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N.C. Port Authority Buys Undeveloped Industrial Land for $5.9 Million

Posted on: Friday, 13 January 2006, 21:00 CST

By Mark Schreiner, Star-News, Wilmington, N.C.

Jan. 13--By buying 94 acres off River Road, the N.C. State Ports Authority will get room to grow and head off a brewing controversy over development in southwestern New Hanover County.

On Tuesday, the state government approved the authority's purchase of undeveloped industrial land from DCLEP Ventures for $5.9 million. The land is about a half-mile south of the port's main truck entrance at Shipyard Boulevard and River Road.

The purchase means the ports will have a place to put shipping containers and equipment for maintenance and other purposes that could crowd the main port area as activity there picks up. The existing port is 284 acres. "This expansion gives us badly needed space," said ports spokeswoman Susan Clizbe.

It also means the authority will not need to pursue purchase of 200 acres of wooded U.S. Coast Guard land farther down River Road at Snows Cut. That land is now home to a station for the Coast Guard's Loran radio navigation network.

Since news of the port's intentions came out in October, homeowners' associations between Independence Boulevard and Snows Cut have been urging county leaders to try to get the land for park space. Neighbors feared truck traffic and noise from an industrial operation there would ruin one of the last big tracts of open land left in the county.

Unlike the Coast Guard land, the property purchased this week is closer to the main Wilmington port and well within the industrial area at the north end of River Road. The land, which on Thursday was sprouting scrubby pines and a "for sale" sign, is next to two busy fuel terminals. The land was "the better alternative" of all those available, Clizbe said.

A leader of the neighborhood effort said Thursday that the port's decision to buy land in the industrial zone near Shipyard Boulevard was good but that county leaders need to ensure the Coast Guard property isn't sold for some other industrial use.

"This is encouraging, but we will be vigilant," said Richard Mandel, a resident of The Cape community who is chairman of a new citizen's group, Loran for Parkland.

Mandel gave a presentation to the county parks advisory board Thursday, urging the group to ask the County Commissioners to make the Loran station into a park if it should become available for sale. "We're getting wonderful cooperation so far," Mandel said. "We're very encouraged."

Commissioners' Chairman Bobby Greer said the county likes the group's idea. "If the land ever ceased to be a Loran station, we would certainly be interested in buying it," he said. "Whether they will ask for $10 or $10 million remains to be seen."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Star-News, Wilmington, N.C.

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Source: Morning Star

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