Martha Washington apartments to be redeveloped | Charlotte Observer

The Martha Washington apartments in Elizabeth are set to be torn down and redeveloped, the latest in a wave of change reshaping one of Charlotte’s close-in neighborhoods.

Tenants have already been moved out of the one-story brick apartments at Dotger and Kenmore avenues, which date to 1940. On Wednesday, mail spilled out of the boxes at each empty building, while discarded furnishings sat piled near trash bins at the rear of the property.

The site, owned by Consolidated Realty Company, hasn’t yet been sold, according to property records. But Pulte Homes, which has been building in other nearby neighborhoods, recently filed preliminary plans for a new development called Elizabeth Glen.

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The planning documents, filed in November, show Elizabeth Glen would be a development with 124 townhouses on the nearly 10-acre site. A Pulte Homes representative couldn’t be reached Tuesday for more information.

Elsewhere in Charlotte, Pulte is building townhouses at the Scaleybark light rail station starting at about $365,000, and on South Boulevard at a community called Belton, starting at $435,000.

The Martha Washington redevelopment is the latest major change in the Elizabeth area, which is seeing extensive redevelopment. Familiar businesses on Seventh Street like the former Jackalope Jacks building have been demolished to make way for new apartments, which are denser and spur worries about gentrification. At the Langston, a new apartment building on Seventh Street, a 497-square-foot studio, rents for $1,115 a month.

Monthly rents at Draper Place, an apartment building under construction at Randolph Road and Dotger Avenue, will start at $3,400 for a two-bedroom unit.

The 82 apartments at Martha Washington rented for under $1,000 a month – and often several hundred dollars less than that for the one- and two-bedroom units, according to old real estate listings.

Members of the Elizabeth Community Association have contacted Charlotte City Council to express their concern over the removal of mature trees on the site. But because the property doesn’t need to be rezoned for a new townhouse development, neighbors won’t have the chance to make their case before City Council at a formal hearing.