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Boone Board of Adjustment To Hear Variance Requests for Old Southern States Property off Poplar Grove, Water St.

An artistic rendering of "Rivers Walk," a proposed development on the old Southern States property.
An artistic rendering of “Rivers Walk,” a proposed development on the old Southern States property.

By Jesse Wood

Sept. 2, 2014. The Boone Board of Adjustment will hear four variance requests for a proposed mixed-used development (student housing and retail) on property that includes the old Southern States building on Thursday, Sept. 4. In all, the parcels involved are 178 South Water St., 190 Poplar Grove Rd. and 208 Poplar Grove Rd.

The “Rivers Walk” development would be located at the corner of Water Street and Poplar Grove in downtown Boone, and Glenn Weaver of Harrod/AP, LLC, is requesting variance approval from the Board of Adjustment before formally applying for the project.

In December, the Boone Board of Adjustment granted a variance to allow reductions to the building footprint requirements because of Boone Creek bisecting the property. However, that case only regarded the 178 South Water St. property.

Now, the developer is seeking these four variances:

  • to decrease the minimum building footprint from 50 to 40 percent
  • to exceed the maximum building height of 40 foot in the central business district for an additional two to four feet for parapet wall around entire building and additional 15 feet for elevator shaft.
  • to exceed the 35-foot building height for all structures within 100 feet of residentially zoned areas.
  • to allow permanent encroachments in the 25 foot buffer zone

The three properties include a two-acre site for parking lot, two-acre site for mixed use building and an “unusable” half-acre area because of floodway and creek setback. In December before the other parcels of property were involved, Weaver told the Board of Adjustment that there was not sufficient parking for “national tenants” and that he was unsure how many bedrooms the project would have, according to meeting minutes.

The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday in the Council Chambers on Blowing Rock Road.