Camp North End opened a century of Charlotte history back up to the city.

The 76-acre site has spent most of its life making things.

Ford opened a factory here in 1924, designed by Albert Kahn, where hundreds of thousands of Model T and Model A cars were built. During World War II, the Army expanded the site into a quartermaster depot. In the Cold War, it became the Charlotte Area Missile Plant, or CAMP, producing military equipment and giving the place the name it carries today.

Later came Eckerd and Rite Aid.

For generations, all of that activity happened behind the boundaries of an industrial campus. Then ATCO Properties bought the site in 2016 and opened it to the public as Camp North End the following year.

The redevelopment has worked with much of what was already there. Warehouses became offices, shops, restaurants, galleries, and event spaces. Loading docks became storefronts. Old industrial materials found their way into pedestrian paths and public spaces. New streets and passages began reconnecting a property that had spent decades separated from the neighborhoods around it.

That reuse has created room for a different kind of production. Local businesses, artists, restaurants, entrepreneurs, major employers, events, and public life now share ground once dedicated to manufacturing and military logistics. More than 500,000 square feet has been restored so far, with housing now joining the mix through the 301-unit Kinship development.

Camp is still being built. In 2026, Jamestown joined the ownership group and became lead developer, with ATCO staying involved as a partner. Millions of additional square feet are entitled for future development.

The most interesting part may be what has already happened.

A place Charlotte spent nearly a century building behind fences has become somewhere people come simply to be.