Editor wrong about duplex

“I was wrong. I made a stupid mistake by writing and saying that the permit for a storage shed at Tri-Area Ministries had been used to build a duplex across the street from Tri-Area,” Gazette editor Carol Pelosi said this week. “I regret my actions and words.”

She said she went back last week to the June 2016 Wake Forest Inspections Department Monthly Report and found that there was the permit for the storage shed — #1188 — and on June 6 the department had issued a permit for a duplex to Smoot Holding Company for land at 154 and 158 East Holding Avenue. She also went to the site where the duplex is being constructed and looked at the permit, #1217. The storage building was built and sits next to the Tri-Area building.

“I apologize to my readers and to the people who I said were wrong to insist that the building on the south side of East Holding Avenue was a duplex and the first of more on that lot,” Pelosi said. “It is a duplex though not completed and Mr. Smoot has applied to the town to build 44 more.”

Smoot Holding Company, formed in 2003, is headed by David Smoot III, a member of the large Wake Forest Holding family who lives in the restored family home on South Main Street.

Smoot, acting as ITAC 356 LLC, another of his companies, purchased two tracts in March of this year along South White Street that were formerly owned by Wake Forest developer Jim Adams. The tracts are one at 2.07 acres which also has frontage on East Holding Avenue that has a tax value of $321,903 according to the Wake County Revenue Department website and a second of 6.22 acres with a value of $619,597. He also got a permit and demolished the small yellow concrete block house built in 1960 when the land was part of the Holding dairy farm.

Smoot has submitted a plan for a duplex development named Holding Corners for 45 duplexes on the 8.29 acres, and it was discussed by the Wake Forest Planning Department’s Technical Review Committee on Sept. 22 along with several other plans. The land is zoned for residential mixed use but the project will require a special use permit.

The largest request that was taken up by the review committee was for Holden Mason subdivision in Franklin County along U.S. 1, 96 acres north of Holden Avenue. The master plan, which would also require rezoning and annexation, calls for 223 single-family lots and 124 townhouse lots.

One that interests Wake Forest readers is a request to build a four-story hotel, one of the Hilton hotel chain’s Tru Hotels, at 1005 Stadium Drive on 2 acres that are part of the Wake Forest Crossing shopping center. (The building now being constructed also along Stadium Drive will house a Jersey Mike’s sub shop and three other businesss.)

The other plans reviewed were:

— A construction plan for an office building at 3125 Rogers Road on 5 acres as part of the Heritage Professional Park West.

— A site construction plan for the Culvers restaurant on 1.34 acres at 2819 Rogers Road next to Rite-Aid and Starbucks, both under construction.

— A site construction plan for the Stewart Engineering office on 2.21 acres at 12753 Wake Union Church Road.

— A site construction plan for the Academy Sports building – to be called Wake Union Rialto – on 15.25 acres on the former Parker-Hannifin site along Wake Union Church Road. It is the first step in the development of the property.

— A subdivision master plan for a commercial subdivision at the intersection of Durham Road and the N.C. 98 Bypass on 7 acres owned by a Steve Gould company. It would be called Crenshaw Corners.

— A subdivision master plan for a continuation of Traditions at the intersection of Royal Mill Avenue and Traditions Grande Boulevard. This calls for 97 townhouses on 19.71 acres.