World War I-era textile mill in NoDa to house apartments as part of $50M project
A $50 million project to bring more than 200 apartments to NoDa will incorporate a historic textile mill that was part of the city’s population boom in the early 1900s.
NoDa Wandry will include 84 apartment units at the Johnston Mill at 3315 N. Davidson St. and 151 more in new construction at 423 E. 36th St., located behind the mill.
Construction started in March and is expected to be complete by spring 2023, the developers said. There will be 80 studio apartments, 97 one-bedroom, 51 two-bedroom and 7 three-bedroom units.
The Johnston Mill, local historian Tom Hanchett said in an interview, is one of the largest non-renovated industrial buildings in and around NoDa. That might come as a surprise to those who remember a couple of decades ago when the neighborhood had lots of vacant buildings.
The mill was built in 1916 by C.W. Johnston with 12,000 spindles in response to war breaking out in Europe and an increased demand for cotton goods like uniforms and bandages, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission.
When the textile mill closed in 1975, it was one of the largest in Charlotte. The building was used as warehouse space until it was converted into apartments around 1995 and later vacated in 2006, said Ross Magette, vice president of development at FCP. The privately-held real estate investment firm based in Chevy Chase, Md., helped line up financing for the Wandry development.
The Community Builders, a national developer that focuses on mixed-income and affordable housing developments, bought the building from the city of Charlotte in 2011. The group had refurbished the nearby Mecklenburg Mill into 47 affordable housing units called the Lofts at NoDa Mills.
Apartments at NoDa Wandry will be market rate, but The Community Builders has committed to price 15 units for households earning up to 80% of the area median income, which is $47,150 for a single person or $67,350 for a family of four, said Juan Powell, the company’s regional vice president for real estate development.
A deep dive into history
Powell said his company has worked on a number of historic buildings across the country. In New York and Pittsburgh, for example, it is working on converting historic schools into living spaces.
“We really believe that working on historic buildings is a higher form of sustainability,” Powell said. “We embrace going after some of these historic properties and really restore them in a way that they can last for another 100 years.”
As in other places, mills in Charlotte are disappearing. Project leaders said they heard from people in NoDa how important it was to preserve a mill like Johnston.
Magette said the developers did a deep dive into the history of the mill. When designing the project, they wanted to display that history while incorporating new construction.
That’s where the project got its “Wandry” name: seeing the historic parts of the project mixed with new construction as you wander from one part to the other, Magette said.
In addition to the apartments, there will be 2,800 square feet of retail, a co-working space and a rooftop lounge on top of a leasing center. A transit lounge with a ramp will lead people directly to the 36th Street station on the LYNX Blue Line light rail line.
