News

Publix moves closer to breaking ground

By Bill Moss, Published: January 19, 2017

A contractor building the new Publix on Greenville has received permission for the next step to win a federal permit to build in the floodplain.

Halvorsen Development Corp., which is building the 60,000-square-foot supermarket for the Lakeland, Fla.-based grocery chain, failed to get a so-called no-rise permit from the Federal Emergency Management Agency because it could not show that the construction would cause no high water upstream.
Last week the Hendersonville Lightning published a public notice announcing the intent to revise the flood hazard map up to 6,900 feet upstream of the project. The floodway revision up to 1,000 feet “does not affect the overall width of the floodway or the floodway boundaries” beyond the project site. Models show a base-flood elevation rise of one- to two-one-hundredth of a foot 6,000 feet upstream. “However, a comparison to existing conditions do not reflect an actual increase in flood elevations,” the public notice says.
People can review maps and a detailed analysis of the floodway revision at the city planning office, 100 N. King St., or call Zoning Administrator Susan Frady at 828-697-3010, through Feb. 11.
Tom Vincent, Halvorsen’s president, told the Lightning last month that the floodway map revision is a common next step when a builder can’t get a no-rise permit. The backup plan for a FEMA permit “was a path that was out there and now we’re on it,” he said. “The only real impact is from a time perspective. It’s in and it’s tracking. Hopefully we’ll have that shortly and we’ll be off and running.”
The permitting delay backed up the supermarket chain’s plan to have construction started by now and to open its first Hendersonville store this year.