Published: Fri, Aug. 10, 2007 12:00AM

Modified Fri, Aug. 10, 2007 05:44AM

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"I am a believer in slower growth, and the concern that I have is that with all of the stuff that has been passed that we are going to be growing too fast," said councilman Bill Jensen.

Jensen was one of four board members who voted for the rezoning but said Wednesday it was the "biggest mistake I've made since I've been on the town board."

All of these new developments will not crop up overnight. Still, when it's all done, Trinity's retail space would dwarf the area's biggest regional malls. However, it will be spread out over several buildings and may take a decade to build. The Villages of Apex may take five years or more to complete.

That's intentional, said Town Manager Bruce Radford. The town has set limits on how much of the project can be completed before things such as the I-540 extension are done.

"We work closely with developers to make sure that an inordinate amount of housing stock doesn't hit the market in a short period of time," he said. "Particularly in the case of Trinity, we anticipate that it's a 10-plus-year build out. There's a lot of infrastructure to get in the ground before it can be completed."

Long process

Just compiling all of the parcels of land within the project took four years, said developer Kent Cummings, who has been heading Trinity Apex Investment LLC and working as a liaison between all of the property owners and the town.

When it's time to start building, Trinity Apex Investments may sell the whole site to a developer or turn the project into a partnership, Cummings said.

"It depends on who comes to us," he said. "Plan A is to sell the land."

Now that the site has been approved for rezoning, it may take a year just to draw up site plans and get them approved by the town's planning board, said Atkinson, the broker.

The board is always able to ask developers to tweak their plans to address growth issues during the site plan review process, and that's something councilman Bryan Gossage said he hopes happens this time.

Gossage, who cast the lone dissenting vote in Tuesday's rezoning hearing, said his primary concern was the height of some of the buildings.

"I thought that 20-story, 200-foot [-high] buildings weren't compatible with the small-town image of Apex," he said.

Yet, Planning Director Khin said she thinks development so far matches the town's overall plan, which is spelled out in those individual small-area growth plans.

"We have developers who come in and ask, 'Where are the areas the town you would like developed?' " she said. "It was really helpful to have those plans in place so the developers knew what we were looking for."

For their part, developers say they are trying to address infrastructure issues in their plans.

Trinity's site plans show several new roads to provide access to the development and a new interchange on U.S. 1 between the future I-540 and N.C. 55.

"Apex is changing," Atkinson said. "That whole intersection of [N.C.] 55 and U.S. 1 has the potential of being the next Crabtree Valley."