Northwest NoDa: 5 reasons it’ll be awesome, and 3 reasons it won’t

There’s more polos, more Sperrys, and more gaudy apartment complexes than ever before. It’s something that happens naturally to neighborhoods as they become more popular. But the rumors of NoDa’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Nestled in the northwest corner of NoDa is a thriving little sub-hood with small businesses, open space for development, and even a rail stop. It’s the area roughly enclosed by Craighead, North Davidson, Sugar Creek, and Tryon. Some residents call it The Annex. Some business owners call it NoDaHood. I told a resident it should be called NoNoDa and she told me to go f*ck myself.

Whatever you want to call it, it has potential, the kind of effortless hipness NoDa had ten years ago, but it also has a lot working against it.

Here are 5 reasons why this part of town could end up being dope, and 2 reasons why it won’t.

Divine Barrel and Bold Missy are building community

Two breweries anchor this area: Divine Barrel and Bold Missy. They’re not messing around when it comes to building a community on this burgeoning block. From block parties, to Zumba, to two separate run clubs (Run DBB and Bold Missy Run Club), these folks are proving that breweries are the new community centers. Without them, we wouldn’t even be discussing this block. And for the record, the beer ain’t bad either. If you’re as into IPAs as I am, try the Rocket Ride at Bold Missy and the 40 Dollar Bill at Divine Barrel.

There’s a ton of diverse eateries

You want a noodle bar? Grab Deejai. You want soul food with a Middle Eastern twist? Hit up Mr. C’s Famous Chicken Restaurant (the former Tropical Goodies space). Craving the taste of the motherland? Zanzibar Cafe is serving authentic African cuisine. Sure, not everything along Tryon and Sugar Creek is as polished as other parts of NoDa are becoming, but isn’t that part of what makes being a foodie in Charlotte so cool?

The developers have big plans

Flywheel Group is planning two major projects for the area at Sugar Creek Station: Station House and Trailhead. The developments include office space with views of the Uptown skyline, a climbing gym, a public market, restaurants, and most importantly, the kind of residential space that’ll be necessary for the area to really boom.

Crown Station

The original Crown Station in Elizabeth was home to great coffee, great beer, live music, and stand-up comedy. The new version maintains a lot of the charm of the original. It’s the kind of place you can go on a Friday night when you and your friends can’t agree on a club, bar, or something more lowkey.

Smack dab in the middle of Uptown and University City

Northwest NoDa is about a 14 minute drive from both University City and Uptown, making it an easy destination for both college students and working 20- and 30-somethings. And with the new Sugar Creek Station light rail stop, I can easily see both Uptown and UC residents passing up more crowded neighborhoods and instead enjoying their weekends in a hood where they don’t have to wait ten minutes to get a beer.

Now for three reasons northwest Noda might flop.

There’s, like, no housing… yet.

It’s almost eerie how rentals and for sale properties seem to dry up the moment you go north of the railroad track hugging NoDa. You could blame it on the rail, but properties sell and rent just south of it. It could just be that development is still on the horizon, but until there are significant housing options outside of the few townhomes there now, Northwest NoDa won’t be able to take on any real identity of its own.

Seemingly endless construction projects

Craighead and Sugar Creek have been plagued with construction projects that have gone unfinished for years. All that adds up to an extremely forgettable chunk of town. There are ROADS CLOSED signs that have been in NoDa longer than most of its residents at this point.

Who really wants to dodge traffic cones to go have a beer when more scenic options exist just down the road? You could argue that all construction takes time and the block will be better once it’s finished, but that’s what we’ve been told about Independence, and we all know how that’s going.

At the end of the day, isn’t it just NoDa?

Here’s something I keep coming back to. As cool and as unique as Divine Barrel, Bold Missy, and Crown Street Station make it seem, isn’t it really just another part of NoDa? The problem is that Noda itself has come to mean one specific strip of businesses along North Davidson, so when you see another strip of businesses past that, it could easily feel like a separate thing, but does every tiny subset of this city need its own unique branding?

That’s a bigger question that’s hard to answer. All I know is that there’s a whole bunch of great craft beer and good times to be had out there that not enough people know about. Swing by yourself sometime and see how you feel about it.