BREAKING: Levine Museum to sell uptown site
BREAKING: Levine Museum to sell uptown site
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Longtime museum to focus on digital transition; plans to find different ‘flexible’ location uptown
by Tony Mecia
The Levine Museum of the New South, a staple of uptown since 1996, says it plans to sell its 0.7-acre site at 7th and College streets to to transition to a more digitally oriented future.
In a letter this morning to members of the museum, CEO Kathryn Hill wrote: “The Museum’s mission has never been more important, and if we are to reach broadly across the community, we must imagine new ways to create and deliver content in the digital age.”
She said the pandemic gave the museum time to refine its transition plans and that it received a three-year, $600,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to help with the effort. She said the museum would “find a more flexible uptown facility to serve our mission.”
The statement Wednesday confirms reporting by The Ledger from last August, when we first reported that the museum was considering options that “could include selling its current location in uptown.” At the time, Hill said “everything’s on the table” about the museum’s future. She said the museum’s current site is “inflexible and aging” and that museums across the country are having to change fundamentally to reach audiences and to fulfill their missions.
[Read the Aug. 11, 2020, Ledger: “Levine Museum explores possible land sale, relocation”]
Asked last August whether the building was under contract, she replied: “The building is not on the market, and we are exploring options.” Wednesday’s letter did not say if the land is under contract, but that the transaction could take up to a year to complete. The museum remains open, she said.
The museum, which was formed in 1991 as a “museum without walls” before moving into a brick-and-mortar space five years later, occupies 40,000 s.f. of exhibit space, event space and offices. It added the Levine name after Family Dollar founder Leon Levine and his wife, Sandra, donated more than $1.25M toward a 2001 renovation.
Mix of historical and current: The Levine Museum is a rare gem for Charlotte: Its historical exhibits, visited regularly by schoolchildren, showcase the transformation of the post-Civil War South from its agrarian roots to its textile industrialization to the Civil Rights movement to the modern-day city. But it also hosts community conversations on important and often uncomfortable topics and quickly creates exhibitions that respond to current events.
Real estate opportunity: Property records show that the museum occupies about 0.7 acres, which it purchased in 1994 at a cost of $1.2M. The county lists the appraised value of the site today at $7.7M.
On the museum’s block, records show there are two other property owners: Bank of America, which owns the land containing the Seventh Street Station parking deck, the 7th Street Public Market and two restaurant spots; and an investment group that in 2019 bought the former Cosmos Cafe location at 6th and College that contains Sabor, Jimmy John’s and other businesses.
Charlotte real-estate types say it might make sense for any redevelopment of the museum site to take place in conjunction with adjacent property owners.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory