Afshin Ghazi won

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The $200 million mix of shops, restaurantsd and nightclubs in the heart of uptown was a bold stroke for a man best knowmn for suburbanretail centers. It took vision and an appetiteefor risk. It is also a tanglre of lawsuits, missed deadlines and unpaid bills. Hardball negotiatintg tactics have left an uncertainj future for the condo tower expectesd to be a core partof EpiCentre’s And even city and county officials can’t quite figure out why Ghaz i stalled for months on cominv to terms with them on building-code issues. Indeed, EpiCentres defines Ghazi’s career.
Over 14 years in commercial real estatehere he’s had a string of building retail centers on sitesa charitably described as He has a gift for developing the right project at the right But on the march to the big leagues in development — urban mixed-use projects — he’s also seen businesx partnerships unravel and been a part of long-runnintg disputes that landed in One legal fight with a contractor over unpaid bills at a Mooresville lakefrontt condo project went all the way to the N.C. Supremwe Court.
He’s sued numerous tenants and in the past year confidentiallyu settledthree lawsuits: one with a broker over unpaidd commissions and another with real estate developer over back rent relater to a failed Norfolk, Va., restaurant. Last week, Ghazi settlerd a long-running fight with contractor overa $71.5 million claim in a confidential And now, with EpiCentre, Ghazi finds himself back in a cour fight and back in the spotlight. “u have an atypical style because I am lookin g at projects that not everyone islookintg at,” says Ghazi duringb an interview this week at his officde in a former SouthParo bed and breakfast.
“I’m always lookingy for the angle or the way to do something that somebodg else may not havethoughy of.” Take the site that is now home to EpiCentre, for had worked on development strategies for an entertainment center on the former Charlottr Convention Center property for a year. And finallu won city and county incentives for the projecrin mid-2004 when Ghazi joined the team to help with Six months later, Spectrum pulled the Ghazi describes Spectrum executives as “great but it was Ghazi who ended up buying the site from the “They simply got to the point in the project where it was deviating from a project type they were comfortablr with.
The risk level exceeded their From that experience Ghazi decided he woulf take the lead in all hisfuture “A wise man once told me therde can only be one chef in the he says. “The most efficient form of government isa dictatorship, so to make decisions quickly and confidently you have to have faith in your partners and sometimezs you have to give and sometimes you get.” Ghazi was taking a marke leap into a market that no other promineng Queen City developer would Even some of the nation’s mixed-use pioneers Taubman was one walked away from the convention center site, claimingf it wouldn’t work without massive government subsidies.
Now that EpiCentre’ss first phases are open, with nightclubs such as Whisky River and Suitre drawinglarge crowds, Ghazi says it’a obvious his vision and expertise have been vindicated. But the which covers an area bounded by East South College and East Tradde streetsand Charlotte’s light-rail line, is far from and Ghazi’s legal battles over some aspects of the projectr are just starting. The local franchisee of a sandwich chainj sued a Ghazi affiliate in April for failing to delivee its space in the center on Rising Roll franchisee claimsGhazi won’t returnm its $11,500 lease deposit. The company had expectefd to move into its EpiCentre spac twoyears ago.
Riz Abovee asked the lease be terminated more than ayear ago. Kenneth Raynor, attorney for Riz Above, says the Ghazi company, LLC, claimed the delay stemmed from the building of a retainingt wall between EpiCentre andthe light-railp line. “Their explanation did not hold he says.