CHARLOTTE — A sinkhole formed in the road right outside Northlake Mall on Wednesday afternoon.
It happened on Northlake Mall Drive outside the entrance to the mall.
Chopper 9 Skyzoom captured a bird’s eye view of the collapsed roadway, where pipes could be seen below the crumbled tar. Cones were set up and police officers directed traffic around it.
There’s no word yet on what caused it to form, but it caused traffic issues around the mall Wednesday.
The City of Charlotte confirmed the road is privately owned, so it’s up to mall management to get the hole fixed.
New Yorker-turned-North Carolinian Jason Grotto is relatively happy with the road conditions in Charlotte, but that changed when he saw the sinkhole.
“That would eat a car,” he said. “You hit that at night, that could most likely be a fatality accident.”
Along with the cones, barricades and yellow caution tape blocked drivers from entering the intersection.
“I’m surprised nobody fell in it with the way that they drive around here,” said north Charlotte resident Nate Ashmore.
Ashmore considers the area to be one of the mall’s busiest intersections. He hopes that motivates a quick fix.
“That’s a heavy traffic area right there, a lot of traffic goes through there. And it’s going to slow up the flow,” he said.
Grotto wants to see extra eyes on the intersection until improvements are finished.
“It is still an open hazard,” he said. “You need a city vehicle or a cop sitting there.”
(WATCH BELOW: ‘You could fit a city bus in there’: People in east Charlotte neighborhood worry about huge sinkhole)
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