June 11, 2003: Second bypass contract to be let this fall
The state Department of Transportation plans to let the construction contract for the second section of the N.C. 98 bypass in Wake Forest on Oct. 21 of this year.
If that date holds firm, Jonathan Nance, the chief engineer for District Five of DOT, said construction of the bypass from South Main Street (U.S. 1-A) to Capital Boulevard would begin in 2004.
Construction of the final section of the bypass and the most costly, that from Capital back to N.C. 98 at the Thompson Mill Road intersection, has been moved up. DOT plans to begin buying land for the right-of-way in 2005 and begin construction in 2007.
Barnhill Contracting Co. was the low bidder for the first section at $9.8 million. Nance estimated the cost of the second section – which includes an elevated interchange at Capital and a bridge over Richland Creek – at between $26 and $27 million. An early estimate for the third section was $40 million.
Work on the first section, from Jones Dairy Road to South Main Street, began at the end of May last year. Brian Harrington, the supervising engineer with Barnhill, said the work is on schedule to be completed next year.
June 11, 2003: New uses for old buildings proposed
The fate of ambitious uses for two of Wake Forest’s former industrial plants will be decided by the Wake Forest Town Board at its meeting Tuesday, June 17, at 7 p.m. in town hall.
Jeff Ammons wants permission to renovate the old Athey Products building on South Main for The Sports Factory, a combined recreation/retail/restaurant facility.
Glenn Boyd wants to tear down some of the former Parker-Hannifin (Schrader) factory and redo it to house an indoor car dealership.
The planning board approved both special use permits last week as well as requests for senior apartments on Rogers Road and a telecommunication tower at the Wake Electric office on Wait Avenue. The town board is asked to concur. Two other planning items on the agenda are a subdivision for Heritage Commons and a development plan for an Advance Auto Parts store on South Main Street.
June 11, 2003: Neighbor files appeal of Birthplace addition approval
Donald and Nancy Bates have filed an appeal with the Wake Forest Board of Adjustment, hoping to overturn the Historic District Commission’s approval for a building behind the Wake Forest College Birthplace Museum on North Main Street.
The appeal will be heard Thursday, July 17, in town hall at 7 p.m.
The board of adjustment can either deny the appeal or return the decision to the historic commission for review. If the board denies the appeal, the Bates’ may carry their appeal to Wake County Superior Court.
The Birthplace’s director, Gene Capps, said the group cannot go forward with its fund-raising plans until the appeal is decided. But, he said, they are “very confident” the board of adjustment will agree with the historic commission’s decision.
Capps and other Birthplace society members met with neighbors and adjusted the plans to meet some objections. The 100,000-square-foot building would be built behind the Calvin Jones House and would have a lower roof line. The parts of the building that would be visible from North Main Street would appear to be auxiliary buildings for the main one.
The commission met in April and approved the certificate of appropriateness by a six to one vote, after which the audience burst into applause. The Bates and some other neighbors asked the commission not to approve the plans.
June 11, 2003: New life planned for historic DuBois building
There are gaping holes in the shingle roof. The doors and windows have been boarded over for years.
The McElrath Building on The DuBois Center campus, once one of several proud Rosenwald schools in Wake County, now deserves its listing as endangered even though it is a National Historic Register landmark.
But if an architect agrees it can be restored and if the center can obtain enough money in grants, the McElrath Building could become home to tenants as diverse as an Italian shoe designer, a dental lab, a mental health clinic, a printer with his apprentices, a theater group and Wake Tech’s culinary arts institute. One area will become a museum illustrating the history of the DuBois School and other black schools in the area.
Bettie Murchison, the center’s director, has $20,000 from the Town of Wake Forest and $20,000 from a Covington Foundation grant. With that and a bit more – the architectural survey will cost an estimated $45,000 — she and the center’s board will begin interviewing architects at the end of June.
The architect they choose will determine what needs to be done to make the building habitable again and estimate the costs. Matt Hale of Hale Luper Architects in Wake Forest, who was the architect for the most recent campus renovation, is applying for the McElrath contract.
The second step will be to stabilize the building and prepare for construction. For the preconstruction and stabilization funds, Murchison plans to apply to the Hillandale Foundation, the National Heritage Foundation and others.
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June 8, 2005: Parents file suit to stop school at DuBois site
A group of parents who object to their children attending a temporary school on the DuBois Center campus in Wake Forest are suing the Wake County Board of Education, claiming the placement violates state law because the school board is leasing the site.
The parents, most of them part of a recently organized nonprofit corporation called Citizens Addressing Reassignment and Education Inc. and using the acronym CARE, filed the suit in Wake County Superior Court on May 31.
The group, represented by Raleigh lawyer Marvin Schiller, wants the court to agree to an injunction to stop the school board from using the site.
“The focus is that the school system is illegally expending taxpayer funds,” Schiller said this week. “The Wake County Board of Education should have known and should not have proceeded down this path.” The state statute, G.S. 115-C-521(d), says that school boards must own the land on which they place a building. “That’s any school building,” Schiller said.
A court date of July 25 has been set. School begins on Aug. 25.
School board attorney Rod Malone told the school board placing the temporary modular school on the DuBois site was legal because the modular units have wheels and will not remain permanently.
This week Malone was very cautious about answering questions, but he did say, “We certainly believe that what the school system is doing is legal.”
A number of parents have been protesting since late in January when the school system released plans to move 477 students to the temporary DuBois site for two years until Forest Pines Elementary in Wakefield opens in the fall of 2007. Their children have been attending Wakefield, Wake Forest, Wildwood Forest and Fox Road elementary schools. Children who live near the DuBois site and all those in the northern area of Wake Forest were reassigned in the fall of 2004 to Heritage Elementary as part of a plan to cap enrollment at Wake Forest Elementary.
Some of the parents have called the area a slum, questioned the amount of crime in the area, the northeast part of Wake Forest, and said it was too far from their homes.
They preferred either of two sites in Wakefield offered by developers, sites that also would have been leased. Parents in red T-shirts crowded into meetings and hearings the Wake County commissioners, who were asked to provide the lease funds, organized.
The school board considered, and the school staff examined, a number of sites, including that for the future Heritage High School on Forestville Road. The school system does own that site, but school board member Kathryn Watson Quigg said it would have taken too long to grade and prepare the steep-sloped site and provide utilities.
School board members, saying there was no alternative site that could be prepared by late August, voted to lease the DuBois site for two years and thus did not have to ask the county commissioners for the money.
The National DuBois Alumni Association, which purchased the 17-acre campus in 1998 from the school system, will be paid $36,000 a year, $26,000 of which will be credited against the unpaid remainder of the purchase.
A number of parents have vowed to send their children to private schools or to homeschool them, and the school system’s projection for opening enrollment at the temporary school is now 401 children.
CARE was incorporated on April 11 by Jade John Litcher of 3322 Canes Way, Raleigh, and Michael Joseph Soluri of 12032 Pawleys Mill Circle, also Raleigh. It reportedly has about 40 members.
Along with CARE, Elizabeth Lee Haner of 3507 Archdale Drive, Raleigh, and Litcher were named as plaintiffs.
If the parents’ suit is successful and the school system cannot use the DuBois site, Quigg said, “We’ll have to find holes [seats] in other schools and the children will have to go farther.”
Another school board member, Carol Parker who represents the Wakefield area, is reported as saying the school system may not have the seats for the 401 children – state law requires the school system to provide seats for every child – if the DuBois site cannot be used.
Plans for the temporary campus call for an 8-foot fence around the 54 mobile units that will be grouped to provide 32 classrooms, a cafeteria, administrative offices, a media center and a gym. There will also be 32 surveillance cameras, just as there will be at the other two temporary sites.
In addition, a Wake Forest Police Department substation used as offices for lieutenants is next door. Officers will be able to reach the campus from the substation through a gate to which they will have the keys.
“Children will be just as safe there as at any other public school,” Quigg said. “We try at every school to make it a safe campus.”
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June 14, 2006: Group plans first private Renaissance Area investment
The Renaissance Investors Group made up of Mike Johnson, Matt Hale and Charles Grantham plan to begin reconstructing half of the north side of East Jones Avenue between South White and Brooks street late this summer.
This will be the first substantial private investment in the Renaissance Plan for the downtown the town adopted last year.
The first step will be to raze the two older buildings that now house jovi’s Kitchen and Market and John Lyon’s Appraisal House. The group has purchased the Lyon property, and jovi’s is under contract.
Vivian Jones and Jonnie Anderson, jovi’s owners, plan to relocate later this month to The Cotton Company and downsize their operation. Lyon is relocating his business to extension of Ligon Mill Road west of South Main Street.
The Renaissance group plans to build a four-story building with an underground garage for the tenants of the 18 to 20 condominiums on the upper floors. The ground floor will have commercial space.
The plans are now being reviewed by town planners. “Because it matches the Renaissance Plan it only has to be approved by the planning department” and not go to the planning and town boards, Johnson said. “It’s what they have already designated for downtown.
“A lot of the town folks, the administration, are excited about the project because it’s bringing more people into downtown,” Johnson said. “It will be within a block of the heart of downtown.”
Kara Loftin, the former downtown manager, recruited the group, Johnson said.
The building will have balconies for the condominiums, a communal courtyard in the back and a rooftop area for the tenants. The rooftop area is a feature of the Hale Building on South White which Hale built in 2001.
“We want it to be first-class,” Johnson said.
June 14, 2006: Two North Main subdivisions ask for water allocations
The developers for two proposed subdivisions on the west side of North Main Street will meet with the Wake Forest Comprehensive Planning Committee Tuesday morning, asking for water allocations of 60 dwelling units per year.
Glenda Tope of Jerry Turner & Associates of Raleigh is asking for the water for a 107-lot residential subdivision on the Baker land, 38.5 acres. The land is nestled just north of Olde Mill Stream, and the developer would extend Barnford Mill Road to North Main. The land has a short frontage on North Main.
The town has just adopted a policy of allowing water allocations for 40 homes per subdivision per year unless the developer can demonstrate water conservation measures. Tope plans drought-tolerant landscaping and Bermuda grass on the lawns.
The second subdivision would be called the Village at Wake Forest, and it is planned for 59.25 acres owned by Calvin Ray, again with a limited frontage on North Main. It would have 68 single-family lots and 158 townhouse lots, a total of 226 homes.
The developer, the Carlton Group of North Carolina from New City, N.Y., frankly admits there is some work needed to clean up the site, which is just south of the Franklin County line. “That part of the land that contains the Ray family residence is attractive, but the balance of the property resembles a junkyard with old trucks, automobiles, excavating equipment, various sheds and trailers.”
They plan two roads that will connect with another subdivision, Coram Fields (not in Wake Forest jurisdiction) and extend to North Main. They will preserve an existing 10-acre lake.
To get the 60 building permits a year they want, the Carlton Group will use the water from the lake to irrigate 75 percent of the housing units, will plant Bermuda grass and drought-resistant plants and will use either recirculating hot water pumps or on-demand hot water systems.
After hearing from both developers, the committee will turn to old business, among which is a monthly update about the number of new homes that will use Wake Forest’s water. From January through May, although the town has issued 432 residential permits, only 348 will be connected to the town’s water system.
The four-member committee – Commissioners David Camacho and Frank Drake and planning board members Bob Hill and Kim Parker – will also discuss expanding the town’s urban service area to the east and northeast and annexing land in Franklin County as developers request water and sewer service.
The committee meets at 7:30 a.m. at The Forks Cafeteria, and it is a public meeting.
June 14, 2006: New Wake Forest fire chief selected
After a six-month search, the Wake Forest Fire Department’s directors have named a new chief. He is Jerry Swift from Belmont in Gaston County who was introduced to the entire department Monday night.
The current chief, David Williams Jr., was part of the search committee for his replacement and will remain as the assistant chief after Swift takes over on July 3.
Swift will take over a department with 76 personnel – 35 paid firefighters, 39 volunteers and two medical responders.
“What was important to us, that they have experience with volunteer and paid” staff, Thomas Walters, chairman of the board, said. Not all departments have a mixture of paid and volunteer staff, and the Wake Forest department prides itself on being able to mix the two harmoniously to provide professional fire prevention and protection.
Another reason for Walters to say “He is such the right guy for this department” is that Swift began his fire experience in the Explorer program. The Wake Forest department has always encouraged and fostered young people and runs a junior fire program for high school students.
Swift, who has been in fire service since the fall of 1979, has been with the Gastonia Fire Department since 1987. He is captain of technical rescue operations and battalion chief for a shift. He has been teaching fire and rescue operations for 12 years and has a degree in fire protection technology. He is earning a degree in emergency management. During his career, he has received 30 commendations and awards.
“He’s huge on training from a safety standpoint. That’s very important to our department. He’s someone who’s going to get right in there with the firemen and do the job,” Walters said.
Along with a highly qualified new chief, Walters said, the search committee also found “David (Williams) was doing a really good job.” Williams has been following the plan for expansion and improvement laid out by the late chief, Jimmy Keith. The interviews and information they found during the search validated what the department had been doing. “It really made me feel good about the job David has done.”
The search committee was headed by Richard Stinnett and included Williams and Walters along with Bob Bridges, Joel Keith, Lyman Franklin, Stanley Denton, Wayne Burton for the paid staff and Gary Sullivan representing the volunteers. Walters said they advertised “all over the country,” including Monster.com and firenews.net, where Swift saw the ad.
They received resumes from “incredibly qualified people,” about 60 in all. That was narrowed to 20 who they interviewed, then to six, then three. Among the talents the committee looked for was the ability to make public presentations using PowerPoint.
Swift will receive a $5,000 moving allowance and his starting salary will be $68,000 in a job classification that ranges from $54,000 to $82,000, giving him room to grow.
He will not be on hand Thursday night at Station #1 on East Elm Avenue for the Business After Hours the fire department is sponsoring with the Wake Forest Chamber of Commerce, and neither will that ladder truck that was Jimmy Keith’s dream. But you will be able to see a picture of the truck, which should be delivered at the end of the month.
It cost a whopping $850,000 equipped, but it will be worth it from a safety standpoint. The houses in today’s subdivisions have high, steeply pitched roofs facing in several directions. Firemen cannot use the roofs, as they did with ranch and smaller houses, to reach the source of fires. “It will keep these guys safe in the basket.”
Along with the new ladder truck, the department is planning to hire new personnel, some of whom will staff the third fire station to be built on Kearney Road near Wake Union Church Road on land donated by Jim Adams. At the same time, the department is beginning plans for a fourth station.
June 14, 2006: Historic South Brick House for sale
Local historians and those who want to preserve Wake Forest’s heritage anxiously watching to see who or what buys the town’s second oldest house.
The oldest, of course, is the plantation house Calvin Jones built about 1820, but the South Brick House has an almost equal history.
It is part of Captain John Berry’s legacy. A Hillsborough architect and contractor, he submitted a plan for the first substantial college building, but the college trustees substituted another and hired him anyway to build what became known as “the College building” and “Old Main.” Using his own slaves and local clay, he put up the three-story building in 1836 and 1837. It burned to the ground, the victim of arson, in 1933.
While the college building was under construction, two trustees, C.W. Skinner and Amos J. Battle, proposed they would spend their own money, not to exceed $3,000 each and to reimbursed, for Berry to build two identical houses for professors, each 36 feet long and 32 feet wide. When they were completed in 1838, they became known as the North Brick House (razed to make way for the vacant dormitory that stands at the intersection of Front and North) and the South Brick House, which still stands at 112 East South Avenue, surrounded by a creamy picket fence.
The college retained ownership of the houses for a time. The South Brick House and two lots were sold to an S.S. Biddle in 1855 for $2,000. The college was always strapped for money. At that time, the total lot for the house stretched the length of the first block of South Main Street.
Although symmetrical in outward appearance, the interior of the house is not. Instead, it is in the shape of Greek key. The front door opens into a front hall or parlor that stretches across the front to the left and ends at the right with a door to the staircase, which crosses the window to the right of the front door.
It had a varied history and many owners during the years, and someone built what is now the kitchen at the rear. At one point – or perhaps several – the owner rented rooms to college students and athletes, among them Arnold Palmer.
Dr. Edgar E. Folk, English and journalism professor, and his wife, Minta, nee Holding, bought the house in 1949. Mrs. Folk, who worked in the college library at that time, was a daughter of T.E. Holding and grew up in the spacious Queen Anne house next door.
The Folks replaced the wide front porch that had been added at some time with the classical pillared Greek Revival porch. Mrs. Folk papered the unusual front hall or parlor with a mural and filled the house with antiques.
When the college moved to Winston-Salem in 1956, Folk and Dr. A.C. Reid maintained their Wake Forest homes, sharing an apartment during the week and returning home on the weekends. Mrs. Folk became a well-known dealer in antiques with a shop in town.
Their grandson owns the house but lives in Maryland with no interest in living in Wake Forest, and no other family member wants to purchase it.
Thus the sign – Gail Weisner with Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston is peddling the house for a cool $700,000. Weisner, who lives in historic Oakwood in Raleigh, has an appreciation for the history and the value of the house. The ideal buyer, she said, would be someone who “would live in and preserve it.”
Whoever buys it will be given the original contract with Berry, just one of the hoard of historic and personal papers found in the house.
The house is sound and has been maintained, she said. “The (heart pine) floors are in good shape. John Berry built a good house.”
But there are drawbacks, and the idea that it can continue as a private home is becoming less and less realistic. Weisner estimates it will cost $250,000 to do the needed renovations such as redoing the outdated bathroom and kitchen and adding air conditioning.
If the house were near Washington, D.C., or New York City, Weisner said, it would be appreciated and gladly renovated, “but here everybody wants new and shiny.” It is a part of the town’s historic district, but the appearance standards apply only to the exterior visible from the street.
She and others have made overtures to organizations and individuals about preserving it as a museum or for some other public use but without success.
Weisner said one of the best uses might be as something similar to the Tucker House in Raleigh, available to be rented for meetings, wedding receptions and other group events. The barns and outbuildings could become workrooms and sales rooms for local potters or other artists. In combination with the Renaissance Plan and the efforts to bring tourists to the downtown area, “It could be a fabulous destination.”
You can see the unique interior sometime in July when Weisner plans an open house after all the family’s personal belongings have been removed and the house has been cleaned.
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June 11, 2008: Recent and future restaurants
- The Jenkins brothers plan to open Backfins Crabhouse on South White Street as soon as the second exit, required by fire codes, is complete. Right now the exit is a red clay hole in the ground at the intersection of Wait and South White Street.
- The Wake Forest Coffee Company on South White Street has opened next to the day spa and the North Carolina Specialty Shop. Owner Albert Barneto also plans a wine bar on the second floor. Besides the coffee and beverage selections, Barneto has mouth-watering desserts and ice cream by the scoop for sale, and for Art After Hours he hired the musicians who serenaded people on the street.
- Shelle McCullum says her dream ice cream shop, A la Mode, has been open for almost three weeks now and she had great business during Meet in the Street. The shop offers homemade gelato, ice cream and yogurt.
- Rocco’s Italian Bar and Grill in Heritage Station at the intersection of Rogers Road and Forestville Road is being fitted out for an opening as soon as they hire and train the staff. The owner/operators will be the Cinelli brothers – Gaitano (Guy), Gianni and Peter – who own a restaurant in the Wakefield Commons Shopping Center on New Falls of Neuse Road and restaurants in Durham and Cary.
- The development plan for the Sonic restaurant was approved by the town board May 20. The lot for the restaurant at 1925 S. Main St. was formerly the site for two model houses built by Carolina Model Home Corporation. JOROMI Properties LLC, a Raleigh corporation, bought the land for $580,000 in July 2007. The zoning is highway business.
- The Mellow Mushroom is nearer reality. Senior Planner Ann Ayers says the town staff has signed off on the construction plans, which are now in Raleigh for review and signatures. It will be built at the corner of Wake Drive and South Main Street (U.S. 1-A) between the American Pride carwash and Taco Bell. The master plan was approved by the town board at its April meeting. The plan includes saving several trees on the lot.
June 11, 2008: New stores and services
- The Wake Forest Planning Department is reviewing plans for a daycare center, The Learning Experience, at 1212 Heritage Links Drive.
- The planning department has issued a development permit for a miniature golf course at The Factory.
- The Tipsy Gourmet, which will offer fine food, wine, cheese, cookware, cook books and more, will open in July in two of the four bays in a small building next to the Texas Steakhouse on Retail Drive. The neighbors are Radio Shack and The Peanut Roaster.
- The planning board recommended approval of Lasersplash Car Wash on 1.69 acres on Rogers and Forestville roads on Nov. 8, 2007, but in January the town board delayed any action on the plan until the drought ends.
- Ayers has some plans but not a complete submittal for a Walgreen’s drug store in the southwest corner of the N.C. 98 bypass and South Main Street (U.S. 1-A). The developer does have state Department of Transportation approval for a right-in, right-out access to the bypass.
- Plans for Rapid Strikes Family Entertainment Center – which was first called Wake Forest Family Entertainment Center – are on hold, Ayers said, adding the enterprise may be looking for another site. It was first planned for 4.5 acres on Rogers Road between the entrance to The Factory and its ball fields and the CSX railroad line. Mark Wallace of Wake Forest wants to build 32 bowling lanes, a laser tag room, a game room and a party room
- The Stecker Building Two will have 9,311 square feet for retail and flex space. It will be behind the Porter Paint Store at 1219 S. Main St., and was recently approved by the planning and town boards.
- Some of the national stores said to be looking at Wake Forest areC. Penney, Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx.
- An Aaron Rents Furniture store is seeking Wake Forest Planning Department approval for a store on an out-parcel at Wake Pointe Shopping Center (Wal-Mart).
June 11, 2008: Government projects
- The Wake Forest Planning Board recommended approval of the development plan for an ABC store in the Crescent Pointe commercial subdivision on Galaxy Drive on June 3.
- In August or September the Wake Forest Library staff and friends will pack up the shelving, most of the books and most of the furniture in the building on East Holding Avenue and move to an empty storefront in the strip mall between Wal-Mart and O’Charlie’s, Yvonne Allen, the local library manager, said this week. “The architects were able to create a layout for the space that will allow us to take most if not all of our collection,” Allen said. She hopes they will be in the temporary space less than a year. The move is to allow Wake County to almost double the size of the existing library and completely renovate the existing portion.
- The Wake County Board of Education is purchasing – if the county commissioners give their approval – a 29-acre site on the east side of Capital Boulevard half a mile north of Stadium Drive for a new elementary school that may be delayed from 2010 to 2011 to divert funds for the renovation of Wake Forest-Rolesville High School. The school board has agreed to pay $2.76 million to Capital Boulevard Business Center owned by a group called The Wright People: Ricky Wright, Robert Neeb and Martin Nassif. The school may be built in a public-private partnership, with private developers building the school and leasing it to the school system.
- The grading on the south side of the N.C. 98 bypass near Richland Creek is for the town’s second electric substation. A second grading site closer to South Main Street is for the extension of Siena Drive from the Cimarron subdivision.
