$250M Lake Norman hotel resort and condos move forward

Mooresville commissioners voted late Tuesday to annex 15 1/2 Lake Norman acres where a Charlotte developer plans 283 condominiums and the lake’s first waterfront hotel.

Construction of the $250-million Sunset Cove hotel resort could now start in the second or third quarter of this year and finish in about four years, developer Brett Krueger told The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday.

The site across from the Lowe’s headquarters in southern Iredell County offers western sunset views, Krueger said. The property has 1,500 feet of waterfront, he said.

“The site is just a hidden gem,” he said.

Besides the brick and stone exterior condominiums, the Sunset Cove Hotel project will include a “boutique upscale” hotel with a restaurant and possibly a spa, plus waterfront space for weddings and other events, Krueger told the Mooresville Board of Commissioners in September when the board approved a rezoning for the project.

Krueger told the Observer he may convert about 100 of the condominiums into Airbnbs, adding to the size of the hotel.

The site is beside two existing hotels, the Tru by Hilton Mooresville and the Aloft Mooresville, Krueger said.

Krueger said he originally envisioned the hotel as an 82-room luxury hotel in 2019, “and then COVID hit.” It will now feature “most likely 30 or 35 rooms,” he said.

So he decided to move ahead with the condos first, he said. The Mooresville commissioners rejected his request because they wanted a site plan first, he said.

Meanwhile, he turned the planned hotel into a smaller boutique hotel, he said.

Commissioners approved a rezoning for the project in September. The board also agreed Tuesday to extend water and sewer to the site at Alcove Road and Culbreth Lane.

“It’s a long time coming,” Krueger told the Observer on Wednesday.

The “boutique” hotel and condo buildings will rise just north of the LangTree Lake Norman mixed-used community, which is at Interstate 77 Exit 31. The condos will be in buildings up to four stories tall, according to town planning documents.

The hotel resort by Krueger’s Sunset Cove Partners LLC “would rival a master planned development in Florida,” Krueger said during a Sept. 6 public hearing, the Lake Norman Citizen reported at the time.

“People love the kinds of projects we do, because we put so much detail into it,” he said.

Krueger has developed such hotels as the Windsor Boutique Hotel in Asheville and The Ivey’s Hotel in uptown Charlotte.

Developer reveals brand of 2 planned Huntersville hotels

A Georgia developer on Tuesday night revealed the brand of two hotels he plans to build totaling 109 rooms on vacant land at 16221 Northcross Drive in Huntersville.

The “Northcross Hotel” project would include a Fairfield Inn and a TownePlace Suites extended-stay hotel, developer Hitesh Patel of Augusta-based Hotel Ventures Inc. told the Huntersville Board of Commissioners during a rezoning hearing at Town Hall.

The hotels would have an about-even number of rooms, he said.

“There is strong demand,” Patel said.

The Marriott-brand hotels “come with a lot of stringent standards,” he said.

Patel also developed the SpringHill Suites by Marriott hotel in The Park in Huntersville. His 40-year-old family company has developed more than 20 hotels in various states.

Several neighbors expressed concerns at the hearing about living near a 24-7 hotel and potential light pollution.

Hotel representatives said they plan 124 feet of vegetative buffer, where town rules require 80 feet. They’ll provide evergreen buffer between the hotel parking lot and homes and businesses, they said, and lighting will be visible only within the hotel boundary.

The board will vote on the rezoning at an upcoming meeting to be announced.

Traffic concerns delay decision on lakefront community

Mooresville commissioners late Tuesday cited the town’s traffic-clogged roads in delaying a decision on a massive proposed lakefront community.

“NCDOT is failing us” in expanding overburdened state roads in the town, commissioner Lisa Qualls said during the rezoning hearing. “And we’re stuck holding the bag.”

Developers affiliated with the LangTree at the Lake mixed-use community at Interstate 77 Exit 31 have proposed the massive nearby development that would offer rare public access to Lake Norman through a multi-use shoreline greenway.

The proposed community on state-maintained Transco Road would include 353 multifamily units, 136 town homes and 90 duplexes, Estes McLemore of LIV Development said in a rezoning application filed with the Mooresville Planning Department.

LIV Development is based in Birmingham, Alabama.

The 96.79-acre site lies in Iredell County outside the town of Mooresville. The heavily wooded site lies south of Langtree Road and is bounded to the south and east by Lake Davidson and by Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp. to the west.

“This development will provide public access to Lake Norman, which is one of the main goals in the One Mooresville Land Use Plan,” LIV Development officials wrote in their rezoning application.

Commissioner Thurman Houston made a motion to approve the rezoning because he said the development would provide access to the lake that doesn’t exist now because of the many high-priced homes ringing the lake. Commissioner Bobby Compton seconded the motion.

A 10-foot greenway multi-use path “will run the entire length of shoreline of our project,” about 7,685 feet, the developers wrote.

The greenway “will give our residents and the entire public access to the lake that they currently do not have,” according to the LIV Development application.

“Most importantly,” according to LIV Development, the project would provide an $8 million major public road extension through the entire site.

The new road would extend Langtree Campus Drive to the future Mooresville East West Connector road, further opening the area to development, the developers said.

But several commissioners said Mooresville traffic is horrendous enough and were set to vote against the project. when Houston agreed to pull his motion.

Commissioners agreed to continue the hearing to April 3 so staff can determine a more definite timetable for the East West Connector.

This story was originally published January 4, 2023 1:04 PM.