QUESTION: The Buck-horn flea market has been closed for a year and a half, but nothing seems to be going on with the project, a trucking terminal, that was to take its place.
ANSWER: The flea market off Buckhorn Road closed permanently during the summer of 2024, after Mebane’s city council voted to approve rezoning and annexation for the property to allow for the construction of a trucking and freight terminal.
Mebane’s technical review committee (TRC) has approved the construction drawings for the first phase of the trucking and freight terminal that R+L Carriers of Wilmington, Ohio plans to build along Buckhorn Road, on the former flea market property off I-85/40, Mebane city officials recently confirmed for The Alamance News.
The first phase of the project that has been reviewed and approved by Mebane’s TRC consists of a 135,950-square foot trucking terminal with 202 doors and a maintenance building.
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The property had been home to the Buckhorn flea market, known informally as “Buckhorn jockey lot,” that operated on weekends for more than four decades.
Flea market vendors had been informed via a message that the property manager posted on Facebook that Sunday, June 30, 2024 would be the last day for sales at the Buckhorn flea market.
The property is located within Mebane’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ), just over the Alamance County line and inside one of three economic development districts that Orange County established in the early 1980s in hopes of attracting non-residential development. Water/sewer infrastructure and gas lines were extended to the property more than a decade ago, according to Orange County officials.
The sudden notice for the vendors to vacate prompted more than 200 people to turn out for a public hearing on the rezoning and annexation petition in July 2024.
Many vendors – including a number who spoke no English and brought their own translators to plead with Mebane’s city council to extend the deadline to vacate – successfully lobbied for an additional month, until mid-August 2024, to clear their booths and merchandise from the property.
Though the council had no purview over the deadline to vacate, the vendors ultimately received an additional month to vacate the premises after Mebane mayor Ed Hooks halted the public hearing, while it was in progress, so the attorneys for the developer and seller could go behind closed doors to negotiate an extension.
Mebane’s city council ultimately voted during the same meeting in July 2024 to approve: a conditional rezoning request for heavy manufacturing for an 84-acre portion of the property; light manufacturing/conditional use rezoning for a second, 49.25-acre portion; and annexation.
Preliminary plans presented to Meb-ane’s city council in 2024 call for the construction of 233,740-square foot warehouse distribution facility and a second 292,640-square foot warehouse directly behind the distribution facility. Plans for those aspects of the project have not yet been reviewed and approved by the city’s TRC.
The site eventually will also have 7,500 square feet of office space, a maintenance building, 296 truck parking spaces, and parking spaces for 320 employees, based on plans presented to Mebane’s city council in 2024.
A future expansion of the trucking terminal could span about 53,000 square feet, with an additional 81 doors, or bays, based on plans the council heard last year.
The sale of the property to Ramar Land Corporation of Wilmington, Ohio closed in late August 2024, based on documents that were filed at the time with Orange County’s Register of Deeds’ office. Ramar Land Corporation is an affiliate of R+L Carriers, according to December 2024 report that ran in a trade publication for the trucking industry.
The next phase of the project requires the developer to hold a preconstruction conference, Mebane city officials recently told the newspaper.
Meanwhile, Orange County officials recently told the newspaper that they’ve heard R+L Carriers is planning to start site work for the trucking and freight terminal in early spring 2026.
THE PUBLIC ASKS: Have a question about a matter of public record? Call The Alamance News at (336) 228-7851; write to the newspaper at P.O. Box 431, Graham, NC 27253; or e-mail alamancenews@mail.com.
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