Burlington’s planning board was in a receptive frame of mind Monday night, as its members unanimously recommended, 6-0, three separate rezoning proposals to the city council for its subsequent consideration and a final decision in each case.
Two were residential projects (see separate story this edition), while the largest, by acreage, was for a potential future industrial site on the western side of the city in eastern Guilford County.
Cameron Grogan, a developer from Georgia, made the presentation to Burlington’s planning board on behalf of the industrial zoning.
The 40-acre site, for which medium industrial rezoning is being sought, is located off NC 61 South, to the west of Lake Mackintosh in eastern Guilford County. It is now partially zoned for agricultural use and also public and institutional use.
It is just north of another recently-rezoned parcel, which is also now designated for industrial use. Both are near the Rock Creek Center and other industrial sites along I-85/40.
Grogan told the planning board that he does not yet have an “end user,” but he added that he hopes to attract a data center. American Express has a large data center nearby in the Rock Creek Center.
The land is currently owned by the Burlington Shrine Club, but Grogan anticipates a purchase, contingent on the rezoning approval, he told the newspaper in a phone interview Wednesday.
Grogan also elaborated in the interview that he is “just starting” to recruit a potential data center tenant for the property.
As to whether he might join forces with the other property owner who has already obtained industrial rezoning, Grogan said that this was a possibility, although the landscape with inlets from the lake makes it unlikely, or at least difficult, to merge the parcels into one consolidated tract of land.
