Huge Sanford project with nearly 400 homes, 270 apartments moves forward

A project that’s years in the making in Sanford has finally received the green light to move forward.

The Sanford City Council voted earlier this month to approve a preliminary plat for Brookshire Subdivision, which includes plans for 391 single-family lots. The subdivision will include multifamily residential and commercial components in future phases. The development covers just under 168 acres.

The site is located along Boone Trail Road in the northwest corner of the city. The developer is Pinnacle Partners LLC, which shares an address with Raleigh-based Duke Lazzara Development.

The preliminary plat approval comes almost two years after Pinnacle Partners received approval from the City Council in a 4-3 vote to rezone the property in November 2021. The month prior, the city had held a tension-filled public hearing in which local residents voiced concerns about the potential increases in traffic and disruption of wildlife that could be associated with the development.

Plans for the subdivision also include 273 apartments as well as more than 5.5 acres of commercial real estate. The development will have more than 26 acres of open space and about 23,000 linear feet of new public streets.

It’s unclear when Pinnacle Partners plans to put the first homes in this development on the market. Representatives of the LLC have not responded to TBJ requests seeking comment on the matter.

This is the latest development to pick up steam in Sanford, a Lee County city with a population of more than 31,000 that has grown steadily during the 21st century.

In September, Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), one of Lee County’s largest employers, bought a shuttered manufacturing facility off Womack Road in Sanford for $21 million. The site is next to Caterpillar’s facility in the Central Carolina Enterprise Park off U.S. Highway 1.

Elsewhere, dozens of new townhomes are in the works on more than 7 acres near the intersection of Fire Tower Road and Garden Street a couple of miles south of downtown Sanford.

Ben Tobin covers real estate and economic development in the Greater Triangle, focusing on the counties outside Wake and Durham. Have a tip? Reach him at btobihn@bizjournals.com or (919) 327-1012.