Friday, November 8, 2024

Arboretum West submits plans for 360 apartments on Military Cutoff Road

One of several mixed-use developments recently approved for Military Cutoff Road, Arboretum West's construction plans will now go for technical review.

Construction plans for Arboretum West include 15 three-story buildings, housing 360 apartment units. (Port City Daily photo | Courtesy City of Wilmington)
Construction plans for Arboretum West include 15 three-story buildings, housing 360 apartment units. (Port City Daily photo | Courtesy City of Wilmington)

WILMINGTON—Construction plans for Arboretum West, a mixed-use development with several hundred apartments, were submitted to the city this week.

Arboretum West, along with neighboring development Arboretum Village, replace the former Wheel Estates mobile home park. Developed by Wilmington-based Tribute Properties, Arboretum features mainly apartments, with some retail and restaurant space.

According to construction plans submitted by CSD Engineering, Arboretum West will feature 21 buildings, 15 of which will be three-story apartment buildings. The plans call for 360 total apartments, with half being one-bedroom units and half being two-bedroom units.

The development will also feature 10,000 square feet of office space, 1,000 square feet of retail and 5,000 square feet of restaurant space.

The developments office, retail, and restaurant space will front on Military Cutoff Road, while the apartments will be set back along Station Road.

When the development was proposed in November of 2017, city staff pointed out that traffic at the intersection of Station Road and Military Cutoff Road was in excess of reasonable capacity. The developer acknowledged this, but countered that several aspects of the project trumped traffic concerns.

RELATED: Military Cutoff Road traffic gets an ‘F,’ but developer says its project trumps that

The developer stated the Arboretum project was a “more viable land use,” in keeping with City Council’s economic development priorities, and would result in improved “landscaping and aesthetics” – in essence, that it would look better than the mobile home park and would generate more tax revenue.

As with several other mixed-use developments along Military Cutoff Road, the Arboretum developer also pointed to planned NCDOT road improvements, including the Military Cutoff Extension. The developer claimed “the impact of any additional traffic generated by the proposed rezoning would be mitigated by these developments,”

Wilmington planning staff have routinely disputed this line of reasoning – including for The Avenue and CenterPoint projects – calling the impact of the NCDOT extension an “unknown,” that could actually increase traffic coming south from Pender County.

On May 1, City Council approved the rezoning for both Arboretum projects. The project goes before the city’s Technical Review Committee on Thursday, August 9.

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