Burlington’s city council has given a green light to a rezoning request that will allow the owner of New Market Square to relocate this shopping center’s troublesome entrance along Shadowbrook Drive.
This proposed change, which received the council’s unanimous approval on Tuesday, is intended to complement some state-funded roadwork near this retail development, whose tenants include the only Harris Teeter grocery store in Alamance County.
In response to the state’s anticipated improvements, Koury NST, the owner of New Market Square, plans to replace the shopping center’s current outlet onto Shadowbrook Drive with one farther north that discourages left turns out of the development.
In order to accommodate this new driveway, the center’s proprietor has asked the city to expand the shopping center’s grounds to include a residential parcel that it has already acquired at 104 Neese Drive.
Jamie Lawson, the city’s director of planning and development services, informed the council this .33-acre lot will facilitate the new outlet necessitated by the state’s proposed roadwork.
[Story continues below photo.]
“What is being proposed is adding in this triangular piece to create a right-out only access point,” Lawson explained before the council rendered its verdict. “The plan also shows landscaping and other site improvements. But the rest of the conditions of the [development’s existing] zoning are not changing.”
As part of the new outlet’s development, the shopping center’s owner intends to demolish the home it presently owns at 104 Neese Drive. The property owner’s plans propose to replace this dwelling with a landscaped buffer rather than any additional retail. Even so, this theoretical expansion of the shopping center grounds raised the hackles of William Wilder, whose home along Wexford Place backs up to another section of New Market Square.
During a state-mandated public hearing on Tuesday, Wilder objected that this seemingly modest change could be the first domino in relentless chain of commercial development.
“I am 100 percent against it,” the They’re changing it from a residential cul de sac to a cul de sac with a business on it…To me, it’s a slippery slope, and in a couple of years, we’re going to have businesses in our area.”
In order to address Wilder’s concerns, Burlington’s mayor Jim Butler yielded the floor to Mike Fox, an attorney from Greensboro who was on hand as a representative of the shopping center’s owner. Fox, who also serves as the chairman of North Carolina’s state board of transportation, assured the council that the shopping center’s plans effectively rule out any future expansion of retail activity along Neese Drive.
“There will be no vehicular access from the shopping center into the cul de sac,” he added. “The folks there will only see the nice landscaping. They won’t even see the parking lot.” The council went on to vote 5-to-0 in favor of the shopping center’s request.
