KANNAPOLIS — Hospice of Cabarrus County can start working on new administrative offices and a residential care facility now that the City Council has approved the organization’s rezoning request.

The nonprofit’s new facilities will be located at 1738 Concord Lake Road, just north of the Oak Crest apartments. Hospice board members said they’ll soon begin a multi-million-dollar capital campaign.

A site plan for the proposed facility calls for a 8,562-square-foot office building and a detached 6,600-square-foot residential care facility with six bedrooms for terminally-ill patients.

The site plan allows for expansion of both structures and the construction of another 7,000-square-foot building.

Hospice officials haven’t set a construction schedule yet. When completed, it will be the only residential Hospice facility between Greensboro and Monroe and one of only 11 in the state.

Shirley McDowell, executive director of Hospice of Cabarrus County, called the residential care home “the natural evolution” of the organization’s service of caring for the terminally ill.

“This project is huge,” she told the council. “But I can assure you that it will pay huge dividends to the community and the families it serves.”

But it was the lack of dividends — at least those counted in tax revenue — that led one Kannapolis resident to appeal the Planning and Zoning Commission’s earlier decision to grant the rezoning.

Patty Rader told the council that while she welcomes Hospice to Kannapolis, changing the designation of the land from light industrial to commercial would be detrimental the city’s economic development efforts.

The land is part of a 50-plus-acre tract between the new Dale Earnhardt Boulevard and Concord Lake Road zoned for industrial use. Since Hospice is nonprofit, it won’t pay property taxes.

“We are a dying city,”said Rader, who is an officer in Partners for Progress, a group promoting alcohol sales in Kannapolis as an essential piece of economic success. “We have limited space available for development.”

Rader voiced the lone objection to Hospice’s plans during a public hearing. Numerous supporters, all Hospice administrators, board members or employees, spoke in favor of the request.

Hospice officials said they searched all over Cabarrus County for a suitable location for new offices and the residential care home. They chose the Kannapolis land because of its proximity to NorthEast Medical Center, its location near the city line with Concord and its visibility.

City staff members said they already were considering a land use plan for the Earnhardt Boulevard area and a zoning change that would have allowed the Hospice development. The staff supported Hospice’s request.

Council members stressed that they were voting only on the merits of the rezoning request, but it was clear that the mission of Hospice figured into their unanimous decision.

“There are more important things in life than money or places to put businesses,” Councilman Richard Anderson said.

Contact Scott Jenkins at 704-797-4248 or sjenkins@salisburypost.com .