Dental Implants Near Cornelius, NC

The Cornelius Board of Commissioners unanimously rejected a rezoning late Monday for a Charlotte developer’s $39 million business park on a family’s 36 acres of farmland.

The board voted 5-0 against Greenberg Gibbons Properties’ proposed Cornelius Business Park on Bailey Road, directly across from the town’s recreational Bailey Road Park.

Commissioners sided with neighbors who said trucks from the business park on Gene Hunter’s land would endanger students at Hough High and Bailey Middle schools on the chronically backed-up road. Seniors in the Bailey’s Glen active older-adult community would also be at risk, they said.

The project would have generated about 900 daily trips on Bailey Road, according to project consultant Kimley-Horn.

But no 18-wheelers, Gene Hunter’s son, Wes, told The Charlotte Observer at the site last week. “Their customer base is straight delivery truck, van, service-industry, heating and air, plumbing, those kind of customers,” he said about the developer.

Such assurances failed to sway the commissioners.

The business park “will degrade the corridor and create long-term issues for the community,” commissioner Robert Carney said. “Bailey Road is a residential corridor now.”

“The project is not a good fit for the area,” commissioner Scott Higgins said.

Higgins said he agreed with town planning staff’s vision for the property combined with a larger, nearby private tract: A less intrusive business campus like the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, plus land for a public park.

Cornelius Business Park “wouldn’t be a business campus but an industrial park,” Mayor Woody Washam told the standing room only crowd of opponents in the Town Hall meeting room.

The park on Gene Hunter’s farmland would have included four Class A flex office buildings, generated 175 to 250 jobs and contributed $300,000 in annual tax revenue to the town and Mecklenburg County, according to figures from the developer.

The buildings would have totaled 188,100 square feet; the average size of a Walmart Supercenter is about 182,000 square feet.

A 40-foot vegetative buffer would have screened the park from Bailey Road, according to the developer’s plans.

On May 21, the Cornelius Planning Board voted 7-1 in favor of recommending the rezoning to the Board of Commissioners. The vote followed assurances by the developer that its planned road improvements would alleviate Bailey Road traffic snarls, not add to them.

Improvements would have included a roundabout at the entrance to the business park and an additional turn lane at N.C. 115 and Bailey Road, Wes Hunter told the Observer.

That would make three lanes at the intersection — a left-turn, a through lane and a right-turn, Hunter said.

A third lane would uncork traffic much as it did when the town added one at Westmoreland Road and U.S. 21, he said.

At Monday night’s meeting, Drew Thigpen, co-founder of Greenberg Gibbons Properties, told the audience: “Your fears of development are being weaponized against you.”

“There’s real frustration and fear in this room,” he told the Board of Commissioners before the public hearing on his rezoning request. “I don’t dismiss it. But we are the solution to this problem.”

His comment about being the solution drew derisive laughter from some in the audience.

During Monday’s public hearing before the board’s vote, opponents cited road congestion and safety concerns.

“It’s not a good fit,” resident Jack Higgins said.

Still, while most in the audience raised their hands when asked if they opposed the project, speakers at the hearing were evenly split: 16 against and 16 in favor.

Proponents cited the jobs, increased tax revenue and other economic benefits, including two Hough High students and Bill Russell, president and CEO of the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce.

And the road improvements “would cost Cornelius nothing,” Thigpen said.

Thigpen said the board’s vote was disappointing.

“We know local small businesses need and deserve the support of our project, and we plan to pursue our goals in another Lake Norman area community,” Thigpen said in a statement.

His company asked the town in 2023 and Monday night to rezone the property from “rural preserve” to “conditional zoning,” he said. That was “to allow the land to be developed for business campus use, as identified in the town’s land use plan.”

“The proposal had gained overwhelming support from the Town of Cornelius Planning Board in May,” Thigpen said. “A yes vote would have allowed the Hunter family, ninth generation Cornelius farmers, to sell their land in order to retire.”

Despite residents’ traffic concerns, the Cornelius Planning Board backed a Charlotte developer’s planned 36-acre business park on curvy, congested, two-lane Bailey Road last week.

Cornelius Business Park would sprout on vacant land a quarter-mile east of the Bailey Road-N.C. 115 intersection, according to a rezoning application by Drew Thigpen, co-founder, partner and vice-president of development at Greenberg Gibbons Properties.

The park would be directly across from the town’s recreational Bailey Road Park and would include four buildings — two 22-foot-tall buildings on Bailey Road and two 29-foot-tall buildings within the property, toward the rear of the site.

The buildings would total 188,100 square feet. A 40-foot vegetative buffer would screen the park from Bailey Road, according to the developer’s plans.

The park would bring 150-plus jobs and much-needed improvements to Bailey Road, Thigpen told Cornelius Today.

The Bailey Road-N.C. 115 intersection notoriously backs up with cars, including from nearby Hough High and Bailey Road Middle School.

The improvements would include a roundabout to ease congestion and a westbound left-turn lane near the business park, according to Cornelius Planning Board documents.

Given those plans, the board recommended the rezoning by a 7-1 vote Wednesday. The Cornelius Board of Commissioners, which has final say, must now schedule a date for a public hearing on the request.

Town planning staff opposes the rezoning, senior planner Aaron Turk told the Planning Board before its vote. He drew applause from opponents in the packed meeting room at Town Hall.

The town has long envisioned a larger, business campus-type development for the site and surrounding acreage, Turk said. He cited LakePointe Corporate Center in Charlotte and North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis as examples.

The business park also wouldn’t mesh with plans for a park and greenway on the surrounding acreage, he said.

Nearby residents, including from the Bailey’s Glen active older-adult community, have long spoken out against allowing commercial/industrial buildings on the property, in part because of the trucks they said such buildings would add to an already clogged road.

Greenberg Gibbons Properties originally proposed five buildings totaling 198,000 square feet for the site, but later withdrew the plans amid opposition.

Wes Hunter is the ninth generation of his family to grow crops near present-day Lake Norman, a lineage dating to the 1700s.

“I’ve been around a lot of farmers, met a lot of farmers,” he said. “I’ve never met a ninth-generation farmer. Never met a ninth-generation anything.”

Ten or 12 years ago, he and his father, Gene, worked nearly 700 acres from east Huntersville to Mount Mourne in southern Iredell County near Mooresville, he said.

In recent years, they’ve farmed at a loss, Wes Hunter said.

“Last season, we had soybeans on 160 acres, and it cost us money to have a crop,” he said. “When we were done with harvest, we were in the hole, and it cost us money to pay the bills.”

Gene Hunter, 74, finally put 36 of his acres, off Bailey Road near N.C. 115, under contract to Charlotte developer Greenberg Gibbons Properties.

Only weeds have grown on the property since, as the developer tries again Monday night to get town rezoning approval for a $39 million business park.

Cornelius Business Park would sprout directly across from the town’s recreational Bailey Road Park. The business park would include four Class A flex office buildings, generate 175 to 250 jobs and contribute $300,000 in annual tax revenue to the town and Mecklenburg County, according to figures from the developer.

The buildings would total 188,100 square feet. A 40-foot vegetative buffer would screen the park from Bailey Road, according to the developer’s plans.

Neighbors, including from the Bailey’s Glen active older-adult community, have long spoken out against allowing commercial or industrial buildings on the property, in part because of the trucks they said such buildings would add to an already clogged road.

The developer initially proposed five buildings totaling 198,000 square feet, but withdrew the plan amid opposition, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.

Four years ago, the Hunter family’s real estate agent “had a credible residential buyer” for the property, Wes Hunter told the Observer at the site Wednesday. “As they approached the town, they were told this would never be residential. So (the buyer) walked. I don’t blame them. Not mad at them.”

And that’s why a business park was proposed, he said.

“We looked at our land use plan and asked, ‘What does the town want here?’” Hunter said. “The land use plan says business campus, so our broker found a developer.

“What they want to build here is the definition of the Cornelius business campus land plan for this piece of property.”

Instead, Hunter said, “we’re jumping through hoops. The developer has jumped through hoops, many hurdles. Everything has stayed positive to this point. We hope that’s the way it remains.”

On social media, a group called Bailey Road Friends urges residents to oppose the rezoning at Monday’s 6 p.m. meeting of the Cornelius Board of Commissioners, where the board is scheduled to vote on the request.

“This rezoning decision has the potential to impact traffic patterns, infrastructure, and the overall character of the area surrounding our schools and the park,” the group wrote, referring to nearby Bailey Middle and Hough High schools.

“As parents, we understand you care deeply about the safety and well-being of our children and the quality of our community spaces,” the group wrote.

The Bailey Road-N.C. 115 intersection notoriously backs up with cars, including from the schools.

Town planning staff also opposes the rezoning, senior planner Aaron Turk told the Cornelius Planning Board before the board voted 7-1 on May 21 in favor of recommending the rezoning to the Board of Commissioners.

The town has long envisioned a larger, business campus-type development for the site and adjacent, similarly private acreage, Turk said. He cited LakePointe Corporate Center in Charlotte and North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis as examples.

The Cornelius parcels total about 200 acres, planning staff said.

The smaller business park proposed on Gene Hunter’s land also wouldn’t mesh with plans for a park and greenway on surrounding acreage, Turk said.

The Planning Board vote to the contrary followed assurances by the developer that its planned road improvements would alleviate Bailey Road traffic snarls, not add to them.

Improvements would include a roundabout at the entrance to the business park and an additional turn lane at N.C. 115 and Bailey Road, Hunter said. That would make three lanes at the intersection — a left-turn, a through lane and a right-turn, he said.

“And trust me, I drive this road regularly, I have two daughters at Hough High at the end of the road,” Hunter said. “There is a traffic problem here, and through our years talking about this development, what the problems are here, nobody has stepped forward to address any traffic issues, except this developer.”

He said the town’s addition of a third lane at similarly clogged Westmoreland Road and U.S. 21 instantly cleared chronic backups.

“We were kind of blown away by that,” Hunter said about the town’s vision of a 200-acre business park on the combined properties.

“A 200-acre business park?” he said. “If you think traffic’s an issue now, I can just only imagine what that would look like.”

About the opposition to his much smaller proposal, he said: “I get it that they’re concerned. Our family considers them neighbors. I would also say that their concerns of traffic are legitimate.

“We believe that this developer, for our property to sell and be developed, this will be a minimal impact on the traffic issue here,” Hunter said. “Plus, he’s the only one looking to help that issue.”

Hunter recognizes that the traffic study completed for the rezoning application “says trucks. And the developer has on many occasions brought that up. They have multiple businesses in this area, and they assure us that 18 wheelers are just not their customer base.

“Their customer base is straight delivery truck, van, service-industry, heating and air, plumbing, those kind of customers,” he said.

“We’ve tried to follow the rules,” Hunter said about his family’s yearslong ordeal. “We feel like we have followed the rules. The developer has followed the rules. The (town rules) say this is what’s supposed to be here.”

Wes Hunter said his family is “proud of our heritage. We’re proud of our home farm.

“We’re proud of what we do,” he said. “Feeding the world is not an easy job, and we’ve been doing it for quite some time.”

But “the piece of land we’re standing on is my father’s retirement,” he said. “He needs to retire. I have a couple of girls that I mentioned. We have college looming. I can see it out there.

“Paying for college isn’t something fun to think about, but this land is that as well.”

CORNELIUS, N.C. — A Charlotte company will be in Cornelius next week to ask commissioners for approval to develop 36 acres of land for a business park.

The proposed business park near Bailey Road would add 250 jobs to the area, but neighbors told Channel 9’s Erika Jackson that there’s already too much traffic there.

Cornelius local, Dylan Blake, said there’s many things to do in town which means many drivers on the road.

While it is a busy part of Cornelius, developers say their plan would actually ease traffic.

Most people who live in Cornelius work out of town and are adding to the traffic problem there, Drew Thigpen, vice president of development for Greenberg Gibbons Properties, said.

He’s asking Cornelius commissioners to rezone dozens of acres on Bailey Road near Old Statesville Road to build four commercial buildings to keep workers closer to home.

“This is about allowing those businesses to actually be located here, keep that tax revenue here and keep people off the roads,” Thigpen said.

GGP withdrew its original proposal for the project in 2023 after concerns from residents. Now, their plans include one less building and the remaining ones are smaller. They also added plans to “ease” traffic around the new development.

“That’s what we heard most consistently from people, was concerns around the traffic, and so we’re actually adding a third turn lane here on Bailey road at 115,” Thigpen said.

Blake believes any improvements would be years away.

“They gotta build it and everywhere they’re building, so it’s always traffic, it’s always construction,” Blake said. “It might help later on down the road, but in the meantime, it’s still gonna suck.”

Commissioners will vote on the rezoning at town hall Monday at 6 p.m. in Cornelius.

Channel 9 has reported extensively on city growth and development.

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