The $200 million plan to add significant new development to Birkdale Village has received a critical approval. The Charlotte Business Journal reports Jamestown received an okay from the Huntersville Board of Commissioners for a rezoning that will allow them to develop a 125-room hotel, 150 multifamily units, 26,715 square feet of retail space and a new, seven-story office building at the center.

Birkdale Village currently includes around 250,000 square feet of retail space, 50,000 square feet of office space and 320 apartments.

The new office building at Birkdale Village will total 175,000 square feet, including around 13,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The six-story apartment building is targeted for the site of the existing Dick’s Sporting Goods store. The seven-story hotel would be near Birkdale Village’s entrance off Sam Furr Road.

Optima, Inc. has received final village board approval for Optima Lumina, a 128-unit luxury residential building in downtown Wilmette on Chicago’s North Shore.

The six-story building features one- to three-bedroom residences of up to nearly 3,000 square feet, almost 5,900 square feet of retail space, a large public plaza, and a robust amenity package. Replacing the long-vacant former Imperial Motors car dealership located at 720-739 Green Bay Road, the transit-oriented development is located directly across from Wilmette’s Metra rail commuter station.

It is also immediately north of Optima’s 100-unit, high-end rental community, Optima Verdana. “The success of Optima Verdana has demonstrated the high demand for luxury new-construction multifamily housing on the North Shore,” said David Hovey, Jr. AIA, president of Optima, Inc. “Optima Lumina builds on that demand by offering the option for current residents looking to downsize from single-family homes as well as would-be North Shore buyers struggling to find a home due to the area’s low inventory of available housing.”

The Boston Planning and Development Agency’s board has approved Boston University’s real estate plan for its Charles River campus through 2026, reported the Boston Business Journal. The plan includes major renovations to Warren Towers and Mugar Memorial Library and a new school of global studies.

The changes to Warren Towers, BU’s signature dormitories, include improved bathrooms and HVAC systems and repairs to the building envelope. The board also okayed a large lab complex on Wentworth Institute of Technology property a month after tabling the proposal, along with two office-to-housing conversions and Jones Street Investment Partners’ 236-unit apartment building behind the convention center in South Boston.  

The BU approval is for the school’s institutional master plan, the Business Journal reported. The plans typically cover 10 years, but the university sought a stopgap version in order to give new BU President Mellisa Gilliam time to help determine her vision for the campus.

Capital Square has been granted zoning approval by the Richmond City Council to develop an eight-story mixed-use apartment community and luxury hotel in the Scott’s Addition designated opportunity zone in Richmond, Virginia.

The development will be funded with proceeds from Capital Square’s CSRA Opportunity Zone Fund IX, LLC, a project-specific opportunity zone fund seeking to raise approximately $77 million in equity from accredited investors. Construction is slated to begin in the summer of 2025.

Located at 1600 Roseneath Road, the 2.18-acre property will feature approximately 220 traditional apartment units and 100 furnished luxury hotel rooms. The property is near a large concentration of businesses and restaurants, including a 47,000-square-foot Whole Foods and a GRTC Pulse transit station.

Capital Square also fully subscribed to four other opportunity zone funds to develop projects in Scott’s Addition. In total, the firm has delivered or is in the process of developing over 1,230 multifamily units and 40,000 square feet of retail space within the area.