CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Businesses along the Monroe Road corridor in southeast Charlotte are optimistic about the future home of Major League Soccer’s Charlotte Football Club.

What You Need To Know

  • Charlotte FC announced a new location for its permanent team headquarters and training facility

  • Businesses along the Monroe Road corridor say they're looking forward to the project's completion

  • The announcement comes after several months of construction pauses, cancellations and new plans from the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC, both owned by billionaire David Tepper

Charlotte FC announced earlier this month that it would locate its main headquarters and team facilities at a 52,000-square-foot office space just off Monroe Road.

The team, owned by billionaire David Tepper, plans to redevelop the office space, add more soccer fields to the area and locate all of its team operations at the site. Those operations include four fields, business operations, training facility, MLS NEXT Pro team, Academy team and Charlotte FC First Team. 

Final details on the site, including its name and design renderings, will be released later this fall, according to Charlotte FC’s press release.

“We’re big Charlotte FC fans, we’ve been to a few games, one of our former employees actually works in their inside sales. We’ve actually been talking about doing a company event there, going to see a game,” said Bryan Watts, a business owner about three miles up Monroe Road from the future facility.

Watts co-owns Solar Shine Express Car Wash with other family, and said the new addition to the Monroe Road corridor could be good for business.

“This area was set to grow really before COVID. There were a few restaurants that had signed on leases down here, and because of COVID those got dropped. And, it’s kind of slowed the growth of the area. But I feel like something like Charlotte FC putting their facilities here is really going to help kick that up a little bit,” Watts said.

The business, which is nestled between Independence Boulevard and Monroe Road, benefits from traffic on both roads, which is why Watts chose the area.

“Great access to Cotswold and the neighborhoods over here, as well as the neighborhoods across (U.S.) 74. A lot of traffic, a lot of people, but no carwashes serving them. So, when this lot came available and this was all redeveloped, we had our offer in on the day it came up,” Watts said.

He said he had no complaints about Charlotte FC’s headquarters locating just a few miles past his business.

“There’s nothing but good for us to have more cars on Monroe,” Watts added.

The team’s announcement comes just a few weeks after it pulled out of its portion of a planned redevelopment of the old Eastland Mall site.

At the time, the team said the Eastland Mall project was going to take too long. Now, it says its new headquarters, which includes retrofitting the 52,000-square-foot office space, will be complete by spring 2023. The estimated completion date is roughly a year earlier than the planned opening of phase one of the Eastland project in 2024.

Officially, the new headquarters will be at 8600 McAlpine Park Drive, just off Monroe Road.

Loan Tran, the manager of another family business along Monroe Road, Be’ Em Asian Kitchen, said they were originally bummed out when Charlotte FC picked the Eastland site.

“A few years ago when they first said they were going to do it at Eastland Mall, I used to think, ‘Man, those people are so lucky.’ Now, we woke up and we’re like we’re the lucky ones. So I feel really excited,” Tran said.

Tran said the news is good for business and Monroe Road pride. Her family’s restaurant has been here for 14 years and is just five minutes from the site.

“I think it will bring in a lot of foot traffic. It’s almost like — I feel like it’s gonna put the Monroe area on the map,” Tran added.

She said she already plans to give her employees soccer apparel for the holidays and allow them to wear it at work on game days.

Charlotte FC and the Carolina Panthers, both owned by Tepper, have been the subject of construction intrigue for several months. Besides the Eastland site, companies owned by and affiliated with Tepper are involved in bankruptcy proceedings and a lawsuit concerning a failed Rock Hill, South Carolina, Panthers practice facility project.

Just recently, one of Tepper’s businesses announced its reorganization plan concerning the bankruptcy, which would pay millions to local governments and contractors. Charlotte FC backed out of the Eastland project before construction began.

Tran said the two teams’ recent headlines do not worry her.

“If it comes today, I celebrate today,” Tran said. “If something else happens tomorrow, it’s OK. Maybe it’s making room for something even better.”