295 apartments, S. Main Wendy’s on agenda

By gosh, we have almost all the fast food franchises but Wake Forest lacks a Wendy’s. That will change if Highcroft Commons of Cary, the landowner, and Lat Purser and Associates of Raleigh, the developer, can successfully persuade the planning and town boards to rezone five lots along South Main and Mangum streets for conditional use highway business.

Since the 2.95 acres on the east side of South Main are surrounded by conditional use highway business zoning and the Valvoline building is going up on a neighboring lot, replacing a nice brick home, the odds are the two boards will agree. But it will complete the change from a once-quiet modest residential neighborhood to commercial. Another indication of Wake Forest’s fast growth and its price. Highcroft Commons has owned four of the properties since 2011 and the owner of the fifth property has agreed to sell.

Along with the Wendy’s, Engineer Chris Bostic with Kimley-Horn and Associates has drawn a plan that will provide 10,100 square feet of retail and commercial space with none identified except the fast-food restaurant. It will be next door to the strip mall housing at least three restaurants with other activities.

There will be a right-in, right-out driveway on South Main Street and full access driveways on Carter Street and Mangum Street.

The public hearing before the Wake Forest Planning and Town boards on Tuesday, Sept. 1, will be a legislative hearing, meaning that any interested person may speak without being sworn. There is also no requirement to sign up to speak in advance of the meeting which will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the second-floor chamber meeting room in Wake Forest Town Hall.

You will have to be an expert for the first hearing of the evening, a quasi-judicial one requested by GCI Residential LLC for the master plan for 295 apartments on 26.68 acres, a triangle bounded by the N.C. 98 Bypass, N.C. 98 business and Debarmore Street. The project’s name is currently Legacy Wake Forest Apartments, and the zoning is residential mixed-use, which is appropriate for apartments. The land is in the Falls Lake watershed.

There will be three full-movement driveways, two on Debarmore Street and one on Durham Road (N.C. 98 business). The center of the development will be buffers along streams with another small stream buffer area on the south side. The buffers are all 100 feet wide because the developer is choosing the high density option, which provides 70 percent impervious area. There will be 21 multi-family buildings along with a clubhouse and pool. Ten of the units will be carriage-style with garage parking.

The agenda for Sept. 1 also notes that there will be quasi-judicial hearing at a future date for a single-family home subdivision at the end of Ledgerock Road apparently planned by the Dameron family. Ledgerock Road is in the Deacon Ridge subdivision just north of the N.C. 98 Bypass (the Dr. Calvin Jones Highway), and this parcel is listed as being owned by Nancy Dameron, 12.8 acres worth $1,482,875 according to the Wake County Revenue Department’s website. She is listed as the owner of two other small parcels nearby, 1.8 and 9.95 acres, with a total value of $543,014.

On the south side of the bypass, Dameron corporations – Huggy Bear and High Bar Creek – and Nancy Dameron own 92.56 acres stretching from the former Holding dairy farm lands now being developed as Holding Village to Heritage Lake Road. Those separate parcels are worth $9,928,976 according to the Wake County Revenue Department’s website, bringing the Damerons land in Wake Forest to a total of 117.11 acres worth $11,954,865.

The land to the south of the bypass is cut by several streams with deep gullies, which accounts for it not being developed along with Heritage and Holding Village. You can see one deep gully at the dead end of Friendship Chapel Road off Heritage Lake Road in the Heritage subdivision.