By Michelle Crouch
Co-published with The Charlotte Ledger
Four years after Atrium Health pledged to include affordable housing in its new medical innovation district in Charlotte, city filings now show a concrete proposal for the site: a gleaming 20-story tower with 382 apartments, including 19 for low-income residents.
Called ANOVA, the building will include ground-level retail and luxury amenities like an outdoor pool and deck, grilling space and golf simulator, along with a rooftop lounge that will offer sweeping views of uptown, said Dennis Miller, a senior vice president at Wexford Science & Technology, Atrium’s development partner on the project.
The innovation district, called The Pearl, opened last summer and includes the Charlotte campus of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, a surgical training center and a growing number of medical technology companies. It sits on land just outside uptown Charlotte that was once part of Brooklyn, a vibrant Black community that was razed in the 1960s for urban renewal.
Atrium has faced recent scrutiny over whether it’s meeting affordable housing promises it made in 2021 when it secured $75 million in public money toward developing The Pearl.
At the time, city and county leaders were told by city staff that Atrium would include affordable apartments within the project, but until now, no specifics had been publicly shared. The Ledger/NC Health News found that a city contract didn’t require housing on the site.
Low-income units will be subsidized
Presentations in 2021 indicated that Atrium would set aside 5 percent of any units built for low-income residents, a level some city leaders at the time said was too low. Miller said the proposed tower will meet that threshold: Half of the 5 percent will be for residents whose income is under 50 percent of the area’s median income and the other half for those under 80 percent, he said.
That’s a difference from 2021 presentations about the project, which indicated all of the affordable units would be reserved for those earning under 50 percent. In 2025, that would mean earning less than $39,300 for a single individual and $56,100 for a family of four.
A contract between Atrium and the city’s housing authority, Inlivian, reviewed by the Ledger/NC Health News calls for the authority to provide subsidies, called project-based vouchers, to help make up for the difference in rent.
Miller said the complex will offer apartments ranging from studios to three-bedroom units, and there will be no differences between the affordable units and the market rate ones.
“That way, everyone is part of the community at the same level,” Miller said. “So that 5 percent, you know, they get the benefits of all those amenities, the ground-level retail, the proximity that’s associated with being at The Pearl, all those advantages.”
Greg Jarrell, senior campaign organizer with Redress Charlotte, a social justice group that has been critical of Atrium’s policies, acknowledged that the project fulfills Atrium’s original commitment, but said that commitment was “way too small” given the destruction of the Brooklyn community and the hospital system’s $12.6 billion in revenue in 2024.
“It’s quite disappointing,” Jarrell said, ”in a place with the sensitive history that The Pearl occupies, that any developer would give such a paltry concession over to the community that in no way matches the historic harm.”
Atrium commits to land donation if swap falls through
In addition to the affordable housing at The Pearl, Atrium Health was supposed to separately donate a 14-acre site on North Tryon Street for 400 more affordable units, according to 2021 presentations about the project. So far, the land hasn’t been donated, and The Ledger/NC Health News reported that it is now part of a three-way land swap between the city and the housing authority.
Atrium executive Collin Lane told Mecklenburg County commissioners on Dec. 16 that if the swap falls through, the hospital will donate the parcel to another developer for affordable housing.
“It was Inlivian’s idea to tie the donation of the land to a swap of two other properties,” he said. “If, for some reason, that land swap does not occur, Atrium will still donate that parcel — worth nearly $30 million — to an affordable housing developer, for free.”
As part of his comments, Lane stressed that the hospital has not yet received any public money and is still in the early stages of a long-term project that will have a far-reaching impact on the community.
“My hope is that it is very clear that we are keeping our promises,” he said.
Atrium denounces “false narrative”
Lane also objected to the way the hospital’s commitment to affordable housing has been portrayed publicly, calling it “a false narrative” that “doesn’t accurately represent the current plans of the project.”
Atrium spokesman Dan Fogleman shared a similar perspective when he responded this month to an email from local high school student Zach Kahn, who asked him about the hospital’s affordable housing commitments.
It is a “very complex topic that media of all stripes in Charlotte have attempted to simplify and, in the process, have simply misled their audiences,” Fogleman wrote in an email posted online by the student. “… They are not real estate experts nor legal experts. … Especially in this day and age, the goal is sensationalism and website clicks, not the presentation of unbiased factual information.”
Atrium has not pointed to any factual errors in The Ledger/NC Health News’ reporting on the issue.
This article is part of a partnership between The Charlotte Ledger and North Carolina Health News to produce original health care reporting. You can support this effort with a tax-deductible donation.
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