Both the Town of Wake Forest and the Wake Forest Area Chamber of Commerce are trying to peer into the future, hoping to identify those projects and ideas that will help the town and area continue to provide the necessities that will welcome new residents.
The chamber just published its legislative agenda for 2017 – see it in the Gazette’s Feb. 8 issue – developed by the government Affairs committee. It focuses on economic development, transportation and education.
“We want to use the power of the chamber and its membership to do grassroots campaigns,” chamber President Ann Weldon said this week. “We are trying to become more active in the legislative arena on the local, county and state levels.”
The town, led by Town Manager Kip Padgett, has returned economic development to town government after years of paying the chamber to undertake that work, and the town has hired its first director of economic development, Jason Cannon. The two entities are already working in tandem to achieve some common goals.
Those goals are better transportation, a fully developed high-speed fiber optic network and a site (or more than one) suitable for a large business/industry or several smaller ones.
Both Cannon and Weldon agree the current county transportation plan provides more for other areas of Wake. “The transit plan is focusing on the western and southern parts of the county,” Weldon said. “I agree with the mayor that it is important, and mass transit is something that contributes to the quality of life.”
Cannon said he is disappointed with the transit plan because “for the first 10 years Wake Forest receives some enhanced bus service but nothing from commuter rail. We are not going to see what Cary and Garner are going to see.” He added, “The type of people we are attracting are not going to take buses” but they might take a commuter rail service which would be comfortable and short. There was a train carrying commuters from Wake Forest and farther north to Raleigh up through the early 1940s.
Commuter rail, which would use a regular train car(s) on the existing railroad tracks through town is not “pie in the sky,” Weldon said. “The tracks are already there. They are not traveled that frequently.”
Both the chamber and the town are eager to see the transformation of Capital Boulevard – nicknamed “the parking lot” for commuters – into a restricted-access, high speed, multi-lane expressway. Cannon said the town is well positioned for the construction. The state Department of Transportation is scheduled to start buying right-of-way in 2018 with construction to start in 2019. By 2026 the changes will reach the Franklin County line.
Cannon noted that the town adds somewhere between 2,100 and 2,400 new residents every year and efficient transportation is essential. The state transportation department currently allocates new construction in three pots with 40 percent going to statewide projects, 40 percent to regional projects and 20 percent to local projects.
“Nearly 50 percent of those projects are going to Wake and Durham counties. That’s where the congestion is, where the needs are. When the legislative representatives, who represent every square centimeter of the state, start listening to the smaller counties, it makes me nervous.” The Capital Boulevard/U.S. 1 project is predicated on funding the system as it is today.
(Cannon later cautioned that the percentages and numbers he used were what he learned during a meeting with a DOT official and those numbers may have changed by now.)
Another project on the wish list for both the town and chamber is the purchase and development of a site or sites to entice new industries here. When someone from the county or state calls to inquire about locations for a new business interested in the area, “The first thing they need is do we have a site with X number of acres and utilities. We don’t have anything to show them.”
But Cannon did go on to say, “We’re very close to getting control over a site and that will put us in the game when those job developers come to us.”
He and Weldon want to see someone in the General Assembly revive last year’s HB 108, which would have created a low-interest pool for loans to municipalities could buy and get shovel-ready. “That type of capital is a major shot in the arm. There are limitations about what we [the town] can do in buying the site and improving it. We do rely on help from the state.” In this year’s update of the Capital Improvements Plan, the town is considering spending $25 million spread over the next four years for economic development.
And then there is high-speed fiber optic cable system which is on the wish list for both the town and chamber. The town board is considering a study by CTC Technology & Energy outlining three alternatives for town involvement in that system.
“Meanwhile, we have a wealth of infrastructure already in Wake Forest,” Cannon said. Google, which is installing a cable system in Raleigh, will at build-out cover only 1 percent of the city, he said. “CenturyLink has over 500 miles of fiber in Wake Forest and we have only 128 miles of roads.”
CenturyLink is installing high gigabyte fiber, but, Cannon said, “most of the CenturyLink customers are not opting for the real high speed.” A house with two or three TVs, several phones, two computers will still have lots of band width to spare.
In Holly Springs, the town’s chosen provider, Ting, is providing the connections to homes, but the town provided the middle mile between companies such as CenturyLink and the neighborhood. The Town of Wake Forest is well-positioned, he said, because it owns the power system and the poles. “We can give ourselves permission to put cable on those poles.”
Wake Forest residents need to stay tuned because the town and the chamber are trying to bring large changes to town.
