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Tuesday night, May 1, the Wake Forest
Planning Board will be asked to make a
recommendation about a major mixed-use
development, Holding Village, and also
consider special use permits for a
288-unit apartment complex on the future
Ligon Mill Road and a 40-acre shopping
center at Jones Dairy and the bypass.
They will also review plans for a
restaurant on South Main Street.
Public hearings on the two
special use permits – the apartments and
shopping center – begin at 7:30 p.m. in
town hall. The plan review for the Mello
Mushroom will be part of the board’s new
business after the hearings.
Holding Village
The public hearing for
Holding Village was held last month, but
the planning board, after lengthy
discussion, delayed making a
recommendation until this month. They
also wanted to have Planning Director
Chip Russell’s recommendations for the
traditional neighborhood development,
the first of its kind in town, which
will have 1,350 dwellings of various
types, a small retail area, and parks on
256 acres.
The land is part of the
former Holding dairy farm which
stretched from the CSX railroad on the
west to Jones Dairy Road on the east.
The old farm land is the site of some of
the most intense and rapid development
in Wake Forest. The Dameron brothers own
the land immediately to the east of the
Holding Village site and have sold some
of the farm land to Andy Ammons for
Heritage North. The shopping center,
Gateway Commons (see below), is in the
northeast corner of the large tract.
Three new streets will cross
the old pastures: Friendship Chapel
Road, a connector street, will run east
and west; Franklin Street is planned to
run north and south from the bypass to
Rogers Road; and Heritage Lake Road will
run north and south between Rogers Road
and the bypass.
The Holding family still
owns the land for Holding Village and is
planning to undertake the development
with Roger Perry and his associates in
East West Partners of Chapel Hill. The
family corporation is Entrust Holdings.
Since Bill Andrews, who is
married to the former Emily Holding,
unveiled the plan last fall, the town
has approved a water allocation for the
village that begins with 100 water taps
this year. The town has also revised the
zoning ordinance to include a floating
traditional neighborhood development
designation.
Russell’s recommended
conditions include building all the
improvements in the traffic study and
those required by the state Department
of Transportation, building sidewalks
and other improvements along the
existing section of South Franklin
Street, paying one-third of the cost to
build Friendship Chapel Road across
Spring Branch, and dedicating a greenway
along that stream. Entrust Holdings will
build greenway trails along Spring
Branch and the bypass.
Along with the access from
the bypass, Friendship Chapel, Franklin
Street and Rogers Road, the development
plans an entrance on Forestville Road
south of the blocked crossing and
directly across from the entrance to the
Air Liquide US gas plant (formerly AGA
Gas). During the public hearing on April
3, Raleigh attorney Clyde Holt raised
two concerns: the noise from the
compressors, which work around the
clock, and the possible traffic problems
with residential traffic mixing with
large trucks on a narrow road.
As with the other items on
Tuesday night’s agenda, the planning
board’s role is only advisory and the
final decisions lie with the town
commissioners, who will consider them on
May 15.
Gateway Commons Shopping Center
In the northeast corner of
the former Holding farm, two of the new
roads and two existing will outline a
40-acre tract where Starmount Company, a
Greensboro-based company, plans Gateway
Commons with a supermarket, a
hardware/paint store, two eat-in
restaurants, two fast-food restaurants,
two drive-in banks, a pharmacy and
retail stores as well as 12 or 14
out-parcels.
The principal building will
face toward both Heritage Lake Road and
the N.C. 98 bypass. The major entrance
will be from Heritage Lake Road, and the
only access from the bypass will be
right-in, right-out. A service road will
circle three sides of the tract and give
access to the stores from Jones Dairy
Road and Friendship Chapel Road.
According to the submitted
plans, Heritage Lake Road will be a
major intersection on the bypass with a
median break and traffic signals.
The traffic study done by
Ramey Kemp Associates recommended a long
list of improvements at all the
intersections and farther south along
Jones Dairy Road. Planner Ann Ayers’
recommended conditions echo the traffic
study.
Alexan at Ligon Mill
The town board has already
approved a water allocation for this
288-unit apartment complex that will be
immediately east of the Shoppes at
Caveness Farm shopping center and north
of Wal-Mart.
It lies in an area everyone
admits is tricky with what the
developers, Trammell Crow Residential,
call “a myriad of streams.” They plan
100-foot buffers on each side of the
streams as well as 3 acres of tree-save
open space, considerations which reduced
the number of required parking spaces.
They will also build an
over-sized sewer line to serve future
development in the area and work with
the town and the City of Raleigh to
remove the sewer pump station that now
lies smack in the middle of the planned
right-of-way for Ligon Mill Road.
The developers will build
two lanes of Ligon Mill Road, including
stream crossings, and will grade for the
future four-lane section from the end of
the pavement behind Wal-Mart to Caveness
Farms Avenue.
The development will be
built in five phases with the first
apartments completed 13 months after
construction begins and the last units
completed six months later.
Mello Mushroom
This restaurant will be
built on a treed lot on South Main
Street and Wake Drive between the
American Pride car wash and Taco Bell.
Its access will be from Wake Drive, and
Ayers’ analysis says four landmark trees
and two other large oaks will be saved.
“In total, eight large trees are
proposed to be preserved.” She
recommends the owner apply to the
county’s Capital Tree Program.
The other recommendation has
to do with stormwater design to ease
drainage problems with an existing
driveway. |
