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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Aldermen seek public’s input on Poe’s Tavern, Coral Drive

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The Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen will invite public input on three agenda items during its Nov. 13 meeting.

The board will hold a public hearing regarding a conditional-use permit application for Poe’s Tavern, a restaurant and pub to be located at 212 Causeway Drive, the building previously occupied by the Olympia Restaurant and now serving as Lumina Hall meetings and events center.

The proposed restaurant would include expanded outdoor seating and indoor renovations. To become compliant with town zoning codes, the board would first have to adopt a text amendment to allow additions to nonconforming situations in commercial districts. There will be a public hearing addressing the text amendment prior to discussion of the restaurant itself.

The public will then have the opportunity to offer opinions on granting Poe’s Tavern an updated conditional-use permit and parking exceptions. The restaurant requires 70 off-street parking spaces and with only 21 available on site, the applicant would need a parking exception for 49 spaces.

Aldermen could grant an exception based on the fact that 39 public parking spaces are available within 400 feet of the property. Furthermore, the proposed establishment is consistent with the 2005 CAMA land use plan encouraging the development of commercial establishments providing basic goods and services to year-round residents and visitors.

During a presentation to the Wrightsville Beach Planning Board Nov. 4, authorized agent for Poe’s Tavern Russell Bennett described the restaurant as a family-friendly establishment specializing in gourmet burgers and hand-cut French fries.

During that meeting, the planning board was very supportive of the project and voted unanimously to offer a favorable recommendation to the board of aldermen for approval of the permit with conditions. The conditions, to protect the privacy of residents whose property surrounds the proposed site, include no outdoor seating after 10 p.m. and no amplified music outside.

The Poe’s Tavern conditional-use permit application also indicates a 10-foot-high buffer wall at the south end of the patio would mitigate noise for residences on Seacrest Drive, and recycling and dumping of bottles would be restricted to between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

A third public hearing will concern the allocation of money from a Surface Transportation Project-Direct Apportionment (STP-DA) grant to the construction of a sidewalk along the eastern right-of-way edge of Coral Drive. The grant money was originally intended to create a dual left turn at the intersection of Waynick Boulevard and Causeway Drive, but the new alignment was not recommended by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) due to concerns about large trucks conflicting the vehicles in the inner lane.

During the board’s regularly-scheduled October meeting, it decided to seek a change in the allocation of the existing STP-DA grant the town received. The two projects being considered are the Coral Drive sidewalk and pedestrian improvements to the area between Waynick Boulevard and Columbia Street.

The proposed Coral Drive sidewalk would be five feet wide and run along the eastern right-of-way edge of the road from the existing sidewalk to Wrightsville Beach School. The Wilmington Metropolitan Planning Organization (WMPO) and the NCDOT require the sidewalk be separated from the travel lane a minimum of five feet. The project would also involve the installation of speed humps along Coral Drive to lower speeds and improve safety.

Town manager Tim Owens is working with the WMPO to determine if the two projects can be packaged together to take the place of the current STP-DA grant. The total amount of the grant was $292,000 with the town matching the grant at $58,400 and the NCDOT providing funds in the amount of $233,600.

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