Mooresville rejects developer’s plan to redevelop landmark Lake Norman waterfront site

In a split vote, Mooresville denied a South Carolina developer’s plans Monday night to revitalize one of Lake Norman’s landmark waterfront sites.

Columbia-based Arnold Family Corp. wanted to redevelop the shuttered Queens Landing entertainment complex, but the Mooresville Board of Commissioners voted 3-3 on a rezoning for the project.

The town’s form of government requires the mayor to vote in cases of a tie, and Mayor Chris Carney voted “no,” prompting applause from residents at the meeting.

Commissioners said the project was too immense for an area where only one or two homes per acre are called for under the town’s land-use plan, and no affordable-housing units were proposed.

Residents also cited the already intolerable traffic along N.C. 150, where Queens Landing opened in the early 1990s. The development is beside the McCrary Creek Access Area public boat launch, near the Iredell-Catawba county line.

For decades, visitors enjoyed dining and drinking at Queens Landing’s restaurant and bar, riding its bumper cars and playing tennis and miniature golf. They booked dinner and sightseeing cruises aboard its Catawba Queen and Lady of the Lake boats.

“It’s been a jewel there for a long time,” Mooresville commissioner Lisa Qualls said Friday at a town board meeting where commissioners discuss items up for a vote at their regular Monday meeting.

Qualls and commissioners Eddie Dingler and Gary West voted for the rezoning, while commissioners Will Aven, Eddie Karriker and Tommy DeWeese voted against.

Weeds sprouted in the Queens Landing parking lot, and displays on the miniature golf course fell into disrepair as the property changed owners in recent years.

Had the board approved the rezoning, restoration of the property would have begun soon. Now the fate of the deteriorating site is in limbo.

Marina, greenway, public lake access

The project called for a marina, restaurant/commercial building, floating bar on the lake, 108 for-sale “luxury” condos and a public greenway and multi-use path with access to the lake, according to Mooresville Planning Department documents reviewed by The Charlotte Observer.

The restaurant would have featured Italian, American and sushi selections, Carl Nalls of Charlotte-based project consultant Housing Studio told the board Monday night. The town previously approved plans for a restaurant, officials said.

The condominiums would have faced the lake and been in two buildings, one six stories and the other four stories.

“Lakefront living is not something we have a ton of,” Carney said at Friday’s meeting. “It would open up a product we don’t currently have.”

The developer hasn’t said how much the condominiums would have cost.

Town planners recommended the plans be approved despite “some conflicts with town development standards,” Mooresville senior planner David Cole told commissioners at Friday’s meeting.

The project offers no affordable-housing units and “runs counter to the “peninsula residential” type development the town envisioned for that area — or developments with fewer homes, Cole said.

Neighbors also cited the N.C. 150 traffic concerns at two neighborhood meetings held by the developer, in September and January, Cole said.

Widening N.C. 150 has taken so long that “I feel like the Israelites waiting 40 years,” Qualls said at Monday’s meeting.

Residents urged denial of the plans

At a public hearing before the board’s vote Monday night, six residents urged the board to deny the rezoning, while a Realtor spoke in favor., saying such housing is in demand.

N.C. 150 already “is a giant mess, and it’s ridiculous,” Steve Schaffer of nearby Paradise Peninsula Road said. “I’ve been here since 2005, and I love living at the lake, but I’m about to move. You can’t even go to the grocery store without it taking a half-hour.”

In October, the Mooresville Planning Board voted unanimously against the plan, saying it would dump too much traffic onto already overloaded N.C. 150 and should be denied. The board is an advisory panel that makes recommendations on zoning requests to the Mooresville Board of Commissioners, which has final say.

N.C. 150 expansion

Still, the developer can “by right” build 78 multifamily units on the property under its current zoning, Cole said.

The project would have increased public access to the lake and added “more housing choices” in a “walkable, mixed-used development,” he said.

“The key here is, it’s an existing site, and this proposal does encourage redevelopment and use of this site, while keeping the marina and the restaurant use that has been kind of a fixture in our community,” Cole said.

The N.C. Department of Transportation expects construction to begin this fall to widen N.C. 150 at the lake, he said.

The $269-million project will expand the highway from just west of the U.S. 21/N.C. 150 interchange in Mooresville to N.C. 16 Bypass in Catawba County, according to the N.C. 150 project page on NCDOT.gov.

Developer’s timetable

Arnold Family Corp. planned to renovate a public-access dock on its Mooresville site this year and begin work on the greenway, public open space and six-story building in 2026, Cole said.

The second condo building wouldn’t have been built until N.C. 150 is widened, with the full Queens Landing project expected to open in 2030, he said.

The Observer first reported about the developer’s plans, which originally called for 172 multifamily units in two six-story buildings.

The developer later cut its request to 108 multifamily units, according to Mooresville Planning Department documents reviewed by The Charlotte Observer.

Buildings would have included elevators, large windows and high-end finishes, developer Ben Arnold told the Planning Board in October. “It’s a Class A-plus multifamily project,” he said.

“We’re not a flipper builder,” Arnold said. “If this is built, we’re here to stay.”

Arnold couldn’t attend Monday night’s meeting because he was on a college tour with his high school-age son, Nalls said.

Nalls didn’t say if Arnold would propose a smaller plan if the board rejected the rezoning. Arnold hasn’t responded to the Observer’s multiple requests for comment over the past year.

The greenway as part of the redevelopment would have included walkways to a 10-foot-wide multi-use path along N.C 150, according to the developer’s plans.

Plans also included covered and open dining, a recreational swimming pool, and an open landscaped area for various activities. Access to existing boat docks would have been available.

An art plaza also was planned, and more shrubbery and other vegetation planted along the waterfront and as screenage along N.C. 150.

Ominous fate of the Catawba Queen

The planned redevelopment excluded the two longtime sightseeing, dinner-cruise boats.

Arnold Family Corp. bought the property for $7.5 million in August 2022 from the estate of longtime local owner Jack Williams, Iredell County public tax records show.

Williams died in 2016, according to his obituary. Known as “Captain Jack,” he bought the Catawba Queen in 1992 with friend Bud Lancaster, owner of Big Daddy’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar in Mooresville.

The Catawba Queen is a replica Mississippi River paddle wheel boat that seats 149 passengers.

Lancaster died in 1997. They built what Williams’ obituary called “the largest complex on Lake Norman,” with a restaurant, two miniature golf courses, bumper boats, tennis courts, a floating dock bar and marina.

Deborah Harwell, a Mooresville and Myrtle Beach resident who owns the boats, had them moved and anchored together elsewhere on the lake when the developer told her the company wasn’t interested in them, the Observer previously reported.

The Catawba Queen and 93-foot Lady of the Lake boats await a place to be permanently anchored and once again host passengers, according to the Queens Landing voice mail message on Monday.