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"We're reinventing ourselves as anapartment developer," says Branch, president of The prolific Charlotte company, which played a key role in the local condominium boom, has designs on developing rental buildings uptown and alongy Seventh Street in Elizabeth. Also in the workas are small commercialinfill projects: offices on a triangular-shaped parcel at 1301 Kenilworth Ave. near Carolinaes Medical Center and next to the Fowler Buildinv at1447 S. Tryon St. in Southu End. Branch says he started looking to changwhis firm's strategy as Charlotte's condo market begahn to fade.
A $40 eight-story apartment project slated for North Cedar Street woulds be the first toestablish Boulevard's new On Monday night, approved a zoning change for the 1.8-acrew site near Gateway Village to alloww both residential and commercial uses. Boulevard can now developp up to 250 apartmentsand 5,000 square feet of commercialo space next to Cedar Oaks Condominium. Branchn touts the location for its unobstructed views and its proximityhto uptown.
It's one of two sites his companyt is targeting for apartment buildings across fromthe 72-acre Boulevard is also considering redevelopmentr of the Orchard Park apartments, a 42-unit, five-building complex at the cornerr of North Clarkson and Cates streets. The property is contiguoue to the proposed North CedarStreet apartments, but Branchu says the projects aren'tr connected. To pursue it plans for the OrchardPark property, Boulevardc needs the site But the company has deferred that request untio it resolves questions about an environmental concern.
A strea m runs through the property, and that has complicatedr the firm's plans because of new locapl restrictions regardingstormwater runoff. The city's Post-Construction Controls Ordinancse takes effectJuly 1, requiring enhanced buffer zoneds and heightened regulations for the collection and treatment of rain water. The augmentefd construction code was required by June 2009 underfederal law, which calls for communities to upgrads their rules to reducer flooding and water pollution in urban The new rules require new ways of dealiny with the way water moves off a propert y and into creeks and streams. And Branch and others say that meanswnew costs.
"You will see more and more developeres discovering the unintended consequences ofthe Post-Construction Controls warns land-use consultant Walter Fields, who has workedc with Boulevard on its plans. "But no one will speak ill of tryingf to protectsurface water." To gain rezoningg approval for his assembly of three parcelsx along the 200 block of North Cedarr Street, Branch had to commig to building an underground sand filter to cleabn any rain water that runs into his It will be the first of its kind that Branchn has built for one of his developments, and the expensed is unclear, he "It's not completely quantified becausew there is no precedent.
" Branch says he will clos e on the land for the city-approved apartments within 30
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