Residents, developers eye downtown growth

Take a walk through downtown Gastonia in the middle of a weekday and you might see fading paint on old, brick buildings, several of them vacant, abutting sidewalks largely devoid of foot traffic.

But a growing group of people see something different entirely: a canvas, waiting for a brush.

“I was seduced by the architecture and the raw template for architecture that’s available here,” builder and developer Tom Cox said recently.

He liked it so much he and a business partner bought the old Standard Hardware building on South Street in 2015. He’s been renovating the building ever since. Cox turned the facade of the brick building into a showroom for his businesses, Charlotte Cabinetry and Green Apple House. The business, though, opens up into his home — a bottom-floor living room and kitchen and a loft-style bedroom.

Cox, who is a specialist in timber construction, incorporated materials left behind in the building in ways that gave his living space a clean, modern look — even though elements of the original architecture can be seen in nearly every corner.

“I tried to repurpose anything I could find in here,” Cox said.

On the upper floors of the other side of the building, Cox is developing condominiums in the same vein. He plans for them to be affordable enough for people with middle-class incomes. That surprises some of his well-traveled friends.

“A place like this in New York City would cost you $1.5 million,” he said, walking through the lofts, each illuminated via skylight.

Cox is known to hold court in a patio outside of the showroom — and he says he welcomes questions from passers-by who want to know what’s going on in downtown Gastonia. He says having a showroom for his businesses is really a secondary function of the building, anyway.

“I built it to be an icon or an image of what could be created in downtown Gastonia,” Cox said. “The longer I was here, the more I realized can be done to make this a European-formatted, walkable downtown.”

‘Downtown will be significantly different’

Phil Boggan thinks big things are on the horizon. He’s a new hire with the city’s Economic Development department, and his job is to help foster growth in the downtown area, partially through tax incentives.

“Within the next year or two, we’re going to see some major changes in downtown Gastonia,” he said. “But three to five years out, downtown will be significantly different. There will be more people living and working downtown.”

First, there’s work to be done.

Right now, there are only a handful of restaurants, and not many late-night offerings other than Main Avenue's Freeman’s Pub and Viva Tequis and South Street's Webb Custom Kitchen and Gaston Pour House. There’s a general store on Main, but it’s not really the kind of place that sells groceries. In other words, people who live downtown need to leave downtown in order to get some basic things done.

Boggan likened it to the classic “chicken or the egg” dilemma.

“People only want to live in a downtown where there are a good mix of businesses that are open after 6 o’clock, good restaurants, entertainment and bars,” Boggan said. “But, also, those types of businesses really rely on that residential component to help support that business.

“We’re slowly having a little bit of both, which is good. Downtown could definitely use a lot more residential development.”

‘Close-knit family’

Right now, there are about 44 upper-floor residential units in downtown. They’re all above commercial spaces. And Boggan says there are plans for 14 more residential units in a restoration project that’s planned for the fall.

Adina Rutenberg lives in one such unit, an apartment in the Carriage Company lofts on the northwest corner of West Main Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way — once known as the Craig and Wilson building.

The building was a revitalization project of local developers and the city to turn the onetime livestock feed and carriage company into a modern living space. Now, there are 16 residential units in the building — five two-bedroom condos and 11 one-bedroom condos. They were sold for prices ranging from $74,000 to $166,000, and many of the units incorporate historic features.

The location is ideal for Rutenberg’s commute: Her business, Java House, is just a block west on Main.

“I love walking inside my apartment every day, and I love living downtown,” Rutenberg said. “We’re all like a close-knit family here.”

It only takes a few minutes inside Rutenberg’s cafe to see that many of the customers are regulars — people who work and live downtown. She says even though there aren’t many options for nightlife, she and friends find their own ways to hang out. And nearby Rotary Pavilion, which sits next to the cafe, provides a bit of green space for people. Another park, just south of Main, features walking space and showcases large murals.

“There are no yards for kids to play in, but they can play here,” Rutenburg said, gesturing to the pavilion park. “My nephew comes out here. He plays in the park. There are other kids that live down here — they’ll all get together, and they’ll have gigantic Nerf gun fights all throughout the park.”

There just aren’t a whole lot of people downtown yet, so it’s not difficult to find on-street parking most days. For Carriage and places like it, there’s dedicated parking. While there’s no supermarket downtown, the amount of space means it's not yet a hassle for people hauling groceries to their homes.

“I wish for what everybody wants — that there were a couple more options to eat or have a cocktail, a couple more options to shop, or just a couple more places to go,” Rutenberg said. “The places we have are great, we just wish there were a couple more.”

There’s something else she wants.

“I wish, wish, wish, wish there were more people living downtown,” Rutenberg said.

‘One at a time’

Jim Morasso also wants more people living downtown — and he’s about to be one of them.

Morasso, who owns Webb Custom Kitchen, partnered with Cox to buy the old Citizens National Bank building on West Main. The duo plan to build condos for themselves on the top floor and turn the rest of the space into a mixed-use facility. Among the plans are a high-class cooking school, an art gallery, studio space for artists, offices and a jazz club.

Morasso says those kinds of things are important, because they build foot traffic, and more visitors translate into more interest in the downtown. His restaurant draws thousands of people each month, and it was recently named one of the top 100 most romantic dining spots in the country by San Francisco-based OpenTable.

“There are a lot of good things coming in,” Morasso said. “All it takes is one at a time over a few years to make it look like an overnight success.”

Meanwhile, another developer is turning the old Lawyers Building on Main into a boutique hotel, and a plan to develop the old Trenton Mill on Main into apartments and retail space is underway. The latter project is part of the larger Franklin Urban Sports and Entertainment District initiative, one of the city’s primary revitalization efforts.

Developers and planners are betting on another thing: Charlotte’s continued growth and its rising prices. Boggan and Cox both said that people priced out of Mecklenburg County may look to Gaston — and they think a spruced-up downtown Gastonia will be appealing.

“We’re going to continue to try to incentivize some of these upper-floor developments to try to create more residential living for downtown,” Boggan said. “The trend is to live and work downtown, and that’s across the country… Gastonia (will benefit) because it has a really good stock of its historic fabric intact, and it’s very pedestrian friendly.

“There are a lot more pros to having a live-work space in downtown Gastonia than people realize."

 You can reach Dashiell Coleman at 704-869-1819 or on Twitter @DashiellColeman