Villa Heights originated around 1900 as a new suburb but a working class community. Villa Heights along with Belmont and Optimist Park  were Charlotte’s first entirely working-class suburbs. This represented Charlotte’s growth as a City as it became a major textile producer. Like most other Charlotte suburban areas, Villa Heights had only white residents until the major urban renewal projects of historic black neighborhoods like Brooklyn (the modern day 2nd Ward) in the 60s. Sadly the influx of African American residents lead to White flight and an increase in poverty, crime, and blight for the neighborhood. But Villa Heights stayed in much better condition than neighboring Optimist Park and much of its historic SF homes remain.

Village Heights has gentrified significantly in the past couple of decades like much of inner City Charlotte and this has lead to new multifamily construction along Davidson, new townhouses along Parkwood and the Villa Avenues, renovation and new construction of single family homes and less and less affordable product. Homeownership is certainly out of the reach of working class families but some product selling in the 300Ks & 400Ks is still affordable to middle class professionals. The gentrification of Village Heights has improved its urbanity as the major thoroughfares (Davidson, Parkwood, the Villa, and Mattheson) are urbanizing albeit still have lots of dead spaces and auto centric uses. Bike lane, ADA curb cuts, and sidewalks existing along the main roads but sidewalks are missing in about 1/2 of the residential streets. Villa Heights also has good public transit access & convenient commute to Dwtn, excellent diversity (esp. racial), a thick tree canopy, good parks, lots of apts, and good food and beverage amenities. To become a solid urban district Village Heights needs to build up its business district, densify, create more affordable housing options, build new walkable schools in the neighborhood, and add some key retail amenities (i.e. more local shops, post office, and public library). With Charlotte’s rapid growth I feel Villa Heights will continue to urbanize but hopefully with more attention to creating a higher quality urban environment.

Click here to view my Villa Heights album on Flickr

URBAN STREGNTHS:

• Excellent Racial Diversity with about a 40% white and Black population with decent Hispanic population.
• Solid public transit access thanks largely to good access to several Blue Line stations. This comes with convenient access to Dwtn as well with good bike and transit access along with convenient car access.
• Good economic diversity and decent age diversity.
• Historically the neighborhood had some safety issues but this is rapidly improving.
• Very thick tree canopy.
• Attractive early 20th century single family homes.
• Some good urban infill along Davidson but some autocentric commercial uses along Parkwood and The Plaza.
• A moderate # of apartments but on the expensive side. More focused on 2 & 3 beds. 1-beds lease in the mid to high 1Ks. 2-beds mid 1Ks to mid 2Ks and 3-beds 2K-5K.
• For sale is generally SF homes but a handful of condos selling in the 300Ks. 2-beds sell btwn 300K-700K with a handful of condos selling in the 300Ks. 3 & 4 beds sell anywhere from mid 300Ks to low 1Ms. As you can see a handful of moderately priced homes but more for sale product is pretty expensive.
• Expansive Cordelia Park sits in the SW corner of this district with a public pool. A couple other smaller parks with playgrounds spread throughout the district.
• Decent food and beverage amenities with a good # of restaurants, the urban district market (a small food hall), breweries, and cafes along Davidson (near 24th) a handful along Plaza, which is a pretty residential and semi-autocentric road.
  

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* About half of the streets are without sidewalks but when sidewalks exist there is generally good ADA curb cuts. Main streets have sidewalks.
* Pretty low density for an inner city neighborhood.
* Pedestrian activity is pretty limited. Some along the commercial node on Davidson.
* Really no affordable housing here.
* One quality walkable elementary school in the neighborhood. Well rated but not walkable Montessori school in neighboring NoDa and not so well rated public high school to the south.
* Really not other cultural amenities other than food and beverage stores.
* So so retail amenities thanks to a supermarket, drug store, a couple boutiques, a bakery, several salons/barbers, a couple gyms,. several churches,  and a couple medical offices.
* No public library or post office in Villa Heights.
* Urban massing of the main streets (Davidson, Parkwood, the Villa, and Mattheson) is improving with new urban apartments and townhouses but still plenty of dead spaces and autocentric uses.