Business

City endorses Seventh Avenue shopping center road

By Bill Moss, Published: September 7, 2012

The Hendersonville City Council endorsed a connector from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to Seventh Avenue that developers say could clear the way for a shopping center.

Council members were generally supportive of the new road and the development.
"All you're doing is indicating whether you would support a new road, you're not approving a development," said City Manager Bo Ferguson.
Ferguson said DOT officials have said "they don't have any concern about adding this road on a road that's classified as limited access."
Councilman Steve Caraker attended a meeting with the developers and their engineer and DOT engineers last week during which the DOT officials "were about as positive as I've heard DOT. It's about a 6-month process" to get approval from the state Board of Transportation, he said.
The developers' engineer is a former DOT employee, Caraker said. The DOT engineers said during the meeting on site that they would pull in the Corps of Engineers for purposes of permitting the road.
Developers Rusty Pulliam of Asheville and Jeff Justus of Hendersonville have told city officials they want to sign a supermarket and drug store and at least one restaurant for the property, which currently contains the closed Four Seasons Cinema and the closed China Sea restaurant, built originally as a Ryan's restaurant.