Graham’s city council agreed this week to annex and rezone for light industrial use a 68.791-acre tract of land between Kimrey Road and NC 119 in the Hawfields community just outside Graham’s city limits.
Greensboro-based Windsor Commercial has completed a nearby industrial building which was subsequently occupied by an Amazon distribution center; the company has also finished a second spec building of the same size (296,940-square-feet).
But the company’s president, Buddy Seymour, was before Graham’s city council seeking rezoning and annexation for a parcel across Kimrey Road from its latest, completed spec building.
Preliminary plans submitted to Graham, and being marketed by the state’s department of commerce, show a 788,550-square-foot building on the 68.791-acre lot.
The requests were postponed from the council’s June meeting, at the request of the company in hopes of alleviating objections from neighbors.
Greg Massey, one of the adjacent property owners, assured the council that the company had, indeed, made certain concessions that had eased their concerns.
According to Massey, and confirmed by Seymour, the company has agreed to an eight-foot-high wooden privacy fence to run along the property line beside the residences near the industrial site; agreed not to have trailer storage along the property line next to the residential areas; promised that lighting will be directed back toward the industrial property, minimizing any impact on residents; and provide and maintain a buffer beside the houses.
Graham mayor Jennifer Talley elicited from Massey that he had those assurances in writing from the company.
With the neighbors’ objections eliminated, the council unanimously adopted both the rezoning and the annexation of the property on votes of 5-0.
Because the industrial project is outside the boundaries of the North Carolina Commerce Park – the 1,100-acre area mutually agreed upon by Graham, Mebane, and Alamance County – in 2013, the next future project will be entirely within Graham’s jurisdiction. Therefore, all property tax revenues, as well as water and sewer rates, will be exclusively Graham’s, rather than being shared equally among the three entities as other aspects for the industrial park projects are divided.
[See outlines of the potential 788,550-square-foot warehouse building, as well as the outline of the existing industrial park.]
