CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- With much of the press for the land swap deal centering around the Charlotte Knights' new stadium and the Third Ward park, it's easy to forget there is another big part of it planned for Second Ward.

Brooklyn Village is a blast from the past with a modern look.

From the early 1900s through about 1960, part of Second Ward was a thriving live, work, play neighborhood called Brooklyn. Now county and city buildings, churches and hotels take up much of this part of Uptown.

The Brooklyn Village development, which the land swap would make possible, attempts to recapture the feel of the original Brooklyn.

A true "mixed-use" plan, Brooklyn Village would blend rental and for-sale residences with office space, retail space, parking, common areas, a park, water features and a tighter pedestrian-friendly street grid.

The development would replace what is now Marshall Park, the CMS education center and parking areas for both.

The space that is left would make up Brooklyn Village and consume the land bordered by McDowell, Davidson, Third and Martin Luther King Jr. streets.

Neighbors of the new development would be the courthouse complex on one side, the Blake Hotel on another, the Aquatic Center and Metro School on a third and historic First Baptist Church on the last. With two of the four sides already housing family oriented places -- a school, pools, and a church -- the hope of developer Spectrum Properties is that the new space will gel and blend with what's already there right from the beginning.

Thousands of hours of planning, meetings with past and present residents in the area and working in a lot of community suggestions have made the development the least controversial of the three big items.

Still, current litigation involving the land swap deal will have to be resolved before one shovel hits the dirt to get the ball rolling on Brooklyn Village.

In a conversation Tuesday, Michael Smith, the president of Charlotte Center City Partners said he envisioned groundbreaking near the end of 2008 with part of the village opening in early 2010.

To see a slideshow with current renderings and sketches showing what Brooklyn Village might look like, check the sidebar of this article.