FAITH — A proposal for a multi-use commercial building that would be beside Faith Academy garnered excitement during the Faith Board of Aldermen meeting on Tuesday.

The proposal came from Darrin Brown, a local developer who said that he is under contract to buy the property, located at 3725 Faith Road right on the edge of the town, from current owner Intertape Polymer Woven USA. Brown has submitted a request to rezone the property from its current status of industrial to B-3, or general business zoning. The rezoning would allow Brown to turn the industrial facility there into a multi-usage commercial building.

“My interest here is doing things that are beneficial to our community, not detrimental. One, because I work beside of it. Two, because I had a hand in trying to help the process of bringing the school here, which I think we’ll all agree is a great catalyst for our community and would like to use that as a springboard moving forward to do more positive things for the community,” said Brown.

Brown reported that because he is still in the due diligence phase of purchasing the building, he does not have any concrete answers for what will go in the building yet. However, he did share with the aldermen that he has had conversations about leasing some of the space to Faith Academy Charter School, adding a Mexican restaurant, adding sports facilities such as batting cages and putting outlet stores into the building.

Zoning Administrator Sam Henline opened the discussion with the aldermen by reporting the town planning board’s recommendation, which was to approve the rezoning with the condition of removing alcohol-related businesses from the possibility. Henline said that the conditions, while understandable due to the proximity of the charter school, were not feasible because they placed undue harm on Brown when compared to other B-3 properties, who were allowed all the options of business.

“They talked about putting restrictions on there, ‘you’re not allowed to do this or you’re not allowed to do that,’ You can’t do that. You’ve got to be fair across the board for everybody. And placing these (restrictions) on there because he’s wanting to put his business next to the school property, it puts a prejudice against him,” said Henline.

After hearing from Henline and Brown, the board of aldermen voted unanimously to set a public hearing for 6:45 p.m. on May 14, which is 15 minutes before the meeting next month in order to consider the rezoning without the recommended restrictions.
“This to me, I’m just going to put it out there, it’s exciting. It’s one of the things that, from day one, we talked about trying to build businesses in our little town and we have very limited space to do so,” said Alderman Jayne Lingle.

Some of the discussion around the rezoning centered around not whether alcohol should be sold so close to a school, but whether the Rowan County ABC Board would grant a license to a business on the property. Brown said that in his preliminary discussions with a representative of the ABC Board he was told that the main issue would be having 50 feet between the front door of a school facility, such as the proposed lease space to Faith Academy, and the restaurant or convenience store. If that distance requirement is met, Brown said he was told a license would not be any harder to be approved for than any other location.