Olde Savannah Homeowners Association

Update on Target-area Shopping Center

Sep 09, 2004

Suisse Investors, LLC is seeking a Commercial Center Site Plan Amendment for the site located on the south side of Albemarle Road west of Eastern Circumferential, where Target and First Citizens Bank are currently operating.

The plan approved by the City Council in 1999 contemplated that a Lowes would be built on the site immediately adjacent to the Target building and five other businesses would be developed on five outparcels, resulting in a total of six ?‘footprints?’ or buildings. Being immediately adjacent to Target would have required Lowes to locate its garden center and tractor/truck dock area on the exterior side of its building nearest the Olde Savannah subdivision.

This Site Plan Amendment is in follow up to an Administrative Site Plan Amendment to Rezoning Petition No. 99-114 approved this past February which provided Lowes with permission to separate its building from the Target building, place its garden center and dock on the interior side of its building (farther away from our neighborhood) and protect pedestrians at the front entrance of Target by allowing vehicles to drive between Target and Lowes.

Due to new provisions in the Zoning Ordinance which prohibit the number of buildings or ?‘footprints?’ shown on an approved Conditional Rezoning Plan to be increased, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission Director required that Suisse Investors, LLC combine two of the approved outparcels along Albemarle Road as part of this Administrative Site Plan Amendment, thereby keeping the total ?‘footprints?’ at six, and make certain other changes to enhance pedestrian access and circulation.

This Petition seeks to provide Suisse with the option to separate the two outparcels that were combined in the February Administrative Site Plan, resulting in seven ?‘footprints?’, as well as install sidewalks along the outparcels and through the Lowes?’ parking lot.

The procedure for a Site Plan Amendment is the same as a Rezoning. Suisse held a community meeting on August 23 for the neighborhood organizations and property owners near the site. A public hearing on the matter is scheduled for September 20.