Mebane’s city council will conduct a public hearing tonight on the proposal from Greensboro-based Koury Corporation to rezone 82.921 acres along Trollingwood-Hawfields Road, across from the entrance to GKN for a mixed use development that proposes a shopping center with almost 300,000 square feet; 645 apartments (in 12 apartment buildings); and 38 townhouses.
The acreage, now zoned for industrial use, is beside the residential area, and residents at the city’s planning board meeting last month expressed fears about traffic congestion, lighting, noise, property values, and even smells.
The planning board voted unanimously, 8-0, against recommending approval for the rezoning.
Since the planning board’s action, however, the company has filed several modifications in hopes of winning city council approval.
Perhaps the most significant change is to increase the proposed buffer between one of its internal roadways and the adjacent, existing neighborhood from 20 feet (proposed prior to planning board consideration) to the city’s usual standard of 50 feet, which will be considered tonight.
To accommodate some of its changes since planning board consideration, Koury Corporation has also reduced the number of parking spaces by 39, from 1,464 to 1,425.
The cornerstone of the retail portion of the almost 300,000 square feet of retail space would be an anchor with 127,735 square feet. There are 11 other store fronts with a cumulative total of an additional 171,830 square feet beside the largest store, with square footages ranging from 3,500 to 22,250 square feet for each, and another dozen storefronts across the parking lot on the periphery of the retail portion of the project.
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The company is touting to the city council tonight that 1,232 new jobs would be created by the complex, bringing in more than $943,000 in annual property tax revenue, plus $1.2 million in county property tax revenue.
Both Koury’s attorney, Mike Fox, and the company president, Richard Vanore, declined to elaborate at the planning board meeting on exactly which retailers might be considering any of the storefronts in the retail strip or any of the four outparcels.
Much speculation has focused on the possibility of a Target as the primary anchor, although all of the illustrations in Vanore’s presentation about his company’s other developments focused on grocery stores – Publix, Harris Teeter, and the Fresh Market.
Fox said at the planning board meeting that while the company “is not allowed to name names,” the potential tenants “are retailers people would like to have.”
See earlier coverage of the planning board discussion and objections by neighbors and planning board members:
