To the east of Mecklenburg County, Lucy Drake, mayor of the Union County town of Stallings, has asked the N.C. Department of Transportation to consider making the proposed Monroe bypass a toll road, alleviating congestion on U.S. 74 on the eastern side of Charlotte. The DOT will manage the toll road project approved by the legislature and will license a private developer to build one public toll road somewhere in North Carolina. Officials have not yet selected a developer or selected which county will get the project. The Monroe bypass would stretch from Marshville to U.S. 601 in Monroe and on toward Mecklenburg County.

Gaston County wants a southern bypass and a new bridge crossing the Catawba River into Mecklenburg County quicker than state transportation officials expect to have money to build it. Preliminary plans call for a 26-mile, $400 million bypass that would stretch from west Gastonia to the southeast and over the Catawba River near the Duke Energy Allen Steam Plant south of Belmont. The $500,000 federal appropriation Gaston expects to have in hand by next spring will only cover a portion of the expected $2 million to $3 million cost of an environmental impact study. — Laura Williams-Tracy


ASU Opens a New Convocation Center
The $3.1 billion higher education bonds approved by voters last month will bring an estimated $82 million in new construction, repairs and renovations to Appalachian State University. Not one penny, however, will need to be spent on a convocation center. That's thanks primarily to George Holmes and Seby Jones, whose private donations were the driving force behind the Boone school's newest jewel, the George Holmes Convocation Center. It was christened Nov. 17 with a men's basketball game against the nationally-ranked Carolina Tar Heels in Seby Jones Arena.

The center, which sits on 8.4 acres, will be used for a range of academic, athletic and cultural events. In addition to the basketball arena, the three-story structure, at 200,840 square feet, contains six classrooms,13 laboratories and 32 offices for the Department of Health, Leisure and Exercise Science. There's also an indoor running track, locker and dressing rooms, management space and extensive public service areas. The arena will host graduations and convocations as well as community and cultural events. It will seat 9,034 for graduation and convocation events, 8,800 for performances and 8,576 for basketball.

Holmes, a Mount Airy native who lives in Hamptonville, is a 12-term Republican state House member representing Yadkin, Wilkes and Alexander counties. He attended ASU on a football scholarship from 1950-54 and later excelled in the insurance industry. Jones, a Franklin native who lives in Raleigh and was the city's mayor from 1969-71, was an ASU trustee for eight years and chaired the board in 1990-91. He founded the university's Alumni Memorial Scholarship and a scholarship for students from Wake County. He co-founded the company now known as Davidson Jones Beers, a Raleigh construction and development firm. — Kevin Brafford

Dare County
Uncle Sam Plans a Beach (Renourishment) Trip
Last August we told you about a beach nourishment project that has been a boon to the state's southern beaches. Help may be coming to the Outer Banks as well, as Congress has approved spending $1.8 billion over the next 50 years pumping sand onto two strands of severely eroding beaches in Dare County. The legislation was spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a Republican from Farmville who represents the area. It is a part of the Water Resources Development Act of 2000, a bill that declares lawmakers' priorities for coming years but leaves funding decisions to future Congresses.

The nourishment, which would also require state and local funds, would help protect Dare County's 14.8 miles of beachfront homes and businesses from hurricanes and a steady erosion that is choking coastlines throughout the country. In a report released during the summer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency predicted that one in every four homes within 500 feet of the coastline would be swallowed by water in the next 60 years. There's plenty at stake, says state Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, a Democrat from Manteo, the small town just west of the affected area. “This allows the community to have a beach,” he says. Further, it would help ensure that the county's tourist-driven tax base — expected to bring in more than $800 million this year alone — maintains its vitality. “Where do these vacationers go?” Basnight asks. “Are you just going to tell them to go to Virginia Beach, or are you going to tell them to go to Myrtle Beach?”

In the first phase of the project, which is set for 2004, the Army Corps of Engineers would construct a 13-foot-high dune and a 50-foot-wide berm on segments of beach in Nags Head, Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills. The Corps estimates the cost at $71.7 million; under the bill, the federal government would cover 65 percent of that, and state and local governments would pick up the rest. For the next 50 years, the Corps would pump additional sand onto the beaches as necessary. The average annual cost is estimated at nearly $35 million. The federal government would pony up half of that and leave the remainder to state and local governments. Dare County leaders have begun discussing how to pay for their share of the costs. Foremost in their minds is raising the occupancy tax from 3 percent to 4 percent. — Kevin Brafford


Triad
A New Group Wonders Why Winston-Salem Isn't Growing Much
Changes in the Twin City's business landscape have caught the attention of 75 major employers, who have launched Winston-Salem Alliance, a nonprofit organization that will address critical issues. At the helm is J. Allen Joines, 52, who retired in September as an assistant city manager. The group has a 24-person executive steering committee made up of some of the largest or most influential companies in the city. Chairing the group is L.M. “Bud” Baker, chairman and CEO of Wachovia Corp., who created the Alliance out of his personal sense that the city was being left behind as it struggles to change its old image of being the center of cigarette and textile manufacturing.

Baker's beliefs were bolstered by watching companies such as Hanes become just another division of a national corporation. Add to that Piedmont Airlines' evaporation altogether and R.J. Reynolds being forced to shrink its work force, and you can understand the concern. “The mission of the alliance is to coordinate the private sector response to what we feel are needed changes in the economic makeup of the community,” says Joines. “We will do that by identifying the critical issues and developing a focused agenda for action, then acting on a selected group of projects that can have a positive and direct impact on the creation of jobs and furthering the economic vitality of the community.”

The alliance's first public task was to hire Hillwood Strategic Services of Fort Worth, Texas, to evaluate Winston-Salem in four areas: the city's preparedness to capitalize on the proposed Federal Express hub at the Piedmont Triad International Airport; downtown revitalization; technology and entrepreneurship; and transportation. The Hillwood group is a division of a company headed by Ross Perot Jr. that has successfully developed thousands of acres around Alliance Airport 35 miles north of Fort Worth over the past decade. A FedEx hub is based at the airport, which is surrounded by factories, offices and distribution space, as well as thousands of single family homes and condominiums. Joines says of primary concern to the alliance is Winston-Salem's lagging employment growth compared to Charlotte and Raleigh. The city has lagged behind both of its competing regions for decades. — Clint Johnson


Triad
Randleman Dam Decision Due `Early Next Year'
John Kime, executive director of the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority, has been living with the Randleman Dam for more than 10 years and the first drop of water has not yet backed up behind the first foot of poured concrete. First proposed in 1937 as a dam on the Deep River to control flooding of the Cape Fear River basin, the Randleman Dam has since become a symbol of the Triad's lack of water resources. While Winston-Salem draws its water from the regularly flowing Yadkin River, Greensboro draws its water from two relatively small reservoir lakes that have come close to putting the city in a water emergency during lengthy dry spells. The city's business and political leaders have been clamoring for the project for decades.

Authorized in 1968, the 3,000-acre lake project would slowly form over a year after damming both Muddy Creek and Deep River. It would take two years of construction to prepare for the dam. About 95 percent of the land has been purchased and 90 percent of the design work has been completed. All that is needed is an OK from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a spokesperson said that a decision on the permit would come “early next year.”

Kime says the project has jumped at least a half-dozen different hurdles thrown in its path over the past 30 years by environmental groups concerned about water quality. Several court challenges have been met and the dam has been approved by every environmental body necessary, including the EPA. The lake will likely not look like Lake Norman, north of Charlotte, which is designed to provide cooling water for Duke Power's nuclear power plants. Since Randleman Lake's intent will be to provide drinking water, it is likely that there will be stringent restrictions on power boating. Sailboats and fishing, however, will be allowed. Kime refuses to get too excited. “We've learned not to be overly optimistic,” he says. “I've always said when see the water, then I will know that we have won.” — Clint Johnson


Richmond County
New Bypass Eases Traffic, Especially on Race Days
Drivers generally don't associate gridlock with Richmond County — that is, unless they've been mired in traffic on NASCAR race days at the Rockingham Motor Speedway near the convergence of U.S. 1, U.S. 220 and U.S. 74. The sailing should be smoother now, however, thanks to the Nov. 28 opening of the U.S. 74 bypass, a 13.1-mile stretch that runs just south of Rockingham and its sister town, Hamlet. Constructed at an approximate cost of $120 million, the project was completed a little more than a month ahead of schedule, providing drivers with an early Christmas gift. At the ribbon cutting, scheduled for 10 a.m. on Nov. 28, the bypass was named the G.R. Kindley Freeway — in honor of the former Rockingham mayor and current vice chairman of the state Board of Transportation. The established U.S. 74 route between Rockingham and Hamlet was the only remaining two-lane segment, according to Calvin Leggett, director of planning and programming for the state DOT. The bypass eventually will become part of the Interstate 74/Interstate 73 corridor that will link Detroit to Charleston, S.C. — Kevin Brafford


Charlotte
State's Largest Mall Set to Double in Size
Capping nearly four years of debate, the city council has approved a rezoning that will allow SouthPark, North Carolina's largest mall, to nearly double in size. The $100 million expansion, which will begin right after the holidays, will bring two of the nation's top department stores, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom, to the mall by 2002. The expansion makes way for more than 40 new specialty retailers, possibly including Gucci, Hermes, FAO Schwartz, Armani, Versace and Cartier. The project also includes an exterior renovation and the addition of an amphitheater for the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, which performs a season-long concert series on the mall grounds each summer. First to be built will be a two-level parking deck and the Symphony venue. Then work will begin on the new wing housing Saks and Nordstrom. Trammel Crow Co., which manages the mall, has offered to improve intersections near the mall, to build a new transit hub for city buses delivering shoppers to the mall, and to make the development more pedestrian-friendly with more walkways from the street to the building. — Laura Williams-Tracy


Triad
Las Vegas Wants What High Point's Got
There was good and bad news at the fall furniture market, sending industry leaders home from High Point with cautious optimism. One the one hand, 900,000 square feet of new showroom space — most of it at the center of downtown — helped ease a space crunch that had kept companies on exhibit space waiting lists for years. But on the other hand, there were signs that a slowing economy and escalating oil prices could frighten consumers into a closer watch on their checkbooks. And on the peripheral was another potential challenge. A Las Vegas investment group announced plans to build 5 million square feet of furniture showroom space — about half that of High Point's — with an eye perhaps on cornering a portion of a market that brings in more than $300 million annually to the Piedmont Triad.

Still, Nancy High, president of the International Home Furnishings Marketing Association, does not sound worried. “Although we have the largest trade show for home furnishings in the world, we must constantly work to make sure it stays a strong, viable market that buyers want to attend,” she says. “High Point provides a business environment to hold that trade show. Las Vegas, on the other hand, is more of a pleasure capital. I think the people who are coming to the furniture market are serious about their business. They are putting in 12 hours a day and entertainment is not their priority.

“The Las Vegas bid is a reminder that we have to keep on doing the best possible job we can to keep this show the best that it can possibly be.” At this point, High Point showroom developers are paying little attention to potential competition from Las Vegas. Plans are proceeding to add another million square feet of furniture showroom space that should be ready for next fall's Market. — Clint Johnson


Wilmington
Look Who's No. 2 Nationally in Small-business Growth
For years people have gushed about business growth in the Triangle and Charlotte, but now a new report says growth in Wilmington hasn't been too shabby either. The analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Demographics Daily places Wilmington at No. 2 in growth among the nation's 276 metro areas with a small-business growth rate of 28.9 percent in the five years ended in 1998. Only the three-county Las Vegas metro region fared better, jumping by 36.9 percent. Raleigh-Durham grabbed the seventh spot in the survey with a small-business growth rate of 24.4 percent; Charlotte was 17th with a growth rate of 17.9 percent; the Triad came in at 78th with a growth rate of 10.3 percent. Fayetteville was at 180th place with a growth rate of 5.4 percent. Wilmington, with a population of about 220,000, had 7,541 small businesses in 1998, compared with roughly 5,400 in 1993. The Census Bureau defines a small business as one employing fewer than 100 people. The Triangle, with a population just over 1 million, had 31,112 small businesses in 1998, a gain approaching 6,100 from five years earlier. As a whole, the United States had almost 6.8 million small businesses in 1998, a gain of 8.2 percent from 1993. — Kevin Brafford


Hickory
Service Jobs Finally Exceed Manufacturing as Retail Booms
After years with more than 50 percent of its jobs in manufacturing, the Catawba Valley is finally seeing service jobs surpassing goods-producing jobs, according to statistics released by the Western Piedmont Council of Governments. From 1990 until 1998, the number of service jobs rose from about 74,000 to almost 94,000, while the number of manufacturing jobs dropped from about 87,000 to 85,000. The data is for the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton MSA, which includes Catawba, Alexander, Burke and Catawba counties. The trend is expected to continue, thanks mainly to growth in the retail sector and technological advancements in manufacturing. During the 1990s, growth in retail sales was dramatic, according to the report, and higher than in either Asheville or Myrtle Beach. Retail sales rose from $1.6 billion in 1990 to $4.1 billion in 2000. Sales of food and drinks and sales by general merchandise stores more than tripled during the period. Among the 323 MSAs in the country, the Hickory-Morganton-Lenoir MSA ranked 151st in retail sales from 1990 to 2000. — Charlene T. Nelson


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