A Cornelius family wanted a new use for their farm. Here’s why officials said no.
The Cornelius Board of Commissioners unanimously rejected a rezoning late Monday for a Charlotte developer’s $39 million business park on a family’s 36 acres of farmland.
The board voted 5-0 against Greenberg Gibbons Properties’ proposed Cornelius Business Park on Bailey Road, directly across from the town’s recreational Bailey Road Park.
Commissioners sided with neighbors who said trucks from the business park on Gene Hunter’s land would endanger students at Hough High and Bailey Middle schools on the chronically backed-up road. Seniors in the Bailey’s Glen active older-adult community would also be at risk, they said.
The project would have generated about 900 daily trips on Bailey Road, according to project consultant Kimley-Horn.
But no 18-wheelers, Gene Hunter’s son, Wes, told The Charlotte Observer at the site last week. “Their customer base is straight delivery truck, van, service-industry, heating and air, plumbing, those kind of customers,” he said about the developer.
Such assurances failed to sway the commissioners.
The business park “will degrade the corridor and create long-term issues for the community,” commissioner Robert Carney said. “Bailey Road is a residential corridor now.”
“The project is not a good fit for the area,” commissioner Scott Higgins said.
Higgins said he agreed with town planning staff’s vision for the property combined with a larger, nearby private tract: A less intrusive business campus like the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, plus land for a public park.
Cornelius Business Park “wouldn’t be a business campus but an industrial park,” Mayor Woody Washam told the standing room only crowd of opponents in the Town Hall meeting room.
The park on Gene Hunter’s farmland would have included four Class A flex office buildings, generated 175 to 250 jobs and contributed $300,000 in annual tax revenue to the town and Mecklenburg County, according to figures from the developer.
The buildings would have totaled 188,100 square feet; the average size of a Walmart Supercenter is about 182,000 square feet.
A 40-foot vegetative buffer would have screened the park from Bailey Road, according to the developer’s plans.
On May 21, the Cornelius Planning Board voted 7-1 in favor of recommending the rezoning to the Board of Commissioners. The vote followed assurances by the developer that its planned road improvements would alleviate Bailey Road traffic snarls, not add to them.
Improvements would have included a roundabout at the entrance to the business park and an additional turn lane at N.C. 115 and Bailey Road, Wes Hunter told the Observer.
That would make three lanes at the intersection — a left-turn, a through lane and a right-turn, Hunter said.
A third lane would uncork traffic much as it did when the town added one at Westmoreland Road and U.S. 21, he said.
Developer says fears about project unwarranted
At Monday night’s meeting, Drew Thigpen, co-founder of Greenberg Gibbons Properties, told the audience: “Your fears of development are being weaponized against you.”
“There’s real frustration and fear in this room,” he told the Board of Commissioners before the public hearing on his rezoning request. “I don’t dismiss it. But we are the solution to this problem.”
His comment about being the solution drew derisive laughter from some in the audience.
During Monday’s public hearing before the board’s vote, opponents cited road congestion and safety concerns.
“It’s not a good fit,” resident Jack Higgins said.
Still, while most in the audience raised their hands when asked if they opposed the project, speakers at the hearing were evenly split: 16 against and 16 in favor.
Proponents cited the jobs, increased tax revenue and other economic benefits, including two Hough High students and Bill Russell, president and CEO of the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce.
And the road improvements “would cost Cornelius nothing,” Thigpen said.
Thigpen said the board’s vote was disappointing.
“We know local small businesses need and deserve the support of our project, and we plan to pursue our goals in another Lake Norman area community,” Thigpen said in a statement.
His company asked the town in 2023 and Monday night to rezone the property from “rural preserve” to “conditional zoning,” he said. That was “to allow the land to be developed for business campus use, as identified in the town’s land use plan.”
“The proposal had gained overwhelming support from the Town of Cornelius Planning Board in May,” Thigpen said. “A yes vote would have allowed the Hunter family, ninth generation Cornelius farmers, to sell their land in order to retire.”
This story was originally published June 3, 2025 at 5:00 AM.