Ballantyne

A planned community of office parks, golf, shopping and subdivisions at the South Carolina line. Newer than almost anywhere else in the city and built to be driven.

Ballantyne is the master-planned district at the southern tip of Charlotte, near the South Carolina line, built from the 1990s on the Harris family’s 2,000 acres around Ballantyne Corporate Park. It’s a town inside the city, with its own office jobs, restaurants, hospital and YMCA.

Where it is

• Ballantyne Corporate Park, the center
• Johnston Road and Ballantyne Commons Parkway, the shopping
• The Bowl at Ballantyne, the walkable restaurant district and amphitheater on the old golf course
• Interstate 485 on the north edge
• Pineville and Fort Mill next door

If you’re moving here

Houses range from townhomes to estates; the apartments along Johnston Road are the way in. A lot of residents commute without ever touching I-77. It’s car-based, well-kept and new, and it suits a family or a professional who works in the corporate park and wants suburban space with a city address. The Blue Line doesn’t reach it and the planned Silver Line is years off, so plan on driving. The schools guide covers the schools, which are a big part of why people move here.

If you’re visiting

• Stay near the corporate park for a business trip; the business traveler guide has the pattern
• Spend an evening at the Bowl, the first place in Ballantyne where you park once and walk to dinner, a show and a drink
• Cross into Fort Mill or Pineville for the ring-town restaurants