Space Craft will build Mira, 371 apartments and seven storefronts, on an old chemical plant site in Optimist Park

Charlotte developer Space Craft is starting construction this fall on Mira, an eight-story building with 371 apartments at 2323 N. Davidson St. in Optimist Park, Axios reported on September 30. The site was home to Textile Rubber & Chemical Co., which operated there from the 1950s through 2023.

Construction is expected to take about two years, with the building opening in 2028, according to Axios. Mira will be the fourth Space Craft apartment project in the neighborhood.

Mira at a glance

Axios laid out the basics of the project:

• The address is 2323 N. Davidson St., on the Cross Charlotte Trail.
• The building will have eight stories and 371 apartments.
• Seven ground-floor storefronts will total 9,765 square feet.
• The plans include 146 parking spaces, or about 0.39 spaces per apartment.
• Construction starts this fall, and the building is expected to open in 2028.

Axios did not report rents, the unit mix or a general contractor. A rendering of the building is credited to the design firm NiceDay.

What was on the site

The property was an industrial site for about seven decades. Textile Rubber & Chemical Co. ran the North Davidson plant from the 1950s until 2023, according to Axios. The company is based in Dalton, Georgia, according to a Better Business Bureau profile.

The area now known as the Mill District was dominated by single-family homes, including Habitat for Humanity houses, before the Blue Line light rail extension drew apartment builders to the neighborhood, Axios reported in April.

The neighbors

Mira will sit next door to Urban District Market, the 20,000-square-foot international food hall at 2315 N. Davidson St. The hall opened in April 2023 and has about a dozen food stalls, an in-house brewery and soju distillery, and a calendar that includes a monthly Asian Night Market and weekly game nights, Axios reported last year. Food hall visitors park across the street, according to Axios.

Farther south on North Brevard Street, Optimist Hall fills a converted textile mill with restaurants and shops.

Space Craft’s other buildings

Mira is the latest in a string of projects from the same developer in the neighborhood. The portfolio, as Axios and trade outlets have described it:

• The Joinery, at Brevard and 22nd streets, opened its first 83 apartments in 2021 and added 360 more in a second phase, Axios reported.
• Oxbow, at 2125 N. Davidson St., has 389 units and began leasing in September, with rents from $1,320 to $3,325 a month, according to REBusinessOnline.
• Cordo, at 515 Parkwood Ave., will have 287 apartments and is set to open in 2027, according to Axios.
• Mira, at 2323 N. Davidson St., will add 371 apartments in 2028.

Oxbow is a six-story building framed partly in cross-laminated timber, about 250,000 square feet of it, with Timberlab supplying the wood and Swinerton as the general contractor, according to Axios and Swinerton. The building targets Silver certification under the National Green Building Standard and has rooftop solar panels, Swinerton said. The building has 11,314 square feet of retail and direct access to the Cross Charlotte Trail, and units range from 410-square-foot studios to 1,501-square-foot four-bedrooms, Axios reported. Space Craft set aside 15 to 20 units as short-term rentals and expects about 600 residents, according to Axios. Amenities include a spa with a sauna, coworking space, a makers space, guest suites, a self-serve market and two rooftop areas, with Shook Kelley as the architect, REBusinessOnline reported.

Cordo, the next to open, sits on a 1.6-acre site at 515 Parkwood Ave. that the developers bought in April 2022 for $6 million, according to Yield PRO. The eight-story building is a joint project with Lindgren Development, a Swinerton subsidiary, financed with a $69 million construction loan and $25 million in equity, and is within walking distance of the Parkwood light rail station.

Fewer parking spaces by design

Space Craft builds car-optional housing, as Axios has described the approach, with less parking than a typical apartment complex and shared transportation in its place. Oxbow has 136 parking spaces for 389 units, which Axios calculated at 22.8% of typical capacity. Mira’s 146 spaces for 371 apartments is a similar ratio.

The approach has been tested at The Joinery, where a third building is planned with some parking, Axios reported in 2025. The 443-unit development does not have dedicated structured parking for tenants, the Charlotte Ledger reported, and Axios reported this year that residents and park-and-ride users have spilled onto surrounding streets.

To make up for the missing spaces, Space Craft gives residents other ways to get around. The perks at The Joinery, as Axios reported in 2025, include:

• Up to 40 free hours a month of Tesla rentals through a car-share service, then $5 an hour.
• Access to a Chevrolet Bolt as a second car-share option.
• Unlimited e-bike and e-scooter use.
• Eight free shuttle rides a month within nearby neighborhoods.

Mohit Shewaramani, Space Craft’s chief operating officer, told Axios in April that the company wants residents to have a lot of transportation options instead of just a parking spot. Sarah Baxendale is the company’s development director.

What comes next

Axios did not report tenants for Mira’s seven storefronts. With Oxbow leasing now, Cordo opening in 2027 and Mira in 2028, the developer will have nearly 1,500 apartments across four projects in the Mill District, based on the unit counts above.

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