Anyway, City has already purchased part of the tract:
clt says this is bigly
Have you ever been in a Turkish prison Timmy?
May one day Constantinople rise again!
This is the reason I heard as well. New mangement simply has a different mindset about it.
Huntersville had zoning ordinances that varied depending on how close a project was to a potential light rail stop. In other words, if a project was in a certain radius from the stop, it could have a higher density of housing units. After many years of bickering by some residents that the ordinance was useless since light rail would never happen, the town board voted to remove the ordinance in 2023.
Light rail still isnât happening. Was never planned for Huntersville and still isnât.
This is a diesel powered commuter train that will run 3-4 times during morning commute and the same in reverse for evening commute.
It will be a huge failure. Nashvilleâs commuter line carries like 500 people per day. It peaked at 1100 precovid.
$650 million for something that wonât make a dent in traffic and wonât spur development the same way light rail does. Not saying it wonât spur any development at all, it just wonât be what was seen along the blue line because itâs not an all day mode of transportation.