Target Corporation has purchased 10.7 acres from the Koury Corporation to build a 128,000-square foot store along Trollingwood-Hawfields Road on the outskirts of Mebane that will be its second location in Alamance County.
Target paid $1.975 million for the parcel off I-85/40, along Trollingwood-Hawfields Road, and closed on the purchase in late January, based on a deed to the property that has been filed with Alamance County’s Register of Deeds.
The site of the future Target store in Mebane is part of a forthcoming 83-acre mixed-use development along Trollingwood-Hawfields Road.
Mebane’s city council had voted in December to approve conditional rezoning for 19 parcels along Trollingwood-Hawfields Road, which is located within the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, where Koury Corporation intends to build the mixed-use development. The 83-acre development will be built across the interstate from the future Buc-ee’s travel plaza that Mebane’s city council approved in early 2024.
Koury’s site plan calls for the construction of a retail shopping center, parking lot, offices, and outparcels on the front half of the property along Third Street Extension.
The back portion of the 83-acre site would have 645 apartments and 38 townhouses, based on a site-specific layout that Mebane’s city council approved for the Koury Corporation in December of last year.
The future Target store in Mebane is one of four new stores in North Carolina (and 36 across the country) that the company has announced on its website.
No timeframe for construction of the Target store in Mebane has been given. A Target Corporation spokesperson had not responded to an inquiry from The Alamance News by press time on Wednesday.
The existing Target store in Alamance County is located in the University Commons shopping center at 1475 University Drive in west Burlington. That store was built in 2004 and spans 124,170 square feet, according to the county’s tax department.
In addition to the Mebane store, the other new stores Target is also planning: a 148,000-square foot store in Fuquay-Varina; a 128-000-square foot store in Myrtle Grove (New Hanover County); and a 130,000-square foot store in Selma. Target currently has nearly 2,000 stores throughout the U.S., according to the company, which is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Conditional rezoning contingent upon two entrances to residential component
One of five agreements that Koury Corporation has inked with Target (a 107-page“Operation and Easement Agreement”) references certain “Additional Property” that is adjacent to the Target parcel, but notes, that property “in not currently owned by Developer, nor is it part of the Shopping Center as of the Effective Date [of the agreement].”
That “additional property” referenced in the operation agreement between Koury and Target appears to be a 1.67-acre parcel along Third Street Extension that Alamance County government purchased in July 2023 for a future EMS substation to serve the eastern part of the county.
A representative for Koury had told Mebane’s city council in December that the 1.67-acre parcel would provide a necessary access point to the site required by the state Department of Transportation (DOT).
Attorney Nathan Duggins, one of two lawyers with the Greensboro-based Tuggle-Duggins law firm who represented the Koury Corporation for the rezoning request to the council in December, had said that the county-owned parcel as a key part of the development that would serve as a second entrance from South Third Street into the residential component of the project. This outlet had been added to the company’s site-specific plan at the behest of DOT and was one of numerous conditions attached to the conditional rezoning request presented to Mebane’s city council.
The layout for the shopping center that was presented to the council on December 2, 2024 showed the county-owned land as providing one of two entrances off of South Third Street into the mixed-use development.
A representative for Koury Corporation had included that parcel in its rezoning request to Mebane’s city council in December, based on a “Property Owner Authorization” that Alamance County manager Heidi York signed on November 8, 2024, authorizing the developer to seek rezoning for the county’s parcel as part of its overall request for the 83-acre mixed-use development.
The Alamance News later learned that Koury’s lawyers had told Mebane city officials that the company had the 1.67-acre property owned by Alamance County under contract.
Alamance County officials initially denied any involvement with the Koury rezoning but ultimately admitted to having allowed the developer to incorporate the county property in its rezoning request “as a necessary step in the rezoning” for its future EMS station, as Alamance County manager Heidi York described the arrangement.
In subsequent conversations with the newspaper following the December 2 rezoning, county attorney Rik Stevens and assistant county manager Brian Baker reluctantly admitted that they were “in negotiations” to swap the 1.67-acre parcel on Third Street Extension for part of another 48.77-acre parcel that Koury owns at the northeast corner of Smith Drive and N.C. Highway 119.
Documents that The Alamance News obtained through a public records request revealed that county government officials had been discussing a potential land swap for a future EMS station on Mebane’s outskirts at least two months before Koury presented its rezoning request to Mebane’s city council – and absent any public discussion with the county commissioners.
Alamance County officials have yet to finalize a land swap, or a sale of the parcel along Third Street Extension, with Koury Corporation, based on documents on file with the county’s Register of Deeds as of press time Wednesday. The 1.67-acre site is still listed as being owned by Alamance County, which bought the vacant land in July 2023 for $300,000 from Alamance County Rescue Unit, Inc.
County officials alluded to the incomplete status of the “swap” discussions during a daylong budget retreat on February 17.