BY STACIE LETT CAIN
The Mooresville Town Board of Commissioners on Monday unanimously approved a request to spend $8 million to replace the 35-year-old Reed Street Pump Station.
“I know from being around this a long time that the odor in that area has been a source of complaints for a lot of years,” Mayor Chris Carney said after commissioners approved the resolution unanimously during Monday’s board meeting. “I know the odor control part of this project will make a lot of people happy.”
Although the price tag is higher than an estimate received previously for the same project, Public Utilities Director Allison Kraft explained the difficulty in bidding a project such as this.
“This is not a great time to bid a project, but we really don’t have the luxury of pushing this off a couple of years,” she said. “We may be put in the situation where we need this done or we could have the bids come in even higher in the future because of the cost of supplies and equipment.”
The new pump station, being build just southwest of the existing station, at 253 Golf Course Drive, will increase output from 5 million gallons per day (MGD) to 10 MGD to address anticipated growth on the western portion of the town’s service area as well as replace the aging existing station with new and updated technology.
“This project was identified as a priority in the Water and Wastewater Master Plan. The Reed Street Pump Station is the largest pump station in town and with it being 35 years in existence, has been modified and upgraded numerous times over the years to increase capacity, add odor control and add additional amenities to help it move more water in the best way possible,” Kraft explained. “We are trying to stay ahead of the construction for this area.”
OTHER BUSINESS
In other business:
♦ Commissioners approved a conditional rezoning request for nearly 3 acres located on Williamson Road for Charlotte Deli Provisions of Huntersville.
According to the Charlotte Deli Provisions owner, Steven Diverniero, his main goal is to bring his business home to Mooresville.
“I am a small local businessman and I live in Mooresville. Right now we are operating out of Huntersville, but I want to take my business and bring it up to operate out of my community,” he said.
The owner of the nearly 3 acre parcel, B.V. Belk Jr. along with developer Bartels Construction Solutions, Inc. requested that the land be rezoned from its current zoning, Corridor-Mixed Use, to Conditional Community Commercial. Despite some concerns about opening the door to unintended uses with the conditional zoning, the Planning Board did recommend the rezoning to allow this 12,000-square-foot warehouse. A maximum of 30 percent of the property can be used for retail or office space, per the zoning restrictions.
But despite the plans including a warehouse, Diverniero says he is really just a small business.
“It says warehouse but we are not a warehouse company,” he explained. “We receive one truck a week from Boar’s Head early Wednesday mornings. It comes, we unload and then they are off our dock in 30 minutes. The residents behind the property will not be impacted.”
Weekly operations include two box trucks that make deliveries with very rare use on weekends according to Diverniero.
“If a customer needs products, we get them products,” he said. “We always take care of the customers.”
Jokingly, Board Member Lisa Qualls asked if the name would continue to be Charlotte Deli Provisions and was told it would.
“Maybe you can call it Mooresville Deli?” Qualls said. “We are definitely, for the record, not North Charlotte. We are the sunnier side of Charlotte but we are not North Charlotte.”
♦ The Board also set the Brentwood Phase 5 project on the schedule for October 20 for both rezoning and annexation requests.