Charlotte’s heavy industrial land supply is shrinking

From 2017 to 2021, Charlotte-Mecklenburg County approved ~40 rezoning petitions to heavy industrial ordinance (ML-2) per year, the majority were sub-six acre lots. Since 2021, there have only been three ML-2 rezoning approvals. Current pending petitions are for assemblages totaling up to 123 acres and averaging 14 acres per lot, much larger than the historical average of 5 acres per rezoning petition.
The bulk majority of rezoned ML-2 sites are owned by the City of Charlotte, who is rezoning land near the airport to heavy industrial for resale. Case in point, the 108 acres on Todd Rd that rezoned from residential to heavy industrial in 2018 and later sold to Amazon.
In five years, the net loss of heavy industrial land totals -121 acres, merely -1% of Mecklenburg County’s total ML-2 land supply of approximately 10,000 acres.

August 16, 2023

US-NC-CLT Charlotte