Charlotte developer’s planned Lake Norman-area business park gets key endorsement
Despite residents’ traffic concerns, the Cornelius Planning Board backed a Charlotte developer’s planned 36-acre business park on curvy, congested, two-lane Bailey Road last week.
Cornelius Business Park would sprout on vacant land a quarter-mile east of the Bailey Road-N.C. 115 intersection, according to a rezoning application by Drew Thigpen, co-founder, partner and vice-president of development at Greenberg Gibbons Properties.
The park would be directly across from the town’s recreational Bailey Road Park and would include four buildings — two 22-foot-tall buildings on Bailey Road and two 29-foot-tall buildings within the property, toward the rear of the site.
The buildings would total 188,100 square feet. A 40-foot vegetative buffer would screen the park from Bailey Road, according to the developer’s plans.
The park would bring 150-plus jobs and much-needed improvements to Bailey Road, Thigpen told Cornelius Today.
The Bailey Road-N.C. 115 intersection notoriously backs up with cars, including from nearby Hough High and Bailey Road Middle School.
The improvements would include a roundabout to ease congestion and a westbound left-turn lane near the business park, according to Cornelius Planning Board documents.
Given those plans, the board recommended the rezoning by a 7-1 vote Wednesday. The Cornelius Board of Commissioners, which has final say, must now schedule a date for a public hearing on the request.
Town planning staff opposes the rezoning, senior planner Aaron Turk told the Planning Board before its vote. He drew applause from opponents in the packed meeting room at Town Hall.
The town has long envisioned a larger, business campus-type development for the site and surrounding acreage, Turk said. He cited LakePointe Corporate Center in Charlotte and North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis as examples.
The business park also wouldn’t mesh with plans for a park and greenway on the surrounding acreage, he said.
Nearby residents, including from the Bailey’s Glen active older-adult community, have long spoken out against allowing commercial/industrial buildings on the property, in part because of the trucks they said such buildings would add to an already clogged road.
Greenberg Gibbons Properties originally proposed five buildings totaling 198,000 square feet for the site, but later withdrew the plans amid opposition.
This story was originally published May 12, 2025 at 5:00 AM.