State, downtown merchants

disagree on how street

widening timetable

will unfold
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

The $33 million widening of East King Street is already leading to some shaky ground even before the first bulldozers hit the pavement.

The N.C. Department of Transportation has been paying visits to business owners along the expected route of the widened highway, making them aware of the coming relocation. However, none of the properties have been appraised and even the property owners have had little contact with the state, so business owners fear the uncertainty may damage their livelihood.

Bob Meier, owner of Doe Ridge Pottery on King Street near the Hardin Street intersection, said DOT agents had visited him last week and dropped off a pamphlet about what he could expect when the state buys the property.

However, Meier said not only did they fail to give him any indication of when he’d be forced to leave the site he’d used for 20 years, they offered a firm price to cover his moving expenses that he characterized as “chump change.”

“This has been a burden for owners and renters as well,” Meier said. “They’re treating us like we’re a nuisance that’s just in the way. They have no idea what it takes to run or move a business.”

He said the state’s $12,000 offer for him to relocate wouldn’t make a dent in the expenses he would be facing. Not only did he build up customer recognition from his current location, he also had to add custom renovations to the building to house his pottery kilns. A few years ago, he spent $15,000 on renovations and still owes two-thirds of that money.

“That’s an insult for what I have invested in this business,” Meier said. “I have to pay my expenses up front and wait to receive the reimbursement. It’s going to kill my year, if it doesn’t put me out of business.”

Meier said two DOT right-of-way agents told him the 90-day time frame would likely begin in the summer or fall.

However, Denille Mills, DOT interim supervisor for right-of-way acquisitions in Division 11, said right-of-way purchases wouldn’t begin until 2009.

“We’re making initial contacts to gather information,” Mills said. “We’re just explaining the program. No offers have been made.”

Jim Paal, who owns Dan’l Boone Inn and a strip of five business spaces that will be relocated, said the state had only told him that an appraisal would take place in the next few weeks.

He feels the process is backwards, because until the property is purchased, the business owners who rent from him won’t know when to begin their relocation. He also is worried about the expense of redesigning his parking lot after a portion is taken for two new turn lanes.

“They haven’t talked to us,” Paal said. “If they could let us know concretely when the building is going down, it would open up that many more days for the tenants to find a new place.”

“I’ve worked on this business for 30 years,” Meier said. “I’ve spent 20 years establishing this location. They want me to take all that effort and move it in 90 days.”

Meier ran down a list of possible problems that would make such a quick move unlikely. First, he said with so many businesses looking for space at the same time, it would be difficult for all the businesses to survive.

Rent is also higher elsewhere, he said, and the month-to-month lease Paal offers will probably be replaced by a lease that will require deposits and payment of rent up front.

Meier also believes it will be difficult to not only schedule a contractor for renovations during that time, it would be impossible to go through all of the town of Boone planning inspections and procedures.

Tom Rooney, who has owned PC Medics for nine years, said he understands the need for road improvements but doesn’t agree with the state’s handling of businesses.

“I wrote to DOT four or five times, asking them when I might be moving,” Rooney said of his computer business.

“They said I’d get 90 days, but they won’t tell me when the 90 days begins.”

Rooney also said it would take a long time to recoup the loss due to a business move. “I’m looking at my rent doubling and I’ll have to advertise to get people to my new location,” he said. “I printed out a budget and it will cost me an extra $19,000 a year to be somewhere else. It will cost me $24,000 to move because of renovation. The state didn’t want to hear budgets. They said, ‘This is what you’re getting; take it or leave it.’”

The 1.1 mile project will likely relocate 63 residences and 25 businesses. Right-of-way acquisition will cost $21,228,000; utilities will cost $717,154; and construction will cost $11.2 million.

In addition to widening and turn lanes, the project will improve East King Street’s intersections with Grove Street, Hardin Street, N.C. 105 Ext., New Market Boulevard/Forest Hills Drive and N.C. 194. From the N.C. 105 Ext. intersection to N.C. 194, the road will be widened into a six-lane, divided road with curbing and gutters, and a raised concrete median of varying width will be constructed to separate opposite direction travel lanes. From Hardin Street to N.C. 105 Ext., the road will be widened to four lanes with turning lanes with a 17-and-a-half foot raised median and five-foot sidewalks on both sides.

Trent Beaver, District 11 DOT engineer, said the rush was on to get the project underway. He said the state would have to move aggressively in order to meet its targeted beginning date of April 2009. He said right-of-way purchases are scheduled to be complete by Feb. 23 of next year. The road is still in the design phase, but Beaver said the property acquisitions needed to be settled this year to keep the project on schedule. The work is expected to take at least two years.

Meier said he understood the state wanted to speed up the process in order to add improvements by the time a new Watauga High School opened in 2010, but he also felt the work was designed to benefit Appalachian State University and its football audience.

Rooney said, “I can’t shut down for a month and remodel something. I’ll have to make my business grow enough in a year to offset all these extra costs.”

Rooney is not content with simply grousing to state officials. He started a Web site at pcmedicsvsnc.com to chronicle his conflict with the state. His tag line is “How NC kills small businesses.”

Meier resents the state’s treatment partly because of the contributions he’s made to the tax base over several decades. “When I moved in here, I was planning to be here until I retired,” he said. “I have four daughters in college. I wanted to sell this as a business with the name and location, but now I’ll probably have to work a lot longer than I was planning to before I can retire.”