Buc-ee’s faces critics as it makes another go at NC location. Here’s where project stands
An overflow crowd in Mebane rejected a record-setting-sized Buc-ee’s that they said could threaten the city’s local businesses and add to its increasing traffic and pollution.
The city’s Planning Board voted 6-3 at the end of a four-hour meeting to recommend that the City Council deny the project. The Mebane City Council will start its review Jan. 8 of the travel plaza and mega-gas station, city staff said.
The Texas-based company wants to build North Carolina’s first Buc-ee’s on 32 acres at 1425 Trollingwood-Hawfields Road. A 74,000-square-foot travel plaza would have 120 fueling spots (60 pump stations) and about 650 parking spaces.
Buc-ee’s has enthusiastic fans who seek out the stores’ knick knacks, barbecue, clean restrooms, wall of beef jerky and Beaver Nuggets. If approved, the Mebane store would be tied for the title of world’s largest gas station with a Buc-ee’s store that opened this year near Sevierville, Tennessee.
But the store’s aren’t always popular with those who live there. The proposed Mebane site is the company’s second attempt at building near the Triangle. It’s nine miles west of Efland, another site that Buc-ee’s dropped in 2021 after the Orange County commissioners said the 64,000-square-foot store and its 80-foot sign were too big.
Mebane resident Mary McFarland, one of a few dozen people who criticized the newest plans, called the decision a hard one, saying that while many support the project, “big is not always better.”
“I feel for y’all, because it’s a hard place, and I also agree in a way that this decision has been made,” McFarland said Monday, referring to a recent land sale. “They meet the standards, they meet the questions, but honestly in your heart of hearts, is this what you want Mebane to be known for?”
The new location in Alamance County’s N.C. Commerce Park already includes Walmart, Lidl and UPS distribution centers. Crow Holdings, which sold the land to a Buc-ee’s affiliate, has approval to build a 279,000-square-foot warehouse on the site.
The area is otherwise rural and residential, with a Love’s Travel Stop and a Pilot Travel Center. The site is adjacent to Hawfields Presbyterian Church and the Hawfields baseball field.
The Graham City Council and Alamance County Board of Commissioners also will need to vote on the plan.
What to know about Buc-ee’s
▪ Buc-ee’s has built over 60 stores in several states in the last 40 years.
▪ At the Mebane site, a bike and pedestrian pathway, with crosswalks and pedestrian signals, would be built on Trollingwood-Hawfields Road, starting at Senator Ralph Scott Parkway and crossing the Interstates 40/85 bridge.
▪ The plaza would have two driveways on Trollingwood-Hawfields Road and a third on Senator Ralph Scott Parkway.
▪ Buc-ee’s would widen Trollingwood-Hawfields Road, the bridge over Interstates 85/40 and the interstates’ on-and off-ramps. It also would add stoplights at four intersections.
What’s happened so far?
▪ CSMS Management LLC, which is affiliiated with Buc-ee’s, paid $12.8 million for the land in October, according to Alamance County records.
▪ The seller, CHI/Acquisitions, LP, had bought the land as part of a 90-acre, $14 million deal earlier this year.
▪ CHI/Acquisitions is the development arm of Crow Holdings Industrial, which got Mebane’s approval to annex and rezone the property for warehouses in December 2022. The Buc-ee’s plan needs Mebane City Council approval to rezone the land again for the travel plaza.
▪ Buc-ee’s has been working with Mebane officials for several months to revise the plan, which city staff now says meets the city’s plans for growth in that area.
What are the concerns?
▪ One of the biggest concerns is how the Buc-ee’s travel plaza will affect surrounding roads, including N.C. 119, which serves as a busy corridor from southern Alamance County to Mebane and Interstate 85/40.
▪ N.C. Department of Transportation data showed roughly 10,000 trips a day on Trollingwood-Hawfields Road in 2019. A traffic study indicates Buc-ee’s could add another 1,000 to 1,500 trips each hour during morning and evening commutes, and nearly 2,300 trips at peak hours on Saturdays. Buc-ee’s does not serve tractor-trailer trucks.
▪ A Voice for Efland, the group that rallied against the Orange County project, has aligned itself with the Alamance County-based 7 Directions of Service, which is mounting a petition drive and encouraging the public to speak against the project.
▪ A key concern is water, air and noise pollution, primarily how parking and other impervious surfaces could affect water quality and increase stormwater runoff into Back Creek and the Haw River. Similar environmental and traffic concerns were raised in Orange County, where the 104-acre plan also included up to 400,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and offices.
▪ 7 Directions of Service organizers also noted the area is part of the historic Indian Trading Path, or Catawba Path, which connects the area along Old N.C. 10, Bowden Road and Old Hillsborough Road to points south and north, including tribal lands in Orange County.
What they said: “On a normal weekend, we’ll see tens of thousands of people coming through,” Buc-ee’s spokesman Jeff Nadalo said in a previous interview.
What happens next?
▪ The council is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Jan. 8 to review the project and will have the first of three required approvals.
▪ The Graham City Council and Alamance County Board of Commissioners also have to approve the plan because the site is in the 1,200-acre N.C. Commerce Park. Each government gets a share of the park’s tax revenues and input into water and sewer decisions.
▪ Negotiations will determine the size of Buc-ee’s proposed signs. The company wants a 400-square-foot sign that is 90 feet tall — about the length of a college basketball court. Mebane’s limit is a 300-square-foot sign that is 60 feet tall. Buc-ee’s also wants wall signs bigger than 200 square feet.
▪ Once all three governments sign off, Buc-ee’s will work with Mebane city staff to get construction plans approved.
