‘Road Closed' signs still plague NoDa street 4 years after closure

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — There are frustrations among neighbors in businesses in the Charlotte NoDa neighborhood because a main road into the community is still closed.

Charlotte Area Transit Systems officials closed 36th Street in June 2014, which cut off access to NoDa from North Tryon Street, in order to build the LYNX Blue Line Extension.

[Major NoDa road closed for the next two years]

Officials promised the closure would only last two years. But instead, it has been closed for four years.

Monty Thompson and his partners opened their Urban Gardening and Aqua Culture business on the North Tryon Street side of the tracks, hoping they would get business from the NoDa neighborhood, but the closure made that impossible.

“Our business model has totally collapsed, as far as our garden store. There’s not enough traffic to support something like that, so it’s really disappointing,” Thompson said.

It’s also frustrated residents who moved to the area to be closer to NoDa.

“It’s a huge inconvenience and we want the street to open. Period,” neighbor Nick Van Patten said.

Channel 9 contacted CATS to find out what’s behind the two-year delay.

Officials said it’s a complicated project that includes the Norfolk Southern Railroad and the North Carolina Department of Transportation. They said that they’ve, “experienced unforeseen conditions, which increased the already challenging construction coordination.”

The street is now set to reopen in June.

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