CLAYTON -- Mixed-use developments, extensions to Johnston Memorial Hospital, and neighborhood parks and walking trails weave through a landscape dotted with sparkling blue ponds.
Town planner David DeYoung stands in his office, looking at the brightly colored, illustrated maps of conceptual development along the N.C. 42 corridor.
The town put these village-like Small Area Plans together in 2007, when Johnston Memorial Hospital opened its Clayton location and promised residential and commercial development along N.C. 42.
Developers began proposing ideas for this new concept of a village within the larger Clayton community.
And the planning board approved the ideas as often as the planning department was signing building permits.
In 2008, things slowed down in Clayton the way they slowed down just about everywhere else.
Because of the recession and financial crisis, developers were strapped with tight lending criteria from banks.
They were no longer able to access the funds they needed to build a subdivision that might yield income in the future.
“Banking and the ability to get financing has changed,” DeYoung said of today’s post-recession development.
“The criteria (for building) is more comprehensive.”
But now, town hall is bustling again. Developers are returning in droves.
The town planning department is doing its best not to drown in extensive construction plans piled atop meeting tables and filing cabinets full of submitted building proposals.
Many of these developers are old faces, or at least their construction plans are familiar.
“We’re seeing some action going on,” commented Sherry Scoggins at a recent public workshop on the Front Street extension and East Village, the proposed mixed-use development nearby.
East Village had been proposed and approved twice before 2008 and only just came back for approval to start development again this year.
“I don’t know if we truly got started (with this development),” Scoggins said.
“We’d see it on the horizon, but it never came to fruition.
“It looks like it’s finally coming to fruition.”
The recent commitment of $14.5 million in investments from Caterpillar over the next five years and $25 million from Grifols are also key to the local economy’s ability to rebound.
“I feel like this is evidence that the local, and central North Carolina economies are really rebounding,” said town manager Steve Biggs after Caterpillar announced its deal to expand in Clayton Feb. 1.
Biggs had predicted that industrial investment and development might turn around in 2012.
And the slew of neighborhood meetings for new development is proof of that.
“Things are picking up,” said planning department employee Beth Franson.
“Projects we’d approved and fell through, are coming back with modifications.”
