With a unanimous vote Tuesday night the Wake Forest Planning Board agreed to recommend approval of a master plan for a Wegmans grocery store in the southwest quadrant of the future Forbes family planned unit development.
With the same motion, they approved the rezoning of 77 acres on both sides of the N.C. 98 Bypass (Dr. Calvin Jones Highway) to the new designation as a PUD. Master plans for the other four segments will have to be approved by the planning and town boards.
Although the Wegmans representative, Art Pires, spoke at length about the company which has been 22 years on the Fortune 500 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For, the discussion Tuesday evening was mostly about roads.
Because of the PUD, there will be three new traffic signals along the bypass between South Main Street and Capital Boulevard. The trade-off, one of the reasons it has taken three years to propose and then refine the plan, will be the extension of a four-lane with median section of Ligon Mill Road from its current end in the Reynolds Mill subdivision to the bypass.
Rynal Stephenson with Ramey Kemp, the traffic engineer hired by the town and paid by the developer, Stiles Corporation from Charlotte, told the planning board and the audience that Ligon Mill Road is so important because it will provide another north-south route for traffic, reducing traffic on South Main Street. The PUD will assure Ligon Mill Road meets and crosses the bypass; it will take future developments to build the sections which will extend the road to Durham Road (Business 98) and eventually to Stadium Drive.
Another trade-off is that traffic going north on Ligon Mill will not be able to make a left turn onto the bypass. Traffic can make a right turn. To make a left turn, drivers will have to turn right and go to a protected U-turn to go left or cross the bypass on the extension of Ligon Mill, make a right to reach a new street, turn right on that street and right on the bypass.
Also, there will be a connection to the Villas of Wake Forest on Blue Bird Lane, but it will be right in, right out only.
Two men who live in Reynolds Mill said there are several children below the age of 12 on their street. Their concern was a road or a track along the proposed greenway between the PUD and Reynolds Mill that could be used as a cut-through in the future. Jonathan Jacobs, the town’s transportation engineer, said in an email that future road would have 6-foot sidewalks. Jacob Anderson with the Alliance Group which has been planning the PUD for three years, said at the meeting his group will work out the problem about that street or possible street as they plan the southeast quadrant directly to the north.
Ligon Mill Road inside the PUD will be built to the full four-lane, 11-foot median width with 5-foot bike lanes in both directions, a 10-foot multi-use path on one side and a 6-foot sidewalk on the other. It will tie into the two-lane section recently completed on the west side of the Reynolds Mill subdivision, leaving the other half of the road to the developer of the adjoining parcel.
There was no discussion about a new town road, a three-lane road which will leave Ligon Mill south of the grocery store and go west and north to meet the bypass. It will have a center turn lane and 6-foot sidewalks on both sides.
Four residents of the Villas of Wake Forest spoke to the planning board and agreed they want to see Wegmans and the improvements although they wanted full access through Blue Bird Lane. They were Tom Taylor, Tim Gill, Carolyn Coordes and Brian, who did not give his last name. An adjacent property owner, Jim Duncan, also spoke in favor of the plan.
The Wake Forest Town Board will take up the question of Wegmans and the PUD at its March 19 meeting.
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There was a problem with Spectrum equipment late Tuesday afternoon that shut down Channel 10 for what may be several days.
The town board discussed the Capital Improvements Plan for the next five years at their work session. They agreed to include a corridor study of South Main Street be included in net year’s plan. The request for proposals will include recommendations for land use, a possible overlay district and access management.
4 Responses
At what point does the NC HWY 98 get the “Bypass” designation removed? It will be misleading with so many traffic lights that more than likely won’t be coordinated with traffic flows. Does the Town of WF planning board have a forward thinking plan for coordinating so many traffic signals on the “BYPASS”?
The bypass needs a new name. It is no longer a by pass.
Anyone else remember about four years ago that the town allowed the developer to not connect Ligon Mill to the ByPass? The residential developer agreed to extend the road in 2005. Then in 15 decided that they did not want to do it and the town agreed. I certainly hope that Wegmans is not paying for the whole thing. No one knew what a Wegmans was back in 2005 around here.
“three new traffic signals along the bypass” is oxymoronic.