Charlotte is in the early stages of working toward a new data center policy amid a development moratorium, part of a growing wave of project pauses happening in jurisdictions around the country.

Since its 150-day moratorium began in June, city staff has been doing research, engaging with stakeholders and working to create policy recommendations, Charlotte officials told Bisnow. Part of that research involves looking at how other cities and counties have utilized moratoriums in recent months, City Council Member Ed Driggs said.

The steps the city takes during its moratorium are representative of how more than 100 local governments across the U.S. are grappling with an issue that has sparked escalating backlash, driven by data centers’ massive demand for water and power. The outcome of Charlotte’s moratorium could determine whether major developers like American Tower Corp. can proceed with their projects.

“We are experiencing in Charlotte the same sort of controversy you’re seeing elsewhere in the country, over their impacts and lack of regulation,” Driggs said in an interview.  

Charlotte approved its moratorium following months of heated debate over the build-out of data centers in the city, largely sparked by American Tower’s controversial proposed project that would sit on 58 acres near Reedy Creek Nature Preserve. 

The city hasn’t approved American Tower’s rezoning request to build its data center, and a hearing for the project was delayed from June until at least November. American Tower declined to comment for this story. 

The 150-day pause is slated to end in November, but Driggs said there is a chance it could get extended.

“There’s a possibility, depending on what work gets done during the 150 days, that the moratorium could be longer,” he said.

Charlotte is a hot spot for data center development, housing roughly 40 operating facilities, according to Data Center Map. North Carolina is home to 95 active data centers.

Several cities in North Carolina have approved moratoriums as the issue reaches the state level nationwide. Earlier this month, nearby Davie County passed its own one-year data center moratorium. New York became the first state to impose a yearlong ban on data center construction as a handful of other states consider similar measures.

While supporters of data centers say the facilities will stimulate the economy and generate tax revenue, opponents cite concerns over environmental impacts — especially as North Carolina grapples with a drought — and a potential spike in power costs for consumers. 

Duke Energy said in the spring that 6 gigawatts of data center demand was in its development pipeline in the Carolinas, an amount that could power roughly between 3 million and 6 million homes. Duke last month proposed an 18% electric rate increase for households, but it cut that request to around 9.5%, Axios reported this week.  

Newly sworn-in Mayor Rob Harrington told Bisnow in an email that the moratorium in Charlotte “allows staff the necessary time to consider questions before any additional development moves forward.” He said he looks forward to reviewing the feedback to find the best path forward. 

The site near 8036 Hood Road in Charlotte where American Tower Corp. has proposed a data center

As the moratorium continues, data center projects that were in development before the pause was approved can continue construction. 

Data center projects in Charlotte include PowerHouse Data Centers’ plans for a 122-acre campus off of University City Boulevard and Digital Realty’s plans for a 12 megawatt, four-story data center at 725 E. Trade St. Spokespeople for the two companies didn’t respond to requests for comment on the status of their projects.

On Aug. 20, the city council is slated to hold a town hall on the moratorium, according to the Charlotte Business Journal.

At the end of the moratorium, Charlotte city staff is expected to present its findings to the council, and members will then hold discussions and gauge community input before deciding on policy changes, Driggs said.  

“We found that we could establish this 150-day pause while we look at our policies and consider whether, in light of the rise of AI and the growth and demand for data centers, a more differentiated policy is called for,” he said.

If it extends the moratorium to a one-year period, Driggs said Charlotte could better prepare itself for a future of data center development.

Lincoln Property Co. has purchased Charlotte-based developer The Spectrum Cos. in a deal that Lincoln says will help it grow its footprint across the Carolinas.

Dallas-based Lincoln will combine its Carolinas platform with Spectrum and will also include Spectrum’s northern and central Florida multifamily business, Lincoln said in a Tuesday press release. The companies say the move will help boost the combined firm’s development and acquisition pipeline.

The companies’ portfolios will merge well because of Spectrum’s strong focus on multifamily development, executives from both firms told the Charlotte Business Journal, which first reported the news. Spectrum has developed almost 7,000 multifamily units since its founding, according to the release.

The sum of the sale was not disclosed.

“Lincoln has been focused on growing and investing in the Carolinas for many years, and Spectrum presented a unique opportunity to accelerate that strategy,” Johno Harris, senior executive vice president at Lincoln, told Bisnow.

He added that Spectrum’s “exceptional team” complements Lincoln’s existing platform well.

“As we looked at the next phase of growth in the region, it became clear that bringing our organizations together would create a stronger business, expand our capabilities and position us to better serve clients and pursue new opportunities across the Carolinas,” he said.

A spokesperson for Spectrum didn’t comment in time for publication.

Spectrum’s 43 employees will move from a 5K SF office into Lincoln’s two-floor, 200K SF headquarters at Piedmont Town Center in SouthPark, which already employs 260 people, CBJ reported. No job cuts are expected.

Executives told CBJ that Spectrum’s name will soon change to Lincoln.

Lincoln’s global portfolio spans 720M SF, according to the company’s website. It manages 27M SF in the Carolinas. The developer’s Charlotte-based work includes the 3M SF Legacy Union office tower complex.

Spectrum’s 4.4M SF portfolio will now become “a significant expansion of Lincoln’s regional footprint,” according to the press release. The company’s local assets previously included Vantage South End, a 635K SF mixed-use development that it sold to Cousins Properties in 2024.

Charlotte ranks among “the most attractive markets for investors” in the country, according to CBRE’s 2026 North America Investor Intentions Survey. Charlotte’s multifamily market is “maintaining stronger demand fundamentals than most peer markets,” a first-quarter Matthews report said, with a 6.2 percent vacancy rate a signal that demand has absorbed new supply.

New York-based DLC Management Corp. has acquired an open-air shopping center in Charlotte’s Northlake neighborhood.

The center, Perimeter Woods, sits at 10125 Perimeter Parkway, across from Northlake Mall, and is accessible via Interstates 485 and 77, the Charlotte Business Journal reported. The 127K SF retail center is anchored by Best Buy, PetSmart, Burlington and Michael’s. The property spans more than 20 acres along the parkway.

The $36.6M deal for the site was part of a six-property acquisition by DLC, which specializes in open-air shopping center development. DLC owns and operates nearly 100 centers in the U.S., including the 303K SF Pavilion at King’s Grant in Concord, north of Charlotte. The six-property deal adds more than 1M SF to the firm’s portfolio across several states, according to the CBJ.

The Perimeter Woods acquisition reflects continued investor interest in Charlotte’s retail market, despite the challenges the 1.1M SF Northlake Mall across the street has faced. The enclosed mall sold last year for about $39M following a period of financial distress. 

Open-air shopping centers tend to be more reliable assets than enclosed malls, as their mainstream retail anchors, like grocery markets or big-box stores, provide stable shopping traffic, according to investment firm RockStep Capital. Enclosed malls include a variety of tenants to manage, from entertainment to dining to fitness, and often require longer lease terms. Open-air centers usually have lower operating costs, better visibility and accessibility, and are more sustainable than indoor malls, according to a McNeil Engineering report.

In recent years, many retailers have shifted from malls toward “outdoor, non-mall locations such as grocery-anchored shopping centers and strip malls,” The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024.

Among three different mall formats — indoor malls, open-air shopping centers and outlet malls — open-air shopping centers saw the most traffic growth year-over-year, according to the April Placer.ai mall index. Those centers’ visits rose 3.5% in April compared to the previous year, while indoor malls saw a 2.2% increase.

Retail vacancy in Charlotte is among the lowest in the U.S., at less than 2.9%, according to a first-quarter Colliers report. The rate has stayed below 3% for three consecutive years.  

Charlotte has a few more enclosed malls in addition to Northlake, including SouthPark Mall, Concord Mills and Carolina Place Mall. But the metro has many more open-air shopping sites — at least 15 open-air malls, like Phillips Place — as well as walkable shopping-oriented villages.

DLC made the acquisition with a fund managed by investment adviser DRA Advisors, the CBJ reported. The seller was KRG Charlotte Perimeter Woods LLC, affiliated with Kite Realty Group. 

The Charlotte City Council has approved a 150-day pause on new data center development, the latest locality to implement a moratorium amid rising national pushback against construction of the facilities.

The council late Monday voted unanimously in favor of the temporary moratorium. The aim of the pause is to allow the city to study data centers’ infrastructure and analyze the environmental impacts they might have on the area.

“We’ve got to dig deeper. We’ve got to really understand not only the legal framework but also the technical information, whether it’s the data itself or the scientific basis behind the impacts to our communities,” Council Member Victoria Watlington said before the vote. “When we can agree on the facts, then we can talk about good policy, and I think that’s exactly what this 150-day moratorium will do.”

The moratorium won’t apply to projects that have already been approved. Projects that are exempt from the pause include those with a valid building permit and those that have a complete application for developmental approval, according to City Attorney Andrea Leslie-Fite.

The city’s vote adds to the growing list of data center moratoriums around the country. Last week, a city in Southern California passed the nation’s first permanent citywide data center ban. New York state is poised to put in place a one-year moratorium.

Charlotte has been considering a moratorium for months. In May, citizens packed a city council meeting for a public hearing where most speakers pushed for the moratorium, citing negative impacts and increased energy costs stemming from what they called excessive water and power usage. Last week, local activists, politicians and an environmental lawyer held a press conference calling on the city council to approve the moratorium, The Charlotte Observer reported. 

American Tower Corp.’s proposed data center in east Charlotte is one controversial project that many have rallied against. The 40K SF project would be off of Hood Road, near a nature preserve. A public hearing on the developer’s zoning request is scheduled for June 15. 

Moratoriums have become common in recent months across the Carolinas, with Durham passing a 60-day moratorium in May and Apex passing a one-year moratorium in April.  

There are more than 90 data centers in North Carolina, according to Data Center Map, and 40 in Charlotte, according to WCNC. 

Council Member Joi Mayo said before the vote that the conversation around data centers “is not about being for or against innovation.”

“Rather, it’s about taking the time to understand the potential impact of a rapidly growing industry and ensuring our policies keep pace with that growth.”

Charlotte investors are bracing for potential changes to the build-to-rent space.

Charlotte has emerged as one of the strongest BTR markets in recent years, driven in part by population growth and rising housing costs. But some investors are pausing sales as a federal housing bill moves through Congress. The latest version of the bill retains protections for the BTR industry, but its fate remains uncertain.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said Jason Esposito, CEO of South Carolina-based homebuilder Center Park Group, which specializes in BTR. “It’s got to go back to the Senate and pass.”

Esposito was speaking at Bisnow’s Multifamily Annual Conference on May 19 at The Union at Station West in Charlotte. Eric Speckman, co-founding principal of investment and development firm Beauxwright, noted a “lack of transaction volume” in the Charlotte BTR market as companies await the bill’s final passage.

“We’re seeing this in real time, particularly on build-to-rent,” Speckman said. “So it’ll be nice, once the legislation gets worked out, to remove some of this uncertainty that investors have.”

In March, major investors mostly stopped buying and financing BTR sites due to the uncertainty of the the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. “Now, it’s kind of a wait-and-see game,” Esposito said. “We have a lot of projects that are at the starting gate that are ready to go.”

On May 20, the House of Representatives passed an amended version of the housing bill that eliminated a controversial BTR provision. That provision, found in a previous Senate version, would have required BTR operators to sell properties after seven years of ownership. The latest bill heads back to the Senate, where a fresh showdown is expected.

Esposito said the provision, if restored, would “completely eliminate additional supply.”

Last year, demand for BTR residences was on the rise in the Queen City, according to the Charlotte Business Journal. As of mid-2025, the Charlotte metro area had more than 4,100 BTR single-family homes under construction, according to a 2025 report by interior building supplier Best Supply, and was ranked second in the space behind Phoenix. 

But the report noted that some national investors had been “slowing new acquisitions after years of aggressive expansion.”

Alex Barroso, executive vice president of Portman Residential, said at the event that BTR is currently facing a lack of tenant demand. 

“Charlotte’s seen a ton of build-to-rent, but some of those have been difficult to lease up,” Barroso said. “They’re a lot slower, which perhaps a lot of developers didn’t assume when they underwrote them.”

Though the space remains “viable,” he says “money is slowly moving away from it.”

But factors like high housing and land costs continued to draw developers to BTR opportunities in Charlotte last year to meet local demand. Among some of the notable deals was Progress Residential’s $27.3M purchase of BTR community Harmon Five Points in October. Barroso said that just a few years ago, BTR was “all everybody and anybody was looking to invest in” in Charlotte.

David Lee, director of land acquisition at JPI, added that “the reason we saw a lot of those deals” is because they are “easier to capitalize.”

Charlotte is still listed among the major markets where “employment diversity, household growth, and suburban expansion continue to support build-to-rent demand” in 2026, according to a recent report by Catalyst Capital Partners.

But the forecast is dependent on what happens with the housing bill. Esposito said investors will continue to pause operations until they see “closure and certainty on the bill.”

Amwins is building a 15-story, 250,000-square-foot office tower at the former Sharon Station site, located at 4415 Sharon Road. It plans to use the site as its headquarters.

The Charlotte Business Journal reports the tower will house nine office floors atop six parking levels as well as a lobby and about 7,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. The new offices will replace six structures currently on the site. They are expected to be demolished next week.

Delivery is expected in 2.5 years. Amwins plans to begin moving its more than 500 employees into the space during the fourth quarter of 2028.

The Keith Corp., is developing the site. Brasfield & Gorrie is lead contractor and LS3P Associates and Redline Design Group will be the architects. Thrift Commercial Real Estate Services is handling retail leasing for the project.

Amwins acquired the site from local developer Childress Klein in December 2024 for $16.8 million,.

Charlotte residents packed a city council meeting this week to rally in support of a pause on data center development.

The Charlotte City Council held a public hearing during a meeting on Tuesday to discuss a proposed 150-day moratorium. The public hearing was a prerequisite to a planned council vote on June 8. 

The hearing comes after several weeks of growing public pushback against proposed data center projects in the city. Dozens of people were protesting outside, many part of activist groups, according to The Charlotte Ledger. Out of the 36 people who spoke up at the hearing, only five did not support a moratorium, the Ledger reported.

Citizens detailed their anxieties about the presence of data centers in the metro area, with some suggesting the centers be completely banned. They cited negative environmental impacts and increased energy costs stemming from what they called excessive water and power requirements.

Charlotte is facing drought conditions and water restrictions. But large data centers can use up to 5 million gallons of water each day, according to The Brookings Institution. 

“We are concerned that the growth of local data centers may overallocate our limited resources and decreases our ability to respond to drought,” resident and Catawba Riverkeeper Brandon Jones said. “Sustainable water management requires careful planning and robust coordination between all users, including data centers.”

Some spoke directly against American Tower Corp.’s proposed data center in east Charlotte, which has seen opposition at every stage. The project would span 40K SF on a site planned off of Hood Road, near Reedy Creek Nature Preserve. The developer delayed its zoning request until June 15.

“The question for me is, how do we build a footprint that makes Charlotte a national leader in distributed, resilient, redundant infrastructure without devouring our land, our water and our power?” said citizen Craig Reynolds, a business executive, whose question was met with applause.

He asked council members to consider the sheer scale of data center projects, which he said can command “eight to 14 times the combined residential power” of a city.

Another local, Tina Shull, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said she is “deeply concerned” about the impacts of the American Tower data center in her neighborhood, as well as the two already approved hyperscale centers in the city.

“This is a request to stop and make a new plan for data centers entirely,” Shull said. “A 150-day moratorium and an environmental impact assessment are the first steps.”

Resident Larry Shaheen, a commercial real estate lawyer at The McIntosh Law Firm, spoke in favor of data centers, saying they provide “a significant amount of tax revenue that is going to go toward funding important needs of the city of Charlotte.” 

He also said the council doesn’t have the authority to cease construction on an already started project or to change certain zoning classifications. His comments drew audible “boos” from the room.

There has been notable backlash against data centers in communities across the U.S. over the last year, including across the Carolinas. Moratoriums in the region are becoming increasingly common, with Durham passing a 60-day moratorium earlier this month, Apex passing a one-year moratorium in April, and Chatham County imposing a one-year moratorium in February. 

Still, there are more than 90 data centers in North Carolina, according to Data Center Map, and 40 in Charlotte, according to WCNC. More are expected as the rapid artificial intelligence boom continues. 

StreetLIghts and Eastern Federal have been greenlit by the Charlotte City Council to move ahead on the redevelopment of a site that includes a vintage theater. Eastern Federal owns the theater site.

Dubbed The Manor, The Charlotte Business Journal reports the project is expected to include between 120 and 130 residential units and about 35,000 square feet of retail uses. The site currently has about 40,000 square feet of existing retail space, including the 70-year-old Regal Manor Twin Theatre, which closed during COVID.

Besides the movie theater, the site has a few retail buildings and an office building. It’s not yet clear what will be done to the structures as the project moves forward.

On its website, StreetLights Residential says it takes a design-centric approach to urban development, focusing on multifamily apartment homes and mixed-use developments. 

Miramar Capital acquired Towns at Eastland for $27.6 million and Crossings at NoDa for $28.2 million from Hopper Communities.

The Charlotte Business Journal reports that Crossings at NoDa is an 88-unit development, located at 204 Monarch Creek Lane (shown) at the intersection of North Tryon Street and Sugar Creek Road. The community offers two-bedroom townhomes with rent starting at $2,195 per month and three-bedroom townhomes at $2,295 per month. Crossings at NoDa delivered in 2023.

Towns at Eastland, located at 6134 Wilora Lake Road near Eastland Yards, has 89 two- and three-bedroom units. Monthly rent starts at $2,095 for a two-bedroom and $2,195 for a three-bedroom. It delivered in early 2025.

Both properties are half full.

Locally, Miramar owns Newton Creek Townhomes, now called The Grove Residences, a 55-unit build-to-rent townhome community at 5234 Newton Creek Drive in east Charlotte. The firm acquired that development in May 2025 for $15.1 million.

Johnson & Wales University plans to fully renovate a major residence hall on its Charlotte, N.C. campus to accommodate a mixed-use of housing and student services. The 97,000 square-foot building, currently called “The Maple” and previously managed as the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel, will be completely overhauled with new mechanical and building systems and infrastructure, 150 rooms for upper-class students (with a potential occupancy of 276), an admissions welcome center, and a central location for student services.

The project is expected to take approximately two years to complete, and the expected investment by the university will be around $42 million, funded through a combination of investment reserves and philanthropy from individuals, corporations and foundations. The university will work with 3Ten Construction, a commercial contractor based in Charlotte, N.C., and Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, also based in Charlotte, N.C. Both firms have completed early-phase work on the project.

The Doubletree purchase aligns with its curriculum. The Charlotte campus offers a 90-credit, three-year Hospitality Management degree program under the University’s current accreditation, making it the first in the Southeast to offer such a degree.