Owners of the Heritage Station shopping center want to expand into the 1.76 acres next door along Rogers Road. Heritage Station, anchored by a Harris-Teeter grocery store, stands at the intersection of Rogers with Forestville Road, and the second local Publix will be built across Forestville in the future Shoppes at Heritage Village shopping center.
The request for the expansion is the only agenda item for the Wake Forest Planning Board when it meets Tuesday, Dec. 1, at 7:30 p.m. in Wake Forest Town Hall. The town commissioners will hold a work session at 5:30 p.m. in the same meeting room and will return for the public hearing about the rezoning request. The agenda for the work session is near the end of this article.
The 1.76 acres has been zoned neighborhood business since WRI HR Heritage Station LLC, based in Houston, Texas, bought the existing shopping center in 2009. Heritage Station and Harris-Teeter opened in 2004.
The request filed by Marty Bizzell, an engineer with Bass, Nixon and Kennedy engineering firm in Raleigh, is for a conditional rezoning to allow Heritage Station to exceed the limit of 50,000 square feet of commercial floor area in the Unified Development Ordinance. WRI proposes to have 83,159 square feet in the expanded shopping center. The town board can waive the cap on commercial space in neighborhood business conditional use districts.
The cap was waived when the master plan for the Shoppes at Heritage Village was approved in November 2014. That plan calls for a 49,000-square-foot grocery store with 40,200 square feet in retail flex space, expected to be filled with a daycare, a bank, a fast-food restaurant and a sit-down restaurant.
The public hearing will be legislative because it is rezoning, and anyone may speak for or against the requested action.
During the work session at 5:30 p.m., the mayor and commissioners will hear from advisory board candidates – and vote on them during the Dec. 15 meeting – will hear IT Director present digital signage kiosks and Wi-Fi for South White Street, hear Planning Director Chip Russell talk about the Downtown Design Studio, will discuss the monthly financial report, and review the draft agenda for Dec. 15 when the commissioners elected in November will be sworn in and seated. There will be a reception for the new commissioners – Incumbents Greg Harrington and Anne Reeve and first-term Commissioner Brian Pate – before the regular meeting.
WRI stands for Weingarten Realty Investors, and versions of WRI, all the same company, own shopping centers in Raleigh and other Wake County towns.
