South End Common Market to Close Next Year

CHARLOTTE, NC — As city living becomes more attractive, more people are moving to be closer to Uptown. The neighborhoods that brought them there are changing.

It’s getting tougher for local, independent businesses like South End’s Common Market, which is being forced out of its current location.

“We’re looking at about another year of being there,” says Common Market owner Blake Barnes. “They said pretty much the end of summer.”

Barnes met with the developer for the property currently housing the popular establishment, and the lot for Food Truck Friday, in Charlotte’s South End last week and the clock is ticking.

It’s a cruel twist of fate. Small, local businesses like Common Market once attracted people to the area. Now they’re an endangered species.

“When people would come to look at one of the many new apartments that are over there, the leasing agents would bring them to Common Market saying this is what you get, this is part of this neighborhood,” says Barnes. “Where it’s ironically that we were part of that growth, which is actually snuffing us out at the end.”

More apartments. More franchises. More corporate presence.  The heart and soul of many hip Charlotte neighborhoods is being ripped out.

“What we don’t like to see is when things that are already existent that are part of the culture getting demolished, and just getting whitewashed,” says Jenna Thompson.

Thompson organized an event for concerned citizens at the Snug Harbor in Plaza Midwood on Wednesday, looking for ways to protect the places that people love.

“Plaza Midwood only has a historic district in the residential area,” says Thompson. “And there are a lot of people who are interested in expanding it into the business district.”

What’s happening to Common Market and other local businesses in South End serves as an example, one that other neighborhoods hope to avoid.      

“As that area redevelops in such a corporate way, it’s just going to get harder and harder for small guys to be there,” says Barnes. “Even guys like us man, and we got a pretty good size to us, but that rent is getting extremely expensive.”

Barnes says he would like to keep a Common Market location in South End, but is looking at other options as well. No new location has been set for Food Truck Friday.