More NC State land sold for Beltline widening, but Meredith College mostly spared
The trees began coming down along the Interstate 440 Beltline near Hillsborough Street last the weekend, after the state’s top elected leaders approved the sale of more than 10 acres of N.C. State University land for the widening of the highway.
The purchase will help the N.C. Department of Transportation and its contractors carry out the four-year overhaul of the Beltline in West Raleigh without using as much land as initially feared.
NCDOT will pay about $4.6 million for the property, which is mostly on the west side of the Beltline near Hillsborough Street and Western Boulevard. The Council of State, made up of Gov. Roy Cooper and nine other statewide elected officials, approved the sale in two parts last week.
The first part consists of 7.24 acres assigned to the N.C. State vet school and agriculture programs. That number includes some property that will be needed only during construction and will eventually return to NCSU, according to Alicia Knight, associate vice chancellor for university real estate and development.
Knight said the university will lose some parking and roads in this transaction but no buildings, as it did when NCDOT bought three buildings on Brickhaven Drive for $6.5 million last fall. The buildings and Brickhaven Drive itself have disappeared to make way for the wider highway.
The other 3.1 acres approved last week were controlled by the University Club off Hillsborough Street and include the club’s tennis courts and most of its main parking lot. The club will use $2.1 million generated from the sale to build new courts elsewhere on its property, resulting in the loss of three of the nine holes on its par-3 golf course.
It could have been much worse for the University Club, which was founded as a gathering place for faculty in the 1960s. When NCDOT unveiled its initial plans in 2017, the club stood to lose at least 17 acres to the highway and new exit and entrance ramps for Wade and Hillsborough. At a public hearing that summer, dozens of members told NCDOT the club could be forced to close.
Across the highway, Meredith College was told it could lose 13.5 acres to the Beltline project. While no buildings were threatened, college officials said the freeway would consume land needed for future expansion and would forever change the character of the 225-acre campus. It would also have displaced the Reedy Creek greenway trail that follows the western edge of the campus and parallels the highway.
NCDOT engineers went back and refined their plans to use less land. The department also provided incentives to further reduce the footprint to The Lane Construction Corp., which won the $347 million contract to do the final designs and construction.
In the end, Meredith College will permanently lose only about 1.2 acres to the project. NCDOT is also taking an easement on 3 acres for use during construction, but that is only temporary.
The Reedy Creek greenway trail will largely remain in tact, though a 300-foot section will be rerouted to make room for a new off ramp to Wade Avenue. There will also be a new fence built between the highway and the campus.
Meredith’s president, Jo Allen, said the college was pleased with the results.
“No one wants to lose land, but we certainly realize the importance of the safety of all travelers along the Beltline,” Allen said in a written statement. “As good citizens of Raleigh and North Carolina, we are pleased that our agreement enhances safety for all while retaining the garden-like aura of our beautiful campus.”
The four mile-stretch of the Beltine from Wade to Interstate 40 was built in the 1960s and is the last four-lane section of the highway. NCDOT is widening it to six lanes and reconfiguring the interchanges at Wade, Hillsborough, Western and Jones Franklin Road. Work began in the summer of 2019 and is expected to take four years to complete.
The state is taking several other properties along I-440 for the widening project, including several houses. A spokesman said NCDOT is still negotiating the final purchases of about 10 parcels. Those include more land controlled by NCSU, Knight said in an email.
“We are in the middle of the process and are working to wrap up discussions with DOT on remaining land impacts in the coming months,” she wrote.
This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 10:38 AM.
