New-home plans the highlight of
Smithfield's year
Almost 500 subdivision lots
approved beside
Buffalo Road
The
number of housing units in
new subdivisions approved
by the Smithfield Town
Council in 2024 appears to
be unprecedented, and
follows on the heels of
several other major
residential projects
previously approved and
now under construction.
Here's a rundown of the
major projects brought
forth in 2024 and their
current status:
• "Local 70" – a
combination residential
and commercial plan
including 627 dwelling
units on more than 160
acres of woodlands
straddling Durwood
Stephenson Parkway east of
Booker Dairy Road.
Approved in May but not
yet begun is construction
of 209 single-family
houses, 94 townhouses, and
324 apartments.
• Unnamed subdivision on
Lampe family's land – 170
lots for single-family
houses on 138 wooded acres
on the east side of
Buffalo Road adjacent to
the Bradford Park
subdivision. The project
was approved in July;
construction has not yet
begun.
• "Buffalo Ridge" – 210
lots for single-family
houses on 140 acres of
cleared land on the west
side of Buffalo Road south
of existing residences on
Holland Drive. That
project won approval in
September; construction
has not begun.
• "Village on the Neuse" –
117 lots for single-family
houses on 42 acres of open
land on the west side of
Buffalo Road between
Holland Drive and
Smithfield Middle School.
The council approved that
project in December;
construction has not
begun.
Meanwhile, construction is
well under way on large
subdivisions in West
Smithfield and beyond:
• "Finley Landing"
(originally "Floyd
Landing") – 669 units
including 89 single-family
houses, 220 townhouses,
and 360 apartments on
almost 200 acres beside US
70 Business across from
the Amazon distribution
center. The developer
asked the Town Council in
October for permission to
reduce the number of
townhouses to increase the
number of apartments, but
the council denied the
request.
• "Franklin Townhomes" –
134 townhouses on acreage
adjacent to the
intersection of Wilson's
Mills Road and Durwood
Stephenson Parkway.
• "Marin Woods" – 143 lots
for single-family houses
on the north side of NC
210 above the Swift Creek
floodplain.
• "Elk Creek" – 65 more
lots for single-family
houses on acreage between
Galilee and Black Creek
roads near West Smithfield
Elementary School.
In addition to all those
new subdivisions are
numerous smaller projects
including several new
houses in an older
neighborhood beside
Johnston Street and
"infill" construction of
new residences on single
lots scattered throughout
town.
There could have been more
townhouse plans in the
works had the council not
turned down a developer's
request for a 60-unit
project at Holt Lake. At
that same meeting in
November, the council
approved a plan for 168
apartments near the Outlet
Center, and in December
approved two separate
plans for townhouses on
North Smithfield's Waddell
Drive.
Here's a row of
almost-finished
townhouses in the
Franklin Townes
subdivision off Wilson's
Mills Road next to
Durwood Stephenson
Parkway:
Two of biggest 2024 N.C. job deals
close to home
And that's on top of Amazon's
doubling its initial
hiring goal
The
most celebrated event on
the local
industrial-development
scene this past year was
April's opening of the
Amazon distribution center
along with an announcement
that employment at the
West Smithfield facility
is projected to double
from its original goal of
500 to more than 1,000.
For Johnston County as a
whole, two other
announcements made the
past year's Top Ten list
of North Carolina
job-creation stories
compiled by The News
& Observer
(Amazon announced initial
plans for its Smithfield
facility in May 2021):
Ranked No. 2 –
Novo Nordisk
announced in June that it
would add another 1,000
jobs with a $4.1-billion
addition to its
manufacturing complex on
the Smithfield side of
Clayton. State and local
officials touted the
project as "the largest
private life-science
investment" in North
Carolina history.
Known primarily for its
production of insulin,
Novo is building the
Clayton addition to meet
rising public demand for
Ozempic and Wegovy,
relatively new diabetes
and weight-loss drugs
produced by Novo Nordisk.
Ranked No. 8 –
Crystal Window &
Door,
headquartered in New York
City, announced plans to
build a manufacturing
plant at nearby Selma with
a goal of creating at
least 500 jobs over the
next five years. With
facilities in California,
Illinois, Missouri, and
Pennsylvania as well as
New York, the company
claims to be one of top-25
producers of windows in
North America.
The Selma industrial
project was the second to
be announced this past
year for sites in
Eastfield, a massive
mixed-use development on
the east side of I-95
extending to Pine Level.
Veetee Foods, Inc. of
Great Britain plans to
occupy a new speculative
("spec") building already
in place, with a goal of
providing at least 200 new
jobs.
Meanwhile, an announcement
regarding occupancy of a
completed county-backed
"spec" building at I-95
and Brogden Road in
Smithfield is expected
soon, said Chris Johnson,
the county's director of
economic development.
LOCAL POLITICS:
It was a good year for incumbents
seeking re-election
All
of the candidates seeking
to hold onto their seats
on Johnston County's Board
of Commissioners and Board
of Education won new
four-year terms in either
last spring's Primary or
November's General
Election.
For county commissioner,
incumbent Ted Godwin
out-polled a challenger in
the March Primary and had
no opposition on
November's ballot.
Incumbent April Stephens
had no opposition in
either the Primary or the
General election. Elected
for the first time to full
terms without opposition
on November's ballot were
Bill Stovall and Michelle
Pace Davis. All four are
registered Republicans.
Mr. Stovall was
temporarily appointed to
the county board in May
following the death of
long-time Commissioner
Tony Braswell. Ms. Davis
won election to succeed
retiring Commissioner Fred
Smith.
Mike Rose, a Princeton
town commissioner, was
appointed in November to
serve the remaining two
years of a term vacated by
County Commissioner Dickie
Braswell as a result of
his conviction on a felony
charge of taking indecent
liberties with a minor.
For seats on the Board of
Education, incumbents Lyn
Andrews, Kay Carroll, and
Ronald Johnson defeated
their challengers while
newcomer April Lee won
election to succeed Mike
Wooten, who chose not to
seek another term.
School-board candidates
run without
political-party
affiliations.
All three of Johnston
County's incumbent members
of the N.C. General
Assembly won re-election:
State Senator Benton
Sawrey and Representatives
Larry Strickland and Donna
White. All are
Republicans.
Johnston's voters
continued their
endorsement of education
bond issues going back to
the 1990s, although this
November's margins of
approval were less than
usual with 56.7% favoring
construction bonds for
Johnston County Public
Schools and 54.3% favoring
bonds for Johnston
Community College.
Other notable events on the
public-policy front in
2024:
•
Johnston
Community College saw
record-breaking enrollment
for a third consecutive
semester with 5,708
degree-seeking students at
the start of the fall
term. Applications
to JCC have surged by 18%
since the fall of 2023.
One of the reasons behind
the surge: Nearly
1,000 high-school
graduates enrolled
tuition-free last fall
under the JoCo
Commissioners Promise,
which provides "last
dollar" funding to cover
tuition costs.
•
Two positive developments
regarding public-service
vacancies:
(1) The Smithfield Town
Council in May raised
salaries for police
officers by $10,000 to
address an alarming number
of vacancies in the
department. Ten new
officers took oaths of
office at a council
meeting in September.
(2) Johnston's Board of
Education learned in
November that the number
of vacant teaching
positions in the county's
public school had been
reduced from 300 a year
ago to less than 50, the
result of a stepped-up
recruitment campaign.
• The County of Johnston
completed two major
construction projects:
(1) The new Public Safety
Center on US 70 Business
East opened in January,
and the county
subsequently purchased
additional acreage nearby
for a future "governmental
complex." Plans for that
project are still in the
making at year's end.
(2) A second
county-operated
sewage-treatment plant was
activated in late summer –
a key element in providing
basic infrastructure to
support Johnston's
phenomenal residential
growth. The new plant
stands adjacent to the
county's solid-waste
landfill off NC 210 west
of Smithfield.
VIEW A
FULLER REVIEW of the
past year's stories in the
Weekly Sun
archives>
December's
less-than-normal
rainfall brought the
Neuse River's depth at
Smithfield down to a
level revealing numerous
sandbars like this one
below the amphitheater.
Notice the bank erosion
that threatens to
undermine yet another
old oak tree. That's the
result of persistent
flooding after heavy
rains upstream
throughout the year.
2024's
rainfall: 56.93 inches
– above normal (again)
Cornell
Cox reports that
precipitation measured at
his Backyard Weather
Station in South
Smithfield totaled 1.97
inches in December,
raising the total for 2024
to 56.93 inches. While
December's rainfall was
below normal, the year's
total exceeded an
unusually high mark of
54.96 inches in 2023
recorded by Mr. Cox.
Normal annual rainfall for
Smithfield is 47.75
inches, according to U.S. Climate
Data>
County's
water works continue to
earn high marks
From
County of Johnston
Public Information
Office
Johnston
County Public Utilities
has once again been
recognized for its
commitment to providing
high-quality drinking
water, earning the
prestigious Area-Wide
Optimization Program Award
from the N.C. Department
of Environmental Quality.
The
AWOP award is presented
annually to
water-treatment facilities
that exceed federal and
state water-quality
standards. Johnston's
system is one of just 16
treatment facilities in
North Carolina to earn the
"Gold Star" honor awarded
to systems that have
received the AWOP award
for 10 or more consecutive
years.
VISIT the
Johnston County Public
Utilities website for
more information>
WHAT'S COMING
UP
County
Commissioners scheduled
to meet twice Monday
The
Johnston County Board of
Commissioners is scheduled
to meet at 10 a.m. and 6
p.m. Monday at the
Courthouse. VIEW the
agendas once they're
posted>
Town
Council may award
infrastructure contracts
Tuesday
The
Smithfield Town Council
will be asked to approve
contracts for a couple of
infrastructure projects
when it meets at 7 p.m.
Tuesday at Town Hall. One
is to replace a 15-inch
drainpipe with a 36-inch
pipe at the corner of
North Fourth and Caswell
streets – source of recent
complaints about flooding
after heavy rains. The
second contract is to
spend a state grant of
$2.7 million to upgrade
the main sewer outfall in
West Smithfield. VIEW the
complete agenda for
Tuesday's meeting>
DEATHS
& FUNERALS
ANOTHER
WORD (OR TWO) FROM THE
EDITOR
TIME MARCHES ON – and so will the
Weekly Sun
It's the
start of the seventh year
for this online
publication, launched in
2019 by this former editor
of The Smithfield
Herald, Johnston
County's 135-year-old
newspaper which vanished
from the local media scene
in 2017 – 23 years after I
had moved on to other
journalistic pursuits.
For
the sake of "transparency"
(that overused political
cliche), here's what the
Weekly Sun does –
and what it doesn't do:
•
First of foremost, this is
a newspaper of record for
local government, with
emphasis on decisions made
by the Smithfield Town
Council, the Johnston
County Board of
Commissioners, and the
Johnston County Board of
Education. What's lacking
is coverage of the other
10 municipal governments
in the county as well as
week-in and week-out
proceedings of Johnston's
judicial system as the
Herald once
provided with a stable of
reporters. The
Smithfield Weekly Sun
is a one-man operation.
•
Another much-viewed
service provided by the
Weekly Sun is a
list of links to
obituaries posted by
funeral homes about
persons with current
connections to Smithfield
and/or its residents.
What's lacking are
obituaries about persons
in surrounding communities
(again, something the
Herald was able to
provide on a countywide
basis thanks to sufficient
staffing along with
reliable relationships
with local funeral homes).
•
Another key ingredient of
the Weekly Sun is
an effort to publicize
important community
events, especially to give
advance notice about their
happening. What's coming
up short here are
organizations' reliance on
Facebook and other "social
media" postings that
aren't widely seen and
often offer incomplete
details. (That's the
editor's plea for more
help in getting the word
out about upcoming
activities.)
•
Among my biggest
disappointments with the
current state of local
media is an almost
complete absence of
coverage of
interscholastic sports.
Until this past year, the
Weekly Sun included
scoreboards and brief game
summaries about games
played by our local
high-school teams. But
consistency in reporting
that news has become an
increasingly frustrating
endeavor as school
administrators seem
uninterested in sharing
how their teams are doing
with the community at
large.
Having
said all that, let's see
what we can do together in
the year ahead to address
some of this publication's
shortcomings....
Subscribers
to this edition: 1,575
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