Home Care In Rocky Point, NC

With a land transaction last month in Rocky Point, an auto auction company is moving closer to growing its Wilmington-area footprint.

Manheim Auto Auctions plans to expand onto about 16 acres near the intersection of Interstate 40 and Highway 210. That land is part of a more than 50-acre Pender County site that was purchased last month for $1.25 million, according to property records.

Manheim, which currently occupies a 3-acre site off Market Street near Kings Grant, is a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Cox Automotive. The expansion will allow the company to increase its capacity and serve growing markets up and down the Carolina coast, said Stephen Twelkemeier, general manager of Manheim’s Wilmington location.

The purchase of the Rocky Point site is the culmination of a multi-year search, said Mike Musselwhite, a commercial broker with Sun Coast Partners. Musselwhite represented Manheim throughout the search process, which began more than four years ago and was slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company was looking for a site with a large area of open space to park cars along with accessibility from major highways, according to Twelkemeier.

“The biggest draw for that (Rocky Point) piece of property was its proximity to the interstate, which is always preferable for us because a lot of our vehicles are delivered on car haulers,” he said.

As a wholesale auction, the business is not open to the public. Instead, it sells cars from dealer to dealer, Twelkemeier said. Manheim currently houses anywhere from 150 to 350 vehicles on its 3-acre Market Street site. The new site will allow the company to significantly expand the number of cars it can store and auction off.

“It probably triples our capacity from where it's currently at,” Twelkemeier said. “It really opens the door for us to be able to grow the business. Right now, it's pretty hard to grow much past where we're at just simply because of space.”

Manheim is working with RealtyLink, a real estate development company based in Greenville, S.C., to design, permit and build its auto auction facility. Using a “lease to build” model, RealtyLink will build the facility to Manheim’s specifications and then lease it back to the auto auction company. Construction will include a building that will house an auction ring along with areas for car detailing and making repairs. Other parts of the site will be paved or covered in gravel to form parking lots, Twelkemeier said.

RealtyLink is currently working through the permitting process, but Twelkemeier said the company aims to break ground on the site in the next month. He said he hopes to open the auction facility before the end of 2024.

The site was sold by Rocky Point Interchange, LLC, which purchased the land in 2005, according to property records. M. Shameer Lookman serves as a registered agent for the limited liability company, according to N.C. Secretary of State records.

The former owners purchased the land because they saw the potential for growth in Rocky Point, said Hansen Matthews, a partner at Maus, Warwick, Matthews & Co. Matthews represented the sellers in the transaction.

“Rocky Point is the closest interchange to New Hanover County and it’s an area that is destined to have a large population growth,” Matthews said. “They wanted to get ahead of it.”

The owners opted to put more than 50 acres of their roughly 70-acre tract on the market as they watched the Wilmington trade area grow along Interstate 40, Matthews said. The investors retain ownership of just over 12 acres that front onto Highway 117.

The owners hope to sell that land as the area continues to develop.

“Two or three years from now, when that area has grown up a little bit more,” Matthews said, “they’ll bring it back to market.”

Last December, the Pender County Board of Commissioners approved rezoning more than 50 acres of the site from rural agriculture to a general industrial district. The 12 acres of frontage were also rezoned from rural agricultural to a general business district.

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ROCKY POINT, N.C. (WECT) - A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Friday, July 14, at 11 a.m. for the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project (ECMHSP) Rocky Point Educational Campus.

The facility, which is located at 55 Old Blossom Ferry Road in Rocky Point, includes dedicated classrooms for toddlers and pre-k students, offices for staff and a “nature scape” playground.

“They’ve started as you know, a baby in the program and now they’re going to kindergarten. You know, he’s learned his letters, numbers, and colors. He’s blossomed so much. You know, he’s talking in complete sentences.”

Margarita Barajas looks back fondly on her young son’s experience in the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project.

Her daughter and other children will join the project as well at the program’s new Rocky Point Education Campus.

Friday’s ribbon cutting is symbolic of each child starting their education journey.

“The campus will provide early childhood education, nutrition, and comprehensive health services to children of migrant and seasonal farm workers in the area,” a news release states. “The new facility replaces the educational campus previously located in Long Creek, NC after being destroyed by Hurricane Florence in 2018. Many Long Creek employees had been transferred to another campus close by while others are returning to work for the first time in almost 5 years.”

Mia Morris, who was the Health and Disabilities Coordinator for the Long Creek campus, will be the Rocky Point Campus Director.

“This project has been in the works for at least four years due to setbacks as a result of the pandemic,” said Morris. “But the day is finally here, and Rocky Point is now officially open as East Coast’s newest Center of Excellence.”

ECMHSP officials say about 80% of the children that attended the Long Creek campus will be continuing their education at Rocky Point.

Maria Garza is the CEO of the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project. She says the new facility will provide everything from dedicated classrooms and offices for staff to a state-of-the-art playground.

“The children start with us as early as six weeks old, and as old as six years of age. Our children are learning how to read, they read books and we are introducing a curriculum, very strong within STEM. They’re learning how to do projects and construct buildings,” Garza said. “Our goal is to provide a safe environment and high-quality care to the families we serve, and this new facility reflects that.”

It’s the outcome of lots of time and energy, an effort that’s already making a difference on the next generation.

“Every time I walk into a classroom, what I see is happiness, the smiles of the children, and how they’re learning. We have dedicated staff, professional teachers, who follow a special curriculum. And the children are learning every day and that is evident,” Garza said.

The program is dual language, and not only teaches them the basics of science, but healthy eating habits as well.

All with the goal of getting them ready for school, and life as well.

“They have taught them so much you know, and I appreciate everything they have done,” Barajas said.

For more information, click here.

Copyright 2023 WECT. All rights reserved.

A cold treatment facility in Rocky Point announced its certification through the USDA, contributing to the Port of Wilmington’s efforts to boost produce imports.

The N.C. State Ports Authority announced a partnership with Rocky Point’s Lewis Nursery and Farms and its subsidiary American Blueberries on Tuesday. The cold treatment and storage facility will allow blueberries, grapes, apples, pears, citrus and other organics to be imported through the Port of Wilmington year-round, officials said.

“Ultimately, our goal is to reduce the cost of handling goods in and out of the state,” said Brian Clark, executive director of the N.C. State Ports Authority. “And a lot of these volumes today, particularly the imports, are moving through ports north and south of us. So, now we can start handling those here.”

The Port of Wilmington has been focused on building its support for the cold supply chain for several years, Clark said. The port completed its refrigerated container yard in 2020, dubbed Phase One. Phase Two expanded the port’s capacity for cold storage cargo. Now, the port has around 1,500 cold storage plugs, which maintain the temperature of refrigerated cargo, Clark said.

Clark said the Lewis Nursery and Farms partnership is the latest of multiple developments underway supporting the cold supply chain. In Pender County, shipping company Maersk’s subsidiary Performance Team will open a cold storage warehouse in January. Cold Summit Development is also building an approximately 300,000-square-foot cold storage facility on Raleigh Street.

“So all those pieces together... gives us the capability to not only handle a large export opportunity between pork, poultry and sweet potatoes, we now have the certification in place to start handling a broad range of import perishables,” Clark said.

The Lewis Nursery and Farms facility is not new. Still, with its USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service certification, it is the only facility of its kind in North Carolina. According to the USDA, the certification means it’s been checked to ensure no pests or diseases enter the U.S. through imports. The certification makes North Carolina one of seven states in the U.S. with a cold storage facility of this capacity.

“We are now poised to service customers choosing to use the Port of Wilmington with an option to treat their commodities if necessary, providing a great opportunity to enhance North Carolina’s agricultural business,” said Cal Lewis, president of Lewis Nursery and Farms, in its release.

Cold treatment is essential to shipping organics because it eliminates pests from produce before it is imported into the country. The treatment lowers the temperature of the produce for the specified period. This can be conducted while the cargo ship is en route to the port. But suppose the cooling time has not met the specifications for treatment. In that case, the cargo container can be plugged into these cold storage facilities once it arrives to complete the cooling and pest-removal process. Clark said this process is what the Rocky Point facility will help with.

In cases where the cooling treatment malfunctions onboard the vessel, the Lewis Nursery and Farms facility can re-treat the produce cargo, according to port officials.

“It becomes very difficult to convince shippers to move cargo into the port if there’s the possibility that it can’t actually arrive,” as in the case of failed cold treatment onboard the ship, Clark said.

Clark said the recent establishment of Seaboard Marine’s route to and from Central America, delivering produce and apparel, is one part of the cold storage picture. The new weekly route, which had its first call last week, handles imports and exports from the Port of Wilmington.

The investment in cold storage at the port is complete, Clark said. There are plans for a Phase Three if volumes require it, he said, but the number of plugs the port has is enough for the current demand.

“[We’re] certainly in a much better position to support growth than we were not too long ago.”

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ROCKY POINT, N.C. (WECT) - The pews were full on Friday night at Mount Moriah AME church in Rocky Point.

All of the people there came to watch a documentary called “The Wilmington 10: Pardons of Innocence.” The film highlighted the story of the Wilmington 10, made up of nine young black men and one white woman, who were wrongfully convicted of conspiracy and arson back in 1971. Each of the members served 10 years in prison before Amnesty International appealed those convictions.

One attendee, 94-year-old Dr. Bertha Boykin-Todd was apart of overturning those convictions. She knew several members of the Wilmington 10 well.

“I knew 7 of the Wilmington 10 when I was in administration at Hoggard High School,” Boykin-Todd said. “I sent them money while they were incarcerated. Just a dollar or five dollars every now and then, something like that. Just to let them know I’m here for you.”

She said she knew from the start that the boys were innocent.

“I knew their personalities,” Boykin-Todd said. “They were too immature with no vengeance in their hearts to do what the policemen in the department accused them of doing.”

Boykin-Todd believes what happened to the Wilmington 10 was a result of attitudes created by the 1898 coup d’etat and massacre. She thought back in the 1970s the community hadn’t recovered from that time.

“Had we not had a massacre and a coup, we wouldn’t have had a Wilmington 10,” Boykin-Todd said. “I know that, I feel very certain about that.”

Knowing that the history of the Wilmington 10 and 1898 coup d’etat are now being shared, she believes that the community will be able to move forward.

“I can’t tell you how gratified I am to see the interest now in the history that occurred,” Boykin-Todd said. “I can’t tell you how gratified I am to see courageous people who are now willing to move forward.”

One attendee said she was particularly encouraged to see young people at Friday’s screening.

“Ignorance of the past will doom our future,” attendee Aundre Johnson said. “Especially young ones coming up thinking everything is pie and ice cream, but it’s not. This is the real world out here. And you have to know right is right and wrong is wrong. There’s no in between.”

There is one more screening of the documentary scheduled this February. It’ll be held at Willard Outreach Center on Feb. 23. The screening starts at 6 p.m. and is free to attend.

Copyright 2024 WECT. All rights reserved.

Rocky Point is a small village off North Carolina Highway 210, just 15 miles north of Wilmington. It’s home to many of the 400 people who live in the wider area known as St. Helena. Weekends find them running hobby farms, enjoying time with friends and family, or prepping Sunday dinner. However, on September 16, 2018, the residents of this inland community were under several feet of water. That day they found themselves in a potentially fatal situation, trapped on what was becoming an island surrounded by rushing floodwaters and pieces of what used to be their homes.

“When we woke up that Sunday morning [the water] was right there, you know, 20 yards from our driveway,” recalls Dan Schmidt, a resident of Rocky Point. “All my neighbors south of my house had already all gone underwater and were all out at the end of [my] driveway.”

Dan and his wife Janeen Spencer are local school teachers who moved to Rocky Point about three years ago. Like many residents, they have some livestock and they farm on the side, a community effort relying on relationships to be successful.

Seeing those same neighbors trying to escape the rising water, Dan grabbed his jon boat the morning of the 16th to help the rest. He paddled through the waist deep water to help get them to drier areas and porches. After several hours, though, the current began thwarting his efforts.

Close to the same time Dan was reluctantly tying his boat off to a pine tree, word began to spread that the Coast Guard had been contacted and was coming. No one was sure, though, how long it would be until they arrived or where exactly they would be landing.

Dan and Janeen now faced their own decision whether to evacuate. They debated whether to stay on the second story of their house and to send only Janeen’s mom, who has health issues, and her step-daughter to leave with the Coast Guard.

“Everybody kept saying the water’s ‘going to keep coming, keep coming’ and ‘we need to go now,’ because we didn’t know if the Coast Guard was going to be able to come back, or if anybody would be able to come back. That’s when we made the decision to go ahead and go. Once we knew we could take the dogs with us, it was a no brainer. No need to risk your life.”

As they were deliberating, the heavy, repetitive thudding of search and rescue helicopters reverberated through the torrential rainfall. The sharp eyes of crew saw the submerged houses of Rocky Point materialize below as the MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, dispatched from Air Station Elizabeth City, circled the village.

“I was in awe of all the flooding,” remembers Petty Officer 3rd Class Sam Fuller, an aviation survival technician aboard the helicopter. “Some of the houses were completely submerged. It was a challenge trying to find a place to land.”

The decision was made to plant the aircraft in a field at the corner of two country roads, one of which quickly descended into water so deep that a volunteer swift boat team from Indiana was ferrying people from the other side of a nearby submerged highway.

Once the helicopter had been spotted overhead, Dan once again assumed the role of community messenger, this time spreading news of hope. He took to his four-wheeler and started riding around the community on what dry land remained, urging others to take advantage of the new means of escape and not to chance the floodwaters. Not everyone heeded him.

“There were a couple of old-timers who weren’t going to leave,” said Schmidt. “One of my best friends—Danny—he wasn’t going to. He was born at Long Creek, you know, and he refused. The last thing I did before I left was teach him to put on a life jacket for the first time.”

That reluctance is a familiar challenge, says Fuller.

“When people have lived in an area their entire life and have never had to evacuate, it’s hard convincing them that they should.”

After landing, Fuller and another aviation survival technician, Petty Officer 2nd Class Chris Fisher, made their own initial rounds of Rocky Point’s streets and houses, doing their best to warn the reluctant of the risk of staying behind. There was a new fear of a nearby river cresting, adding water to the already record-breaking deluge and its flash floods.

Their warnings were sometime received with uncertainty from people anxious about leaving their homes, roots, and memories behind. Fuller tried to covey the urgency. “It is always better to leave when you could have stayed than to stay when you should have left. When in doubt, evacuate. Floods come much faster than you think and before you know it, it’s too late.”

Enough people heeded Dan’s and Fuller’s alarms that soon there were significantly more people ready to evacuate than there was space available on the helicopter. This meant multiple trips. Fuller and Fisher remained behind in the rapidly submerging Rocky Point in order to maximize the number of evacuees in the helicopter cabin. Their presence also provided those still waiting with confidence that rescuers were coming back.

“It can be challenging telling some people that they are going to have to wait for the next pickup, but they were more receptive to the idea when they knew that I was staying back as well,” says Fuller. “There were so many people that needed to get out. We obviously send anyone who is injured or sick first and go from there, our main priority being to keep families together.”

Confident that they had helped gather everyone they could, Dan and Janeen waited with their dogs Dixie and Bandit on the porch of an abandoned house across from the field where the Coast Guard had set up the evacuation point. Still, though, they wanted to make sure that everyone else was able to go before they caught one of the last rides out of Rocky Point.

When it was finally their turn, rotorwash whipped the reeds and tall grass into a frenzy as Dan and Janeen carried Dixie and Bandit in their arms to the open door of the helicopter. Pouring rain made it hard to see, and engine noise made it almost impossible to hear while the crew settled everyone into the cabin. There was a feeling of momentary weightlessness as the aircraft took off. Below, some roofs of Rocky Point now barely poked out of the water below. Soon, they disappeared in the distance.

Dan and Janeen were dropped off with their dogs in Wilmington, two people of the 944 lives saved by the Coast Guard during Hurricane Florence. Forty were from the Rocky Point area alone. In Wilmington, Dan and Janeen were able to stay with friends and family for a few days, helping clear roads and property before heading back to their farm. Luckily, their property was just high enough that there was minimal damage.

The two teachers were out of work for 20 days before classes resumed. During this time, they continued to do everything they could for the surrounding communities. Alongside other local volunteers and with help from the American Red Cross, they delivered food and supplies to their students and students’ families, dropping off 200 to 250 lunches per day.

Now, a year after Florence, there is still clean-up and recovery happening in Rocky Point. Florence brought eight trillion gallons of water across North and South Carolina over seven days.

“My neighbors are still rebuilding,” says Schmidt. “I saw them pulling a FEMA trailer just the other day. Interiors [are] damaged there were piles of trash and debris that we had there for the first six months after. There’s still a lot of people hurting from the storm, that’s for sure. But then, just to watch everyone come back together and try to rebuild our community [is] just a really awesome thing. I don’t know how to totally encapsulate that. There’s so many emotions with so many highs and lows.”

Among the highs are the memories that many rescues were a product of communities pulling together and sacrifices made under the threat of loss of life and property.

“Dan and Janeen were a huge help in making sure everyone that wanted to get out, got out,” offers Fuller. “They were running all over the place and reporting back to us how many more were coming. It’s crazy how these storms bring communities together and bring out the best in people. There are definitely situations where people are just focused on themselves getting to safety, which is totally understandable, but that was not my experience in Rocky Point. Everyone we evacuated was patient and willing to sacrifice for others, especially Dan and Janeen.”

Year after year, storm after storm, the Coast Guard will always have the watch. Supported by those they serve.