A friendly face on U.S. 401 may disappear

RALEIGH -- Goodbye, Big Man. Make way for multistory office buildings and hundreds of homes.

A Louisiana company is buying 260 acres at U.S. 401 and the Outer Loop to develop 800 houses and 1.2 million square feet of offices and shops.

Since 1984, that property has been home to a 25-foot-high fiberglass Paul Bunyan look-alike that locals know as Big Man.

Robert Bradsher, who uses the figure to mark his sand and soil business, is selling the land his family has owned since 1948.

In recent years, farmland in northeast Raleigh has given way to development, including Wake Technical Community College's northern campus just a mile north of Bradsher. A rezoning of 358 acres on nearby Buffaloe Road is pending for a 1,000-home subdivision, and the exploding retail centers around Triangle Town Center mall are just one Interstate 540 interchange away.

Baton Rouge-based Commercial Properties Development envisions an employment and residential center on the Bradsher land.

"This development ... will blend a mix of uses to create a pedestrian-driven community," said Camm Morton, Commercial's chief executive.

"People who live in the neighborhood will be able to walk to work and to shops. They will also be able to walk to the doctor's office, and to parks and other community recreation amenities."

A community center, bike and footpaths and a connection to city greenways are also planned. The company is talking to Wake County about putting an elementary school on the tract.

The developer will submit its rezoning request to Raleigh planners Friday and hopes to begin construction early next year.

City planning director Mitchell Silver said it's too early to say whether the rezoning will be approved, although company representatives have been discussing the project with planners for a month.

"We like the direction that it's headed," he said. "It's a pedestrian-oriented village where people can walk, and there's a diversity of uses that people can use that live there or go there to visit."

County tax records value the land at about $3 million. But comparable land sales could bring the total property sale to $26 million, or $100,000 an acre. Carolantic Realty of Raleigh brokered the sale.

Mack Paul, an attorney representing Commercial Properties, said that about 30 buildings would be clustered in a "town square" surrounded by single-family homes, townhouses and apartments. Some homes would be above ground-level shops. Up to 500,000 square feet of offices in five- and six-story buildings are planned.

Bradsher, who, among other services, supplies a clay-and-sand mix to baseball diamonds throughout the Triangle, said he wants to move his business if the sale goes through.

Bradsher bought Big Man during an auction at Giant Decorator, a paint and wallpaper store in downtown Raleigh. The statue is one of about 150 figures made as gas station advertisements during the 1960s. They became known as Muffler Men because many held giant mufflers, with their right palm up, their left down.

But Big Man won't have a home in the new subdivision.

"The Big Man will go where I go," Bradsher said.