By Annie Heath, Staff Writer
All around the island, bulldozers are smoothing dirt, foundations are being laid, frameworks of buildings are reaching into the sky, and the details about one new business after another are slowly falling into place.
While the OBX always seems to be adding rental houses and hotels for vacationers, currently, a building boom of new businesses is underway. The list is long: Marshalls, another Rack Room Shoes and Sugar Kingdom, the long-awaited Target and Cook Out, one of North Carolina’s first Wawa stores, and a car wash.
Long before these businesses open their doors to eager tourists and locals alike, town officials have to give their blessing. The site plans for Marshalls and Rack Room, being built side-by-side in the Southern Shores Marketplace, went through the Southern Shores town planning board and then were approved by the town council on Sept. 7, 2021.
Wes Haskett, the Deputy Town Manager/Planning Director for Southern Shores, explained that after the site plans were approved, the stores’ contractor and architect both applied for a building permit to make sure the new construction follows all building regulations, as well as a zoning permit to make sure the new project conforms to the community it is being built in.
“I review the plans and make sure that they’re consistent with what the town council approved. The building inspector reviews the building plans,” Haskett said. “Then our department – the Southern Shores planning and code enforcement department – issues the permits.”
Not far from the Marketplace and just south of Outer Banks Furniture, the construction of the third Sugar Kingdom on the Outer Banks is in its early stages. The Kitty Hawk planning board approved this project last December and it then went to the town council for its January 2022 meeting.
Rob Testerman, Director of Planning and Inspections for the town of Kitty Hawk, said that the site plan approval was only the first step. What followed was Sugar Kingdom getting all of its other permits in line. Once they submitted their building permit application and some other paperwork, Sugar Kingdom was issued their building permit in August and is now ready for construction.
“From the date that the permit was issued, they’ve got six months to call for their first inspection. They can start the actual construction whenever they’re ready between now and February,” Testerman said. “They don’t have to notify us before they start pouring concrete or anything, as they’ve got their permit issued.”
A little further down the beach, Kill Devil Hills has four businesses in the works currently.
On the south side of 5th Street on the bypass is where construction for the new Target is ongoing. This Target will inhabit the old Kmart, which went out of business in March of 2019. Because Target is modifying the existing structure rather than building from the ground up, this process works slightly differently.
“Target came in and they did an interior change. It was electrical, plumbing, mechanical and then cosmetic,” Kill Devil Hills Planning Director Meredith Guns said. “Then, their exterior changes had to be reviewed for zoning, for the architectural requirements, signage, and they’re changing the parking lot.”
Guns explained that Target has come a long way interior-wise despite running into shipping delays of needed materials. The business will include a Starbucks and CVS Pharmacy inside. However, the parking lot is not able to be done until spring, which pushes the estimated opening time to anywhere from late spring to the end of summer .
Just a street over from the new Target is the beginning of a Wawa gas station on 4th Street. The site plans for Wawa were reviewed and recommended by the planning board to the Board of Commissioners. They recently got their building permit and are ready to begin building out of the ground.
Now, how about that empty Burger King site with the promise of a Cook Out?
Bringing a Cook Out to the Outer Banks has been a work in progress since 2020. Toward the end of 2020, the Kill Devil Hills planning board approved site plans for a Cook Out at milepost 9.5, an old office for Southern Shores Realty. It then went through the Board of Commissioners, with plans to tear down the existing building and start from scratch.
“That approval expired. In the meantime, they bought the Burger King building,” Guns said. “At first, they were going to use the existing Burger King, then they were going to build their own building and rent the existing Burger King on the same site, and then they were going to tear down the Burger King and build their own site. But they’ve never submitted (site plans) for the Burger King site. So Cook Out currently owns two pieces of property.”
Lastly, on 8th Street in Kill Devil Hills, construction of a new car wash is coming along. The site plans for the unnamed car wash went through the Kill Devil Hills planning board as well as the Board of Commissioners.
With all of these new businesses coming into town, locals are bound to have mixed feelings: shop local vs. visiting big box retailers, preserving natural areas vs. providing more shopping and employment opportunities. But one of the biggest questions now lies in the fact that there already seem to be too many businesses and not enough employees.
Karen Brown, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce, said that some locals have expressed concern over staffing issues. There are already numerous understaffed businesses and a seemingly short supply of employees on the Outer Banks.
“I don’t think anybody’s opposed to the businesses coming. They’re concerned about where the employees (for these new businesses) are,” Brown said.
Still, the new businesses have many on the Outer Banks buzzing as they watch the construction progress and wait for exciting new opportunities to enjoy.
“We’re always happy to welcome new businesses to the community,” Brown said. “At the end of the day, we need (big businesses) to make up a good strong economy in our community.”
Junior Annie Heath can be reached at 24heathan45@daretolearn.org.
