Peebles' Charlotte Affordable Housing Funding Request Rejected

Another change to Charlotte’s biggest proposed redevelopment further clouded the outlook for a long-delayed project.

Don Peebles’ BK Partners, a joint venture of New York-based Peebles Corporation and Charlotte’s Conformity Corporation, pulled its request for $13.5 million from Charlotte Housing Trust Fund for the Brooklyn Village project in the city’s Second Ward, WFAE reported. The withdrawal came after the city rejected the firm’s funding request.

The funds were intended to help finance 250 affordable housing units along Brooklyn Village Avenue, part of a revised first-phase announced in recent months. The pivot from market-rate rentals to all-affordable was meant to secure public backing and unlock low-income housing tax credits after years of stalled progress. But Charlotte officials rejected the initial ask in April, citing concerns over the project’s financial viability.

Peebles and the city reportedly continued negotiating over scaled-down funding, but Charlotte’s housing director confirmed that the application was withdrawn.

The setback is the latest for the high-profile public-private partnership between Mecklenburg County and BK Partners.

The team hasn’t started construction since winning the development rights back in 2016, despite public commitments to revitalize the site in a historically Black neighborhood that was razed during midcentury urban renewal.

Peebles still plans to move forward with the first phase, which also includes a 150-key hotel and nearly 500,000 square feet of office space. The firm already owns the land for that project.

But another flashpoint is brewing for phases two and three: a July 28 deadline to demolish the former Board of Education building, required under the 2018 development agreement.

BK Partners has asked for a year extension on phases two and three, citing recently identified asbestos that it claims qualifies as a “force majeure” event, a claim some county officials dispute. If the deadline isn’t extended, and the building isn’t demolished by the deadline, then the county could terminate the deal for BK Partners to buy the land, potentially dissolving the nine-year partnership entirely.

“We’re all pushing toward an outcome where everybody gets to win,” Peebles Corporation’s Donahue Peebles III told the Charlotte Business Journal, noting the firm has floated six revised concepts for the city and county to consider.

The full 17-acre Brooklyn Village redevelopment calls for more than 1,400 residential units, office space, hotel rooms, a public park and retail.

— Judah Duke