News

Publix 'full speed ahead' to groundbreaking next year

By Bill Moss, Published: December 14, 2015

A Publix supermarket on Greenville Highway at White Street moved closer to reality Monday with a unanimous recommendation from the city Planning Board to grant variances and a rezoning that would clear the way for groundbreaking.

Halvorsen Development, which is guiding the so-called South Market Village project for Publix, confirmed publicly for the first time that the Florida-based grocer is indeed the mystery supermarket that everyone in town has assumed was Publix for a year. The confirmation came from the highest ranking possible source at Halvorsen, a Boca Raton developer that builds Publix stores.
“They have given approval of the site,” Halvorsen president Thomas Vincent. “So we’re full-speed ahead moving toward a groundbreaking in the mid to latter part” of 2016.
The top engineer for the project, Eric Hampton of Kimley Horn of Charlotte, also confirmed that the grocer likes the town and its seemingly insatiable appetite for high-end food markets.
“It’s a location Publix has had its eye on for a while,” Hampton said. “They have desperately wanted to be here in Hendersonville.”
The Planning Board made quick work of the technicalities, granting a special use permit, a rezoning to planned commercial development and variances on how far the pavement could be from Mud Creek. Members brushed aside concerns about traffic and stormwater runoff and flooding, saying an expensive solution to fix all the flooding problems at the corner of Greenville and Spartanburg highways was beyond the scope and capacity of its charge.

‘Huge positive impact’

“I think it’s looking very good,” Mayor Pro Tem Ron Stephens said as he left the Planning Board meeting. “I think it’s going to make a huge positive impact on the south side and will be very positive overall. When we lived in Florida my wife didn’t shop anywhere else.”

Jim Barnett, who owns the realty company across Greenville Highway from the Atha Plaza site that would be home to the new store, urged the Planning Board to act now to do what it can to fix drainage.

“I’m in favor of the project,” he said. “I think it’s a great project. It should be one of the best things to happen to the whole south side.”  But he said the city could capitalize on the chance now to prevent flooding in the future by making a large retention pond on city-owned land behind the Publix site.

“I don’t think the opportunity will come around again,” he said. “We ought to take advantage of it at this time, work it out with the city and make everybody happy.”

Traffic fixes planned

When Planning Board members expressed concerns about traffic, Hampton said the developer had met or exceeded every recommendation by the NCDOT and by the city’s traffic engineer.

Specifically, the developer agreed to:

• Extend the existing eastbound right-turn lane on White Street to accommodate stacking.
• Add a northbound left-turn lane on Greenville Highway with at least 100 feet of stacking.
• Construct a southbound right turn lane on Greenville Highway with 50 feet of stacking.

The developer plans 251 parking spaces, five more than city code requires.

The Planning Board recommended approval of two variances. One would allow a driveway behind the store to encroach on a part of the buffer protecting Mud Creek. The other would relieve the developer from adding a 5-foot planting strip at the rear of the property line. Because the property border is the centerline of Mud Creek, “we can’t physically plant in the zoning adjacent to the property line,” Hampton said. “We can’t plant within the water space of Mud Creek.” The developer would substitute an equal or greater planting strip on the southwestern corner of the property.

Development has already impaired the stream bank and the buffer zone protecting Mud Creek. “The existing developed condition within the 30-foot and 20-foot stream buffer is more (negatively) impactful than the proposed condition,” Halvorsen’s Vincent said in the application for a variance. “The development will enhance the streetscape and walkability of the area, and add stormwater BMPs (best management practices) that will reduce” negative impacts.

The development application goes on Jan. 7 to the Hendersonville City Council, which will hold a public hearing on the request.