The Week in Review

....your Wilmington Connection

November 10, 2007

This week finished up with a bang! With 604 properties under contract. The real estate market here in Wilmington is still moving, would anyone like a new home for Christmas? You have just enough time. Interested have a look at how the real estate market finished up this week.

 

Convention center project nearing start The Wilmington Convention Center is finally on the cusp of construction, provided the much-debated, -litigated and -revised project can clear another hurdle - the concerns of the city council.

On Wednesday, the council is slated to vote to appropriate $55 million to build the center on the downtown riverfront and to approve contracts to begin work on its foundation and parking deck.

Shovels could hit dirt before Christmas, with work taking 18 to 24 months to complete. But some council members are leaning against the project, which no longer includes plans for a hotel.

"I want to see a project that is first-class, with a first-class hotel that has appeal for professional organizations to bring about 1,000 people here," said Councilwoman Laura Padgett. "Right now I am not going to be able to vote for the item on the agenda on Wednesday because there is no hotel."

In May, developer Armada Hoffler backed out of a deal to build a 270-room Marriott high-rise next to the center, saying it was no longer financially feasible for the company to develop a hotel in conjunction with the convention center. Location could let condos rise high
Project on Oak Island, county land evades limit

High-rise condominiums could be built to their proposed 135-foot height near the Oak Island bridge, but it will likely be two to four years before that happens.

Right now, the developer - Oak Island Property Holdings LLC - is focusing on another part of the project that includes a marina on the Intracoastal Waterway with 56 boat slips and a 224-boat dry storage facility.

The project on the mainland east of the bridge would straddle Oak Island and Brunswick County zoning jurisdictions, allowing the area's first high-rises despite the town's 55-foot maximum height limit.

The condos and three smaller buildings would sit in county territory, while the marina would be in Oak Island's.

Although public access to the waterway is desperately needed and residents don't seem to have a problem with the proposed marina, council member Dara Royal said, the condos have them in an uproar.

Steve Saieed, the developer's consultant, said the company plans to move forward with the marina and wait on the condos until the "market gets right." He added that could be two to four years. Grant to preserve wetlands
$302,000 will buy 258 acres on Eagles Island

Another piece of the puzzle to preserve Eagles Island as a "green" buffer between Wilmington and the burgeoning suburbs in northern Brunswick County has fallen into place.

The New Hanover Soil and Water Conservation District late last month was awarded a $302,000 state grant to purchase 258 acres of mostly wetlands along the western bank of the Cape Fear River.

The parcel, like most of Eagles Island, serves as important habitat for migrating waterfowl and the state's only known population of the Rare Skipper butterfly. For Hampstead, what's next?
Another incorporation bid isn't likely soon

After being at odds for almost a year, the two sides of the Hampstead incorporation issue finally agree on one thing - it will be years before anyone tries to incorporate the Pender County community again.

"The people spoke and clearly this is not something they want at this time," said Gary Poirier, a member of the pro-incorporation group Join Our Town and who would have served on Hampstead's interim town council. "I think the issue will come up again when the town starts really growing and expanding beyond what it is now and people want more control."

Residents of the community along U.S. 17 north of Wilmington overwhelmingly rejected a referendum on incorporation Tuesday, with 1,068 votes for and 2,686 against. All results are unofficial until the canvass is completed Tuesday.

Tony Musolino, a Hampstead resident and chairman of the anti-incorporation group Save Our Community, said the election made it clear that residents don't support incorporation. ......until next week in The Week in Review Tina