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THE CHARRETTE
We held a charrette at a local church on the site for
three days in March, 2000 during which neighbors,
property owners, developers, real estate agents, church
groups and town officials expressed their views in a
candid, public environment that aired a long list of
issues and opportunities. The town’s original inten-
tion was to focus on the growing area at freeway Exit
33, and create an attractive southern gateway into the
town, leaving Mount Mourne on the fringe of consid-
eration. While not diminishing the importance of this
objective, we quickly came to understand the impor-
tance of the Mount Mourne community and its his-
tory. Accordingly, our first action was to retitle the
process ‘the Mount Mourne charrette,’ and establish
this identity for the area instead of simply calling it
‘Exit 33.’ This shift of emphasis was enthusiastically
endorsed by all participants, and created a positive
atmosphere where local people felt more ownership of
the project. It helped turn some initial skepticism into
a collaborative attitude.
THE MASTER PLAN 
(See Plate 32)
Our site analysis and understanding of the local
dynamics led us quickly to divide the master plan
into four main geographic areas:
1. The Transit Village
2. The Hospital District
3. The Interstate and ‘Hospital West’
4. The North Neighborhood.
Additionally, we set out policies on three specific topics:
5. Open Space Design and Environmental Protection
6. Housing
7. A new Development code.
The Transit Village 
(see Plate 33)
After a number of discussions with the Charlotte
Area Transit System (CATS), Mooresville town
leaders, and local residents, we determined that the
most logical placement for a train station was near
the existing Mount Mourne community where the
rail line runs north–south and parallel to a local main
road, Highway 115, that connects Mooresville’s
downtown area with the neighboring town of
Davidson in Mecklenburg County to the south. This
location also has a good existing east–west street con-
nection to the hospital area and the interstate, just
over half-a-mile to the west. This location is also
three miles north of the Davidson station and three
miles south of the terminus in the center of
Mooresville. Three miles between stations is an ideal
distance for the DMU technology as it enables the
trains to reach and maintain efficient high speeds for
a reasonable distance between slowing down and
starting up again at the stops.
Charlotte transit officials required this station to
be a park-and-ride facilty to serve a wide cachement
area in southern Iredell County (a 10-minute drive
defines a five-mile radius around the station). While
agreeing with this proposal, we realized that a typical
park-and-ride stop with its large areas of asphalt
parking, would do considerable damage to the envir-
onment and character of the existing Mount Mourne
community. Accordingly, we developed the station
as a hybrid, a park-and-ride facilty combined with
a pedestrian-oriented TOD.
We believed that due to its unique location, this
park-and-ride lot could mature into something
altogether more interesting, and we designed the
required parking area for 1000 cars on a rectangular
block structure with a green square at the center,
preserving an existing grove of mature trees. This
square is the same dimension as a typical square in
Savannah, Georgia (see Figure 6.9). Initially providing
as many as 1000 surface parking spaces, as develop-
ment pressure expands over time, these 400 feet
400 feet (122 meters
122 meters) urban sized
blocks could be redeveloped with two- to three-story
mixed-use buildings served by mid-block parking
decks should the land value grow sufficiently to
support that cost. These parking structures would
be sized to provide enough spaces for continued
park-and-ride service.
Placing the station midway between the parking
areas and land available for higher density develop-
ment enabled us to plan a small mixed-use urban
village on a grid of streets within 1/4-mile of this
proposed transit stop. As the DMU technology for
commuter rail is not as pedestrian-friendly as light
rail (it’s heavier and noisier) the immediate ‘on street’
relationship between the urban village and the light
rail station cannot be replicated. Some extra safety
distances are required, and for the station to be in a
separate block from the core of the urban village is
quite satisfactory in this condition. We recom-
mended in this instance that the village be developed
as an ‘employment-led TOD,’ with a combination of
office and housing rather than retail, which should be
limited to smaller neighborhood service stores and
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restaurants. Large, car-dependent shopping centers
would be counterproductive to the transit efficiencies
gained by walk-up ridership from offices and housing
and we recommended firmly that nothing larger than
a neighborhood grocery store should be permitted in
this location.
Within 1/4-mile radius of the train station, an area
of 125 acres (50 hectares), we planned 635 residential
units, workspace for over 1000 employees and a
park-and-ride lot with 1000 parking spaces. Within
1/2-mile of the train station, an area of 400 acres
(160 hectares) these figures increased to 887 residen-
tial units and workspace for nearly 3000 new
employees, not counting the existing hospital. For
this kind of hybrid development to work, it’s impor-
tant that connections between the uses are conve-
nient and attractive. In this particular example, a
strong pedestrian and bicycle connection needed to
be made between the station, the urban village and
the medical center. To achieve this, we redesigned the
east–west connecting street (Fairview Road) as an
urban boulevard with four travel lanes, two outside
parallel parking lanes, kerb and gutter, street trees
and wide sidewalks. The plan illustrated how other
street connections could be established as a loose grid
as development expands.
Rail crossings are an important issue with the kind
of high-speed commuter rail service envisaged on this
line. In principle, at-grade crossings have to be kept
to a minimum, and we limited them to three within
the plan area plus one grade-separated crossing where
an important east–west street and a creek could pass
underneath the rail tracks and Highway 115. Two of
the three at-grade crossings occur within the 1/2 mile
radius of the transit village, and support easy pedes-
trian and bicycle access between the new village and
the existing nucleus of Mount Mourne.
Focusing the development of the urban village
around one of these at-grade crossings, the intersec-
tion of Fairview Road and Highway 115, the natural
junction of north–south and east–west traffic,
enabled us to build on the rich heritage of the Mount
Mourne historic settlement. The prominence of the
existing churches, school, post office and fire station
served to anchor this village and gave it the civic ele-
ments necessary to produce a viable mixed-use center
for the southern areas of Mooresville. To support this
evolution, we found a suitable site for a local grocery
store on Highway 115, just on the edge of the five-
minute walking radius from the train station.
One of the factors that makes this plan unique is
the presence of a large medical facility in its core, and
we wanted the hospital to integrate itself into the
community and not remain an island unto itself. For
this to happen it was critical that new buildings
engage the streets; not only must they provide conve-
nient services for hospital staff, they must also create
spaces along the streets that are attractive places
to walk in their own right. Our model for this kind
of environment was a street in Charlotte near a major
hospital that featured disciplined street tree plan-
tings, wide sidewalks and a mixture of buildings with
different uses, all facing the street (see Figure 9.2).