County approves Buckhorn Village

Developers project $7M in tax revenue

Developers of the 1.1 million square-foot Buckhorn Village retail development in northern Orange County hope to break ground within a year, if they can get the financing.

"The capital markets in this country have ground to a standstill," developer Roger Perry said Tuesday night, after the Orange County commissioners approved the project at Interstate 85 and Buckhorn Road in Efland.

The 4-0 vote -- Commissioner Mike Nelson was out of town -- was all but final. The county attorney will revise some wording before a binding vote at a future meeting.

Tax revenue projections prepared by the developers indicate the $125 million Buckhorn Village could generate almost $6 million in sales tax revenue and $1.35 million in property tax revenue a year for the county.

Perry has said the project will generate 1,000 to 1,500 constructions jobs and 1,500 to 2,000 permanent jobs.

The agenda item for Tuesday's vote was thick with concessions from the developers. They included road improvements, tree and shrub requirements and a promise to make 15 percent of up to 200 planned housing units affordable. The developers plan to build residences above shops but will have the option of making a payment toward local affordable-housing efforts instead of building the actual affordable units.

Some community members had criticized the retail project, which is going into an area the county had zoned for higher-paying industrial jobs. Others wanted to see a project where more people could live, work and play without getting in their cars.

"We did listen to a lot of people," commissioners Chairman Barry Jacobs said. But he said retail jobs are important and the county has long been losing sales tax dollars to its neighbors.

"I-40 and I-85 are the Main Streets of North Carolina," Jacobs said. "We're not inviting traffic to come a long distance to this development. It's passing right by."