Taylor Morrison Acquires, Breaks Ground in Charlotte
The developer is planning nearly 500 detached homes and townhomes within a larger master-planned community.
Taylor Morrison has broken ground on The Coves at Lake Wylie, a 162-acre development site with nearly 500 fully permitted residential lots in southwest Charlotte, N.C. The company acquired the property, situated in The Palisades master-planned community, for $58 million from Drapac Capital Partners.
The site is the last undeveloped community of its scale within the master-planned development, located about 30 minutes from Charlottes’ city center. The Coves at Lake Wylie is expected to be completed by summer 2026.
The transaction, arranged by Cushman & Wakefield, marks the largest residential land sale in North Carolina over the trailing 24 months. It is also one of the highest land sales to a single homebuilder across the Southeast over the same time frame, according to Andy Slowik, managing director and lead of Cushman & Wakefield’s National Land Advisory Group.
The project will feature 365 detached homes and 134 townhomes. The homes are anticipated to be priced in the $400,000 to $700,000 range, according to the Cushman & Wakefield team.
In addition to Slowik, the team included Alex Phillips, a director in Cushman & Wakefield’s Sunbelt Multifamily Advisory Group, along with Battle Smith and Sparling Davis.
A ready-to-build site
Drapac, an Atlanta-based investment firm, sold the site with an approved Land Disturbance Permit, providing an opportunity for development to begin immediately, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
“The physical characteristics of the site ‘checked all of the boxes’ for the homebuilders,” Phillips said, citing the infill waterfront location on Lake Wylie in a high-barrier-to-entry submarket.
The Charlotte submarket features proximity to national retailers, grocers and restaurants. The Palisades master-planned development has more than 12,000 homes across 1,600 acres, a country club, golf courses and sports complex.
“Demand for infill residential land in the Charlotte market remains exceptionally strong,” Phillips said. “The site received attention from a regional and national audience. What really set The Coves at Lake Wylie apart is the years of effort put in by Drapac Capital Partners to mitigate all controllable risk and deliver a fully approved site.”
Phillips said that allows Taylor Morrison to focus on its vision for the site and to deliver on that vision in short order.
Growing BTR presence
Taylor Morrison serves homebuyers and renters across the country through several brands including Taylor Morrison, Esplanade and Yardly, its build-to-rent brand. The company became one of the first national homebuilders to enter the BTR space in November 2022 when it introduced Yardly. The brand specializes in building cottage-style, for-rent homes with private backyards.
Late last year, Taylor Morrison sold Yardly Dechman, a 142-unit luxury BTR community in Grand Prairie, Texas, in a deal arranged by Northmarq. The 16-acre community was completed in 2023 and featured one-story townhouses with one- and two-bedroom floorplans ranging from 717 to 1,054 square feet. The development includes a community swimming pool and pickleball court.
