As the summertime temperatures have shot through the stratosphere, a number of locations in Burlington have started to crackle with the unmistakable signs of brand new construction.
One of the larger projects to burst into being while the city has boiled is a long dormant multi-family development that has been in the works off of Huffman Mill Road for over four years.
Dubbed the “Encore Apartments at Alamance,” this 432-unit venture is the brain child of Darren Lucas of Asheboro, who began to piece together the project’s proposed site in the spring of 2022.
In April of that year, Lucas submitted the first of three rezoning requests for a site that would ultimately comprise 22 acres of undeveloped land off of Whitesell Drive – a small rustic byway near the interstate interchange for Huffman Mill Road.
It wasn’t until this year, however, that Lucas added the crowning touch to the site’s creation with a request for the city to annex the entire 22-acre expanse. Site preparations, which are visible from I-85/40, began in earnest after Burlington’s city council approved the annexation in April.
Also near the Huffman Mill Road interchange, the figurative pump has been activated on a plan that promises to bring a Walmart-affiliated gas station chain to one of the busiest commercial districts in Burlington.
Three weeks ago, Burlington’s inspections department signed off on a building permit that will allow Murphy Oil USA to set up this fueling station at 866 Huffman Mill Road.
Formerly home to Joe’s 66, this acre-size parcel is within easy striking distance of I-85/40. Perhaps even more to the point, the property is conveniently close to Walmart supercenter along Garden Road – which is currently the only one of Walmart’s three Alamance County’s location that isn’t coupled with a Murphy gas station.
The preparations for this project apparently began two years ago, when members of Burlington’s planning staff held the first of two “pre-application” conferences with the project’s would-be developer. A second conference in December of 2024 was followed, in relatively short order, by the submission of a site plan for a 2,800 square-foot convenience store with six pairs of gas pumps that, in combination, would serve up to 12 vehicles at once. It wasn’t until November 20, 2025 that a staff-level technical review committee gave its imprimatur to the developer’s site plan. Much of the documentation connected to the site plan concerns the developer’s acquisition of a driveway permit from the NCDOT. The state agency subsequently issued an amended version of this permit in May of this year after the developer brokered a “cross-access connection” to a neighboring parcel along Huffman Mill Road.
About two weeks before the site plan’s approval, a South Carolina-based limited liability corporation formally closed on the sale of the property, which had belonged to the Payne Oil Company since time immemorial. County property records indicate that the LLC paid Payne $1.1 million for the property at 866 Huffman Mill Road.
As a prelude to the approval of a building permit on June 9, Burlington’s inspections department gave the go-ahead to the demolition of the previous gas station on April 2. Once the new gas station is finished and ready for business, it will become Murphy Oil’s third retail location within Alamance County. The Houston-based company presently has gas stations along Graham-Hopedale Road in Burlington and in Mebane off of Mebane-Oaks Road. Both of these sites sit cheek and jowl with a pair of Walmart department stores.
