Long-Planned Residential Project At Old Charlotte Church In Wesley Heights Starts Taking Shape

An old church property in the Wesley Heights Historic District was rezoned for residential units more than 15 years ago, but those plans never came to fruition. Now, a condo project is moving forward at the site with a different developer.

Locally based Whitestone Capital is underway on an adaptive-reuse project at 201 Grandin Road, called The Arches. It will turn the 13,230-square-foot church, which dates back to the late 1920s, into 11 condos and add a three-story building on site for three more units, says Mark Bolous, president of Whitestone.

Bolous' Whitestone Holdings Inc. acquired the 0.47-acre site at Grandin Road and West Fourth Street in December 2019, paying $1.5 million, according to Mecklenburg County real estate records. The parcel also included a 2,700-square-foot brick structure built in 1940 as a parsonage for the church that has since been renovated and expanded into two leasable residential spaces. Bolous said he intends to sell that property once the church project is complete.

The condos will range in size from 1,073 to 1,724 square feet. All but one will have two bedrooms — the remaining condo will include three bedrooms. Each condo will have two bathrooms, with five units to include an extra half-bathroom. The five condos in the rear of the property that face uptown will have rooftop terraces, said David Hoffman, whose local residential real estate firm David Hoffman Realty is handling sales at The Arches.

All condos inside the church building will be three levels, providing a feel similar to a townhouse, Hoffman said. There will be a one-level condo on the bottom floor of the new building.

Existing stained-glass windows on the front and sides of the church building will be preserved, as will the cross atop it.

"What we're trying to do is bring that contemporary feel (inside) that people want ... while also keeping the integrity of the church," Hoffman said.

The first nine units sold will have a deeded parking space on site, with street parking for the rest, he said.

Prices will range from the mid-$500,000s to the high $800,000s, said Hoffman, who expects to begin marketing the units for sale next week. He said the project aims to appeal to a range of demographics.

The Arches is about a mile away from Truist Field and Bank of America Stadium.

Fairwood Construction is serving as the general contractor on the project, with Cluck Design Collaborative as the architect and Urban Design Partners as the engineer. Bolous said he received construction financing through California-based JCap Private Lending.

Developer pivots from plan for event venue to condo project

Bolous said his initial vision for the property wasn't residential, but operating it as an event venue for weddings and meetings. Nearly a year after buying the old church, Whitestone paid $435,000 for the 0.24-acre site next door, according to county property records. It houses a single-family home.

Bolous envisioned using the back of that property, at 209 Grandin Road, for parking that an event venue would require. The neighborhood, however, was not in favor of that idea, he said.

That backlash, coupled with the hit the event industry took from the pandemic, led him to withdraw his rezoning request with the city to grant such use. He pivoted back to the original plan that called for residential use on the property.

Whitestone began construction on the condos in December. The Charlotte Historic District Commission in September 2020 granted a certificate of appropriateness, which is required before building permits can be issued.

The Arches is expected to wrap up in January, Bolous said. He pegged the all-in investment into the project at about $6 million.

While the building's exterior shell will remain intact, the interior had to be gutted for the condos — making it ineligible for historic tax credits, Bolous said.

He determined early on that demolishing the structure wouldn't make sense from a financial standpoint due to its parking restraints or from a community perspective.

Under North Carolina law, a local Historic District Commission cannot deny the demolition of a historic property, said Kristi Harpst, the city's Historic Districts program manager. It can only delay demolition for 365 days and work with the property owner to find alternative solutions. Before demolition can take place, the property owner has to go through the process of applying for a certificate of appropriateness (COA). The commission can vote for a 365-day delay before that COA for demolition is issued.

"We determined with all the factors considered, we really wanted to preserve the building," Bolous said. "It's a beautiful building ... It’s one of the keystones of Wesley Heights’ historic district."

Property's holy history dates back to the 1920s
The Romanesque Revival, T-shaped church was designed by renowned Charlotte architect Louis Asbury. It was built in 1927 to serve Wesley Heights Methodist Episcopal Church, according to local nonprofit Preserve Mecklenburg's website.

The property was rezoned to MUDD(CD), mixed-use development district (conditional), in 2006 by a Matthews-based group named Diamond Oak Development Inc. A CBJ story at that time reported on Diamond Oak's plans to transform the church into 15 apartments and likely convert those units into for-sale condos after historic-district tax credits expired.

That plan never materialized. Greater Bethel AME Church, which owned the property at the time, did sell it to an entity affiliated with Diamond Oak for $825,000 in early 2008, according to county real estate records. The property, however, was foreclosed on in late 2010.

Charlotte Immanuel Church of All Nations acquired it in 2014 for $350,000. The church relocated to Tuckaseegee Road after selling the site to Whitestone in late 2019.

When Bolous changed his development plans, he said he reached out to the developer of a similar project in Villa Heights, called The Church on Parkwood, for advice and contacts. That church property also was designed by Asbury and opened in 1929 with Neoclassical and Gothic architectural elements. Developer Eid Refaey converted the church into 18 apartments, with six duplexes next to it.

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