Charlotte Residents March in Protest Against New Topgolf Facility

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The streets of University City were lined this past weekend with protesters holding picket signs and chanting “No Topgolf”.

Saturday’s protest was in response to a new rezoning petition that has been submitted by Topgolf to build a new facility near the intersection of West Mallard Creek Church Road and Interstate 85.

Dozens of residents from several surrounding neighborhoods walked up and down their streets to publicly demonstrate how much they are against rezoning petition 2016-139.

The protesters have even created a Change.org petition against the request, citing an increase in traffic as their primary concern.

The petition reads, “We, the undersigned, are concerned citizens who urge our leaders to act now to firmly reject the aforementioned rezoning petition. Planned development of this area as presented by Charter Properties would not at all benefit local residents in the immediate area but would certainly be a detriment to all area communities by adding more strain to the local infrastructure (police, fire department and other first responders). It would worsen an already terrible “E” rated traffic pattern and increase accidents at one of the most dangerous intersection in Charlotte less than ¼ from the proposed site etc.”

Topgolf’s request would rezone the 65.7 acres of land off West Mallard Creek Church Rd., which is currently zoned ‘research, conditional,’ and ‘single family residential’ – rezoning it to ‘mixed used development, optional’ and ‘multi-family residential, conditional.’

The proposed development would be the second Topgolf facility in the Charlotte area.

Their first SouthWest Charlotte facility has already generated a tremendous amount of excitement, especially over the past couple months in anticipation of this week’s grand opening.

Topgolf is a “golf entertainment complex” offering targeted games where players hit ‘microchipped’ balls as close to various targets and special zones as possible. The balls individually record their location before and after they are hit, and give individual scores for each player.

They will also feature a full food and drink menu – catering to golfers and non-golfers of all skill levels.

The high-tech golf company now has 30 facilities around the U.S. and 3 in the U.K., and their currently expanding to 14 new facilities in the US, Mexico, and Australia.

Would you like to see Topgolf build a new facility in University City?

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