On Aug. 6, back in 2003
This is the first in what is hoped is a regular feature about Wake Forest in 2003 when the Wake Forest Gazette began publication.
*Heritage High School did not make the cut when the Wake County Commissioners and the Wake County Board of Education agreed on the latest building and renovation plan with a $450-million bond referendum set for Oct. 7. Three new elementary schools are scheduled for the northeastern part of Wake County as well as renovations, but there will only be $3.6 million for site development in the pot for Heritage High School. The cost to build the school will be about $40 million.
*A new CVS on Roosevelt Avenue seemed a certainty. James Holding was negotiating with CVS to lease his half acre at the corner of Roosevelt and North White Street where his father, Harvey Holding owned two side-by-side Esso (later Standard Oil) gas stations facing Roosevelt.
Andrew Massey operated the Southwestern adobe-style station with its arched bay doors nearer the Underpass. The second station, operated by various people over the years, was much simpler: concrete block with two repair bays and two picture windows.
James Holding said his father built the second station because, as he recalls, service stations could only remain open for a certain number of hours during World War II. The second station gave his father the ability to service cars and pump gas for more hours, even at night. The adobe style was a standard design for Standard Oil service stations at one time, Holding said.
The simpler station was torn down in the 1970s, and the second remained on the corner until the late 1980s. The lots have been vacant since then.
Next door to the two stations, Jesse Hollowell, who opened a grocery store on South White Street in 1933, built a new modern grocery after World War II. His son-in-law John Lyon purchased the business and kept the name, Hollowell’s Food Store, until he bought the land behind the store, built a multi-store plaza with Lyon’s Food Store as the anchor. The older store became home to Stevens Book Store and NAPA Auto Parts, among others. The land was once the site of the Gill Gin Co. owned by one of the Gill brothers who then lived with their sister in the South Brick House.
*Bob and Sarah Bridges had requested a rezoning of their 2.4 acres on Wake Union Church Road and facing Capital Boulevard to conditional use neighborhood business with watershed protection, which differed from the office and institutional zoning recently approved for the Stephenson property to the north of the Bridges property and the Osborne property to the south, which would later become home to a branch of the State Employees Credit Union.
People from subdivisions along Jenkins Road filled the meeting room, protesting the change from residential zoning and citing traffic and speeding concerns, protection for the watershed and the impact on their neighborhoods.
Ken Barker, a Riverstone subdivision resident, said he moved there because it was quiet with big lots and little development. “I’ve seen all three things disappear.” Barker said one of his neighbors spent $20,000 building a buffer behind his house to block the traffic noise from Capital and another man lost money on the sale of his house “because of the noise up and down Capital.”
Barker concluded, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Art O’Connor, a Riverstone resident, showed the board a triangular symbol showing a boy and girl walking and said it represented the many children in the subdivision who ride bicycles, walk and skate in the street. “We have noticed a problem with people speeding through the neighborhood to get from Jenkins to Capital. We are concerned that if a retail establishment is built there it will have the tendency to drive more traffic through our neighborhood.
Michael Flynn said he had talked with people all over town and gathered 97 names on a petition. “They just don’t want that retail environment right there on Capital, right there where they live.” Flynn also said he was very concerned about the Capital and Jenkins intersection. “It is a dangerous road right now. The goal should be, let’s keep traffic the way it is and solve those problems (like a dip) with the intersection.”
Earlier, Sarah Bridges said that when the town adopted the Capital Boulevard Corridor Plan in 1979 that said the land would all become commercial, “We could see the writing on the wall.”
After Planner Steve Neuschafer pointed out the differences and similarities of the two zoning categories, planning board member Speed Massenburg said, “There seems to be some fear you might put in an all-night disco.” Earlier, people at the back of the room had called out the neighborhood business zoning would allow a Char-Broil Grill or Waffle House.
“There’s a very good possibility the business we’re talking about will have less traffic than the credit union” on the Osborne land next door, Bridges said, adding that lighting and other appearance standards are strictly controlled by the town.
“Is there anything you can say to allay the fears of the residents?” Commissioner Thomas Walters asked.
“I don’t know what their fears are, but (when they are talking about protecting the watershed) they need to take care of that closer to the creek,” Bridges said. Riverstone lies along the east bank of Horse Creek. After the meeting, Bridges said she played along that creek as a child and the land there was a marsh.
After planning board member Sue Holding made the motion to rezone, seconded by Alphonza Merritt, planning board member Bob Hill spoke about his inspection of the property and his knowledge as a Jenkins Road resident.
The Bridges property is pretty well separated from other areas, Hill said. Traffic has certainly increased on Jenkins Road, and he said the increase is caused by the subdivisions farther to the west and high school traffic. He did see cars on Chilmark in Riverstone going over 25 mph. “I’m not sure that has anything to do with development along Capital,” Hill said, but was instead just inconsiderate people.
Hill also said he would like to address the hours of operation for any business there, but “with a tract that small, I don’t see it’s going to generate more traffic than the office and institutional zoning.” As for protection of the watershed, “I think that what I put on my yard does more harm to Horse Creek than a parking lot up there.”
Planning board member Michael Penny said, “You create an undue advantage when you give neighborhood zoning there. “It’s an unfair advantage to the central parcel over the other two.”
*The editor was complaining that only four candidates had filed for the three open seats on the town board – political newcomers Stephen Barrington and Mark Traveis along with incumbents Velma Boyd and David Camacho, who was appointed in 2001 after then-commissioner Vivian Jones defeated Boyce Medlin and first-term mayor George Mackie. In 2001 there had been five candidates for two seats, and in 1999 there had been 13 candidates although Bob Hill and Dick Finke dropped out early and John McDonald III quit shortly before Election Day.
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