The Oaks Commerce Center.

Project brief

The Oaks Commerce Center is a 143,020-square-foot industrial warehouse at 2022 The Oaks Parkway, within the Oaks Business Park in Belmont, North Carolina. It sits on a 22.7-acre site in Gaston County, part of the Charlotte metro area, with immediate access to I-85 and about 10 miles from Charlotte Douglas International Airport. It was built on speculation as a cross-dock tilt-up building that can be leased to a single tenant or several. It has a 32-foot clear height, 14 dock doors with 14 knock-out panels, one drive-in door and an ESFR sprinkler system. Merriman Schmitt Architects designed it, and Orsborn Engineering Group handled the landscape architecture.

On the dock sides, the wall panels vary in height so that each facade reads as a front. The potential office areas have double-height glazing that brings daylight deeper inside and can expand onto a mezzanine. Fin panels mark the corner entrances, and continuous cedar wraps the corners. The fire pump room, electrical panels and drive-in ramps were planned to allow for future rail access. The site lies between a residential area and an existing railroad, and overlapping easements left only a narrow corridor for construction. The project was meant to renew an area of older houses and run-down industrial buildings and to bring jobs to the community. It was completed in 2023.

BOGZA produced exterior renderings of the building. An aerial view shows the site with its truck courts, parking and stormwater pond set in woodland. A street view shows the glazed office corner.