West Charlotte site gets slice of $10 million for Lowe’s 100 hometown projects

A Charlotte project will honor community history and become a new gathering spot after being chosen from among thousands of applicants for Lowe’s $10 million 100 Hometowns nationwide effort.

The west Charlotte project will build a community park at 1201 Beatties Ford Rd., Erin Chantry, an urban designer and planner with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department, told the Observer.

The Mooresville-based home improvement chain announced in March it would give millions of dollars to 100 community projects throughout the U.S. to celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary. There were more than 2,200 applicants.

People from all across the country shared “remarkable stories and hope for how their community might be made a little better,” Lowe’s CEO and chairman Marvin Ellison said in a statement.

The Washington Heights neighborhood park will include building a platform or some type of structure for performances, movie nights and other events, Chantry said. Chantry co-wrote the application for 100 Hometowns with neighborhood resident Mattie Marshall.

The park plan pays homage to the Ritz Theater, which was the last movie theater built on that site exclusively for the Black community, Chantry said. The theater closed in the 1970s and was later demolished. The Ritz was one of four movie theaters in Charlotte for African-Americans, according to Observer records.

The new Charlotte community park

The vacant, 0.17-acre city-owned property on the corner of Beatties Ford Road and Tate Street is a prominent spot in the community, Chantry said. It is valued at more than $62,000, according to Mecklenburg County property records.

Historical markers, child play areas and artwork by local artists could be part of the design, Chantry said. It will also have free Wi-Fi, funded through a separate city project.

The city sent a survey to neighborhood residents to find out what they want at the site and will work with about 20 community members to solidify a design by the end of the month, Chantry said. The project is expected to be completed by the end of October, she said.

The new park will spotlight the significance of the theater and how important it was to the community in bringing people together, Chantry said.

“I was really excited we could find the additional funding to make the community vision come true,” she said. “It was a really compelling story to tell that this once was such a hub of the Beatties Ford Road community.”

Along with $200,000 from Lowe’s, $50,000 has been designated from the city’s designated “Corridors of Opportunity” to build the park, Chantry said. Last fall, the city announced it will invest $24.5 million in six Corridors of Opportunity, including Beatties Ford, to bring more business to the areas and improve residents’ quality of life.

“This is a great representation of how open space is so important to neighborhoods and community to express their identity and history, and celebrate that,” Chantry said.

Other 100 Hometowns

Lowe’s selected 100 projects in 36 states in urban, suburban and rural areas.

Projects include 35 community centers, 19 community spaces, nine shelters, eight housing facilities, seven cultural preservation projects, seven playground installations, six gardens, four food pantries, four skilled trades projects and one civic upgrade, according to Lowe’s. Details are available at Lowe’s 100 Hometowns page on the company website.

While Lowe’s stores help make people’s homes better, this centennial celebration project helps makes homes better in the community sense, Marisa Thalberg, Lowe’s executive vice president, chief brand and marketing officer, told the Observer.

Deciding which projects to give to came down to their community impact, how many people would be effected, where it was needed and Lowe’s ability to affect that change, Thalberg said.

“We also just wanted to have a real representation of the types of submissions we saw,” she said.

And project nominations weren’t about groups or individuals, but people who just want to bring joy to others and make their communities better for everyone, Thalberg said.

Including Charlotte, there are 10 selected projects in the Carolinas:

▪ East Bend: Town Square accessible park

▪ Elizabeth City: Fowler Alley Community Space

▪ Hickory: Exodus Missionary Outreach Church

▪ Salisbury: BlockWork

▪ Selma: Activate Selma: Downtown and Edgebrook Park Community Improvements

▪ Siler City: Chatham County on Aging + Rebuilding Together of the Triangle

▪ Wilkesboro: Anchor Ridge Kid’s Club

▪ Columbia, S.C.: Jeep Rogers YMCA

▪ Spartanburg, S.C.: Salvation Army Spartanburg Community Center

The goal is to have all 100 completed by the end of this year and many before that, Thalberg said.

“There’s a lot of repairing needed (since the coronavirus pandemic) and Lowe’s is really proud to be playing a central role in that physically and in an emotional way,” Thalberg said.

A little Lowe’s history

Lowe’s has grown from its first North Wilkesboro Hardware store founded by L.S. Lowe in 1921 to more than 2,200 stores in the U.S. and Canada.

Lowe’s became a publicly-traded company in 1961.

Today, Lowe’s serves about 20 million customers a week and has more than 300,000 employees, according to the company.

This story was originally published July 20, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "West Charlotte site gets slice of $10 million for Lowe’s 100 hometown projects."