The neighborhood was once a part of a farm owned by former
North Carolina Governor Cameron Morrison. The front entrance to the mall is on Sharon Road, with The Village at SouthPark and Belk Department Store anchoring each side of the front drive. Debuting in 2007 with 150 boutique apartments above boutique retail including North Carolina's first Crate & Barrel, The Village at SouthPark marked one of the first "Live, Work, Play" projects by Simon Property Group In the country. In the early 2000s, the Ivey family sold to Dillards, and the Belk Family sold to Sycamore Group of New York in the 2010s—both families notably conceptualized SouthPark Mall in the 1960s as anchoring the new edge city to be built on the 3,000 acre country farm owned by Governor Morrison. The English Country Manor House still exists today, in its original location in the-now Deering Oaks subdivision. Like Barclay Downs and Foxcroft, there are no markers naming the first subdivisions to be built directly adjacent to his homestead. Coming from the Myers Park school campuses on Colony Road, take a left on Richardson Drive, veering right into the private drive between the masonite fence posts boasting Turkeys on top. These marked the original entrance to Morrocroft before being developed. To the right, is the former horse stables/carriage house—now a single-family home. Straight ahead is the Manor. This upper-section of Deering Oaks, traditionally being the most private in SouthPark, is also a popular stretch for walking/running leisure along the SouthPark Corridor. The neighborhood, Morrocroft, comes from the original name Morrison gave the farm.
2023 Construction Fire At approximately 9:00 AM
EST of May 18, 2023, a
five-alarm fire broke out at a
parking garage under construction on the 7700 block of Liberty Row Drive.
Charlotte Fire Department chief Reginald Johnson would later state the fire was accidental, and began at the ramp between the parking garage and second floor in a
construction trailer containing a
foam insulation spraying equipment; later investigations revealed a small
diesel engine, which was actively running in the trailer at the time, suffered a "catastrophic failure" and burst into flames. The large amount of exposed wood and construction debris caused the fire to quickly spread, requiring the response of more than 90 emergency personnel, and the evacuation of homes and businesses in the area as a thick black plume of smoke obscured a large part of southwestern Charlotte. The fire, which reached a peak temperature of over 2,000 °F (1,093 °C), would later collapse both the parking garage and the under-construction
apartment complex connected to it. Smaller fires spread to other locations in the immediate area, with civilians battling them with
fire extinguishers. Fifteen construction workers were rescued from the blaze, with one
tower crane operator being hospitalized for
smoke inhalation; the operator had attempted to use the crane to rescue two coworkers who were reported trapped, Demonte Sherrill and Reuben Holmes. Sherrill had started a
Facebook Live stream to alert rescuers of his and Holmes' location. While firefighters were able to hear the two men, a rescue attempt was forced to evacuate. Sherrill and Holmes were later confirmed to have died in the fire and collapse. Many news anchors reported the incident to be the largest structural fire in recent Charlottean history.
OSHA investigated the incident, and discovered that there were no proper fire evacuation measures in place on the construction site, and that there was only one method of egress from the part of the building on the sixth floor where Sherrill and Holmes were trapped. Based on this information and other findings, three of the contractor companies involved in the incident were fined by OSHA for violating proper safety procedures. ==Demographics==