NEWTON — Downtown Newton’s long-planned mixed-use project on the old Corriher Implement Co. block is moving into construction, bringing roughly 100 apartments and a restaurant anchor one block west of Courthouse Square.
The project is called The Corriher, named for the farm-equipment supplier that once occupied the site at Ashe Avenue and A Street. Development partners are Delco Partners, LLC and Hickory design-build firm David E. Looper & Company. The city’s April 2025 economic development agreement names Delco IV, LLC as the counterparty.
What the city announced in 2023
On Nov. 3, 2023, Newton joined Delco Partners and Looper to announce more than 100 residences — one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments — plus amenities including a fitness center, leasing office, rentable storage, dog wash, bike storage, co-working space, and an open-air courtyard. The commercial piece was a second Backstreets Grill, the Hickory original from 1996, in the renovated Corriher Implement building.
Then-Mayor Eddie Haupt framed the deal as downtown population and night life in one package.
“By adding more than 100 beautiful apartments and a new restaurant to Downtown Newton, The Corriher will soon become part of the bright future that Newton City Council and I are working to create,” Haupt said in the city’s announcement. “We are thankful to the professionals at Delco Partners and David E. Looper & Company for bringing this vision to life, and we are grateful to Bryan Norris and the Backstreets team for opening a new location of one of the region’s favorite restaurants in Newton.”
Roger Young, president of David E. Looper & Company, said the partners were betting on Newton’s downtown synergy and its place in a strong industrial corridor with access toward Charlotte.
The 2023 timeline put Backstreets in early 2024 and apartments in early 2026. The restaurant piece has since soft-opened; the multifamily schedule clearly slipped past that early-2026 target as the parking and lease package worked through council.
The April 2025 parking deal that locked the EDA
On April 1, 2025, Newton City Council unanimously approved an Economic Development Agreement and a long-term Real Estate Lease Agreement with Delco IV, LLC. Council Member Jody Dixon made the motion; Council Member Ed Sain seconded.
Staff described a private capital investment of at least $24 million for about 102 residential apartments, and an estimated $1.5 million city investment to turn city-owned parcels and adjacent street parking into surface parking for the project. The city leases the identified parking parcels to Delco IV for $12 a year for an initial 50 years, with an option to renew for 49 more. The EDA was conditioned on Newton successfully acquiring a neighboring U.S. Postal Service parcel.
Young appeared for the developer at that hearing and told council the team saw vibrancy downtown and hoped the project would be a catalyst for growth while remaining a good neighbor.
In July 2025, when Council Member Jon McClure asked for an update, City Manager Sean Hovis told the board the project “continues to move forward.”
Why it matters for Newton
Downtown Newton has been stacking small wins — new restaurant ribbon cuttings, the New State Cinema’s local ownership story, appearance awards — while the county’s incentive book elsewhere has closed non-performing deals such as the Wanzl Technibilt Drive package. The Corriher is the opposite kind of file: a performance-shaped downtown housing bet with a restaurant already on the ground and apartments now in the construction phase.
Unit counts have drifted slightly across official documents — 107 in the 2023 city announcement, about 102 in the April 2025 EDA presentation — but the shape of the project has not: multifamily over a reused implement-company block, city parking partnership, private capital north of $24 million.
Catawba First News will update this story when the city or developer posts a confirmed ceremony date, final unit count, or delivery schedule.
Sources: City of Newton, “The Corriher” announcement, Nov. 3, 2023 (newtonnc.gov); Newton City Council minutes for April 1, 2025, and July 15, 2025, as included in the Aug. 5, 2025, council agenda packet; David E. Looper & Company news post, Nov. 15, 2023. Architectural rendering courtesy City of Newton.
Earlier coverage: Newton celebrates 90 years of the New State Cinema · Chilangos ribbon cutting · Commissioners terminate Wanzl incentives
