Turning Vision into Reality: The Arches

Built in 1927, this historic church in the Wesley Heights neighborhood has recently received a new lease on life and a unique transformation into a one of a kind condominium complex. The initial goal was to preserve the beautiful appearance of The Wesley Heights Methodist Church and transform it into an event space; however, after talking to neighbors about the idea, Whitestone Capital (developer) decided to pivot to do a residential project.

Wesley Heights is one of the original historic districts on the westside; therefore, any changes made to the outside of buildings in this area require permission from the Charlotte Historic District Commission (HDC). The HDC is a group of twelve members who share the goal of preserving a specific district’s characteristics when redeveloping or renovating. A certificate of appropriateness, or COA, must be granted prior to building permits. The architect coordinated the HDC permitting and was granted approval with conditions in August 2021. The conditions were related to architectural elevations, materials, and on the site, they included additional requirements for trees and trash screening.

When it comes to re-using an existing historic building there are bound to be a few surprises along the way, but since our Charlotte office is also in Wesley Heights, it was convient to run over to the site to work through any challenge. Being this close to the site meant that we could address issues with site conditions, like adjustments to the driveway, parking, and storm drainage, efficiently.

The site itself is small, only a half-acre, with half of that taken up by the existing buildings. Therefore, our team's first challenge was to carefully layout the site plan and engineering designs to ensure we were meeting all the requirements of the City while maintaining existing drainage and preserving the existing look and feel of the neighborhood. The grading on site was challenging since all these constraints left very little wiggle room. We utilized several small walls and yard inlets to capture runoff and keep it away from the base of the buildings.

Our team had to creatively design the utility and drainage system to ensure we weren’t disturbing the site more than necessary. Due to the age of the site, utility lines needed to be replaced and added to accommodate for the new residential use. This required us to coordinate with Charlotte Water and Charlotte Planning to find compromises that satisfied every department’s requirements. One example of this was the necessary coordination required to find a layout for the backflow preventers that would satisfy everone's needs. The various departments had conflicting requirements for the location of the utility structures. After several site visits, phone calls, and emails with the various reviewers, contractor, and architect, we were able to find a creative solution that would satisfy everyone's needs.

As we transitioned into construction, our team was in constant communication with the contractor. Our office's proximity to the site was valuable as we could run over to the site to work through various issues as they came up. Not only did this save time in back-an-forth emails/phone calls, it also allowed us to collaborate more efficiently with the construction team to secure to a solution.

When the construction team started coordinating with Duke Energy about relocating a power pole, it became apparent that the pole could not be moved. Because the power pole was in a proposed parking space, our team had to submit a parking reduction request to the City. This was because losing that parking space would then put the site under the minimum parking required.

Construction has come to an end and The Arches has started welcoming it’s new tenants. This proved to be a truly unique adaptive re-use project by holding true to the building’s original architecture and using key elements from the church to create beautiful homes. This has been an exciting project to have been a part of and taught the whole team valuable communication and design skills while allowing us the opportunity to solve problems on site throughout the process.