Planning Pool

Catawba County and University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) are collaborating on an eco-industrial park on the Blackburn Landfill in North Carolina.

Experiments are slated to start in a few months to test the site’’s integrated systems. The facility, named Catawba EcoComplex, hosts a number of facilities where the idea of “waste = food” reigns. In other words, wastes from some processes become feedstock for others.

Right now, the complex hosts a landfill, a landfill gas-to-energy facility, a lumber processor, a pallet manufacturer, sunflower and canola biofuels farms, and a cooperative farm. Catawba County is hoping to add a biosolids processing facility, a greywater processing system, waste-powered steam facility, plastics recycling facility, and an algae research center. The County also forsees developing a smart-grid education center, brick manufacturing, industrial composting, a greenhouse, anaerobic digester, and … Continue Reading

Four country western expansion urban growth model from UNC Charlotte Urban Institute on Vimeo.

North Carolina is one of the states that is losing farmland most rapidly in the US. Researchers at UNC Charlotte and UNC Asheville are using satellite images, development trends, population data, and growth projections to create a visual digital model of what North Carolina may look like in the future.

So far, they have found that four western North Carolina counties (Madison, Buncombe, Henderson and Transylvania) have developed by 500 percent between 1976 and 2006, which is at an average rate of six acres of green space per day! More shockingly, the model predicts that an additional 47,500 acres of forests and farmlands will … Continue Reading

Amity Gardens Shopping Center was a popular shopping center in Charlotte, NC, during the 1950s. Now, the blighted strip mall is slated to be bulldozed and replaced with a Walmart with the hopes of revitalizing the area.

According to Groceteria:
The Winn-Dixie at Charlotte’s Amity Gardens Shopping Center opened in November of 1958, right in the middle of the most thriving retail strip in the city. The center also included Woolworth’s and a Barclay Cafeteria. By 1961, it also included Charlotte’s first (and only) branch of Clark’s, an early “supercenter” with both general merchandise and groceries.

… Continue Reading

Sun Edison, North America’s largest solar energy provider, has finally located a suitable property to build a 21 Megawatt solar photovoltaic farm, according to Davidson County Economic Development Commission.

Duke Energy, North Carolina’s largest energy provider, plans to buy all of the output from the $173 million operation. Maryland-based Sun Edison estimates that this Davidson solar farm will be one of the biggest in the United States, larger than the 14 MW Nellis Solar Power Plant. The 21 MW facility is also significant for Sun Edison, who currently has about 67 MW installed in the US. However, on the global scale, the 21 MW facility is overshadowed by a number of Spanish farms.

The Davidson … Continue Reading