March 15, 2006

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            There is now a connection between N.C. 98 (Durham Road) and Wake Union Church Road that does not go through the parking lot at the Hampton Inn.

            The new section of Hampton Way Drive, across Durham Road from Retail Drive at the traffic signal, has been completed through Hampton Commons, a new five-lot commercial subdivision built by Kathryn Drake, Susan Blevins and Howard Mitchell. They have just broken ground for the first building, where Drake, an attorney, and Mitchell, a CPA, will have offices.

            The historic but decrepit Mangum house stood on the property. Blevins said, “We spent several months trying to ascertain how we could save and renovate the Turner Ray house [he was a Mangum descendant] but it was beyond repair, even for our team of diligent folks.  We even looked at the possibility of moving the house elsewhere but when Henry Bunn [of K.B. Bunn, the house-moving firm in Zebulon] came and looked at the situation we were faced with power lines and other obstacles that we couldn't overcome including what we had determined with repair issues.  But we did have everything salvaged and recycled that we could before we sadly demolished the house.”

             Blevins added that the first building in Hampton Commons took into consideration “preservation of every distinguished old tree that we could, including a few that we surprised ourselves to keep!”

            Spring is coming – and so is street and road construction. Time for an update with information provided by Roe O’Donnell, Wake Forest’s Deputy Town Manager.

            South Main Street is now a state Department of Transportation project alone, the town having done all it was supposed to. Sometime this spring, depending on DOT’s schedule and when it lets the contract, the rather distinctive bumps will be removed and the last layer of asphalt will be added.

            After that DOT’s contractor will add thermoplastic pavement markings – the yellow and white solid lines and dashes. The material, not paint, includes reflective beads to help motorists see on dark, rainy nights. They will also add the cats’ eyes, the little reflective markers on the lines. O’Donnell, a native of Ireland, said he was very surprised when he first came to America that the cats’ eyes were not used. “They have been used in England since the 1930s but here they have only been used since the 1980s.”

            This week the town staff has reviewed what O’Donnell calls the 40 percent design plans for the section of South Main Street from Rogers Road to Forbes Road. The engineer is preparing plans needed for the town to acquire the needed right-of-way and slope, drainage and construction easements.

            This section will also be five lanes wide with sidewalks on both sides. O’Donnell said the plan does not affect any buildings.

            There will be a median to help channel traffic between Rogers Road and Selsey Drive and separate vehicles turning left into those streets.

            As for the rest of South Main, that between Forbes Road and the N.C. 98 bypass, O’Donnell said, “We’re still debating that that section needs to be.” The town has done a preliminary traffic study, but the opening of the second section of the bypass to Capital Boulevard will change traffic patterns in that part of town.

            Last spring’s bond issues included $9.5 million for streets, of which $1 million was earmarked to widen South Main from Rogers Road to Forbes Road.

            The stretch from Forbes to the bypass includes the Forestville area with a number of homes, businesses and the Forestville Baptist Church, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Also spared will be the two-story grey building on the west side of the street just south of Forbes Road. It was once Forestville Heights, a gas station and a place where college students could buy beer. Until the 1970s, when the town charter was rewritten, sales of beer and liquor were forbidden within town and within a mile of the town limits.

            (The editor admits to a personal interest in this since she and her husband live on South Main Street in the Forestville area. Unofficial, unscientific traffic studies gleaned by watching morning traffic on the bypass – it is visible from a kitchen window – show the majority of vehicles turning south toward Capital Boulevard.)

            And what about that second section of the N.C. 98 bypass? O’Donnell said they had been told it would open to traffic in May but whether than means early May or late May remains to be seen.

            The weather will also dictate when the roundabout at the intersection of South Main and South Avenue at the seminary campus can be completed because the concrete work necessary requires warm temperatures.

            As for the two roundabouts on South Franklin Street at Holding Avenue and Elm Avenue, O’Donnell said the 40 percent plan was reviewed on Monday. He plans to have a drop-in information session about the plans when they are 70 percent complete. The basic design has not changed.

            When the N.C. 98 bypass is complete from Jones Dairy Road to Thompson Mill Road, there will be nine traffic signals on the 4.8-mile limited-access road.

            There will be the set at Jones Dairy Road and business N.C. 98 (Wait Avenue; a set where Heritage Lake Road intersects but does not cross the bypass (and you can already see the clearing for the road); a set at Franklin Street but not, perhaps, until that street is extended into Heritage; the current signals at South Main Street; a set at Ligon Mill Road; a set at Capital Boulevard; and signals in Wakefield, at the realigned Falls of the Neuse Road, and at Thompson Mill.

            Planning Director Chip Russell said there is still a question whether Siena Drive – which has sections north and south of the bypass already – will be connected. That could be the tenth intersection with traffic signals.

            Also, that traffic signal on Rogers Road at the entrance to Heritage Elementary and Heritage Middle School is still slated to be installed this spring. Mayor Vivian Jones and other town commissioners vigorously lobbied for the signal, and state Sen. Neal Hunt was instrumental in getting it approved by DOT.