One of the four cases reviewed on Jan. 19 by the town’s technical review committee was a site construction plan for a Fairfield Inn on 3.5 acres at 12051 Retail Drive.
Also in January the Wake Forest Planning Board and the town commissioners lifted the height restriction to allow the construction of a four-story Tru Hotel, part of the Hilton chain, on Stadium Drive in the Wake Forest Crossing shopping center.
Are we about to have a rush of hotels after several years of only three hotels – the Sleep Inn and the Hampton Inn, both on Wake Union Church Road, and the newest, Candlewood Suites at 12050 Retail Drive which opened in 2011?
The site for the Fairfield Inn, part of the Marriott chain, is a triangle of land between Durham Road (N.C. 98 Business) and Warmoven Street was the site of a planned barbecue or steak restaurant several years ago that was abandoned after some preliminary site preparation. It remained in the ownership of Wake Forest Granite LLC, the developer of Capital Plaza shopping center, from 2000 until it was purchased in September 2016 by WF Hospitality LLC for $888,600 according to the Wake County website. The land is kitty-corner across Retail Drive from Candlewood Suites at 12050 Retail Drive.
Ujagar Singh, who lives in the Hasentree subdivision on N.C. 98, is the manager of WF Hospitality, formed in 2016. The Gazette was unable to contact Singh to learn about the size or number of rooms he plans. The land is zoned for highway business. There are three Fairfield Inns in Raleigh and one in Cary.
Meeneh Hospitality LLC owns and operates Candlewood Suites, and its owner is Champkalal Patel, who lives in Henderson. His son, Milam Patel, who lives in Wake Forest, manages Candlewood Suites and has a separate company, Milkam Hospitality LLC, which will build the four-story Tru Hotel.
The other three plans reviewed on Jan. 19 were for a new Wake County ABC store, a Bee Safe storage facility at 939 Gateway Commons Circle, and a self-storage, PHD Storage, near the intersection of Wake Union Church Road and Capital Boulevard.
The new ABC store will replace the one on Galaxy Drive. In August 2016 the Gazette published an article about the future store which will be on Royal Cotton Road which parallels Capital Boulevard and provides access to Sam’s Club, Texas Steakhouse, Chili’s and Red Robin.
ABC Board General Manager Joel Keith said then they planned to purchase two lots just south of the restaurants with frontage on but not access from Capital Boulevard for $1,050,000 and sell the existing store. There will be twice the acreage at the new site and the new store will be twice the size of the present one with twice the parking and twice the offerings. At that point, the ABC board was beginning its due diligence before the purchase.
The current store generates between $5 and $6 million in annual sales and Keith anticipates the new store when it is completed in 2017 will double that sale volume.
More business and more revenue would be appreciated by the Town of Wake Forest which, like all other county municipalities, receives some income from the county-wide ABC revenues. The municipalities receive a portion of 27 percent of county-wide revenues based on the proportion of their tax base against the county-wide tax base as well as a proportionate share of the state-wide beer and wine tax. In fiscal year 2015-2016 just ended Wake Forest is projected to receive $148,015 from Wake ABC and has received $146,483 from the state ABC, according to Wake Forest Finance Director Aileen Staples.
After the distribution to the municipalities, the ABC board pays the remainder to the Wake County General Fund. Of that, $100,000 may be spent by the county on water and sewer lines and “manufacturing advantages of the area.”
Keith said earlier that the decision to close the store on Galaxy Drive was because it is tucked away on a dead-end road with no visibility. When the store was planned and built there were plans to extend Galaxy to Durham Road (N.C. 98) but those fell through and the trees along Capital Boulevard paralleling Galaxy grew larger and hid the store. The town’s first ABC store was built between Capital and Wake Union Church Road in 1977 and had access from both – Capital was then known as U.S. 1 and had two lanes. It is now a chiropractor’s office.
A five-person board appointed by the county commissioners oversees Wake ABC’s operations: Chairman Paul White, Ricky Wright of Wake Forest, Betty Whitaker of Rolesville, Ken Kirby and vice chairman John Converse.
