The team planning to create a major mixed-use development across the river from downtown Wilmington recently put their Leland annexation, zoning and rezoning requests on hold, developers said Thursday.

The move means the measures needed to propel the project could be back in New Hanover County's hands, at least for now. 

Kirk Pugh, one of the founders of KFJ Development, revealed Thursday on Wilmington BizTalk the next steps he and his partners are taking to plan Battleship Point, an estimated $487 million development that could hold apartments, condos, a hotel and other commercial space.

The 8-acre project site, which some say is unsuitable for high-density development because of flooding and other concerns, is on the river's west bank in New Hanover County, on an arrow of land at the branch of the Northeast Cape Fear and Cape Fear rivers called Point Peter.

After New Hanover officials held off on making decisions related to Battleship Point early this year, the group turned to the northern Brunswick County town of Leland, seeking annexation, a riverfront zoning district and a subsequent rezoning to the new district that would allow their plans to move forward. The Leland Planning Board signed off on the measures in March, and as a result, they were on the Leland Town Council's agenda for April 14.

Public hearings on the matter have since been removed from the Leland agenda.

"As everyone knows, the [New Hanover] planning staff and the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners met last week in a pretty lengthy planning session. There was a lot of information delivered there and they have agreed to hold another meeting to discuss what the future for the west bank might be," Pugh said Thursday. "We're appreciative to the county that they're moving forward, albeit slowly, and we're going to wait and see how that plays out with the county before we proceed with the town of Leland."

New Hanover County officials have not yet set a date for the next meeting to discuss the west bank, where another development team is also planning a hotel.

"We are still working with the clerk’s office to determine a date that will fit with the [New Hanover County Board of Commissioners'] schedule and allow for staff to prepare the requested information," said Rebekah Roth, New Hanover's planning and land use director, in an email Thursday.

Battleship Point's developers said creating a new Riverfront Urban Mixed-Use District (RUMXD) in New Hanover County's code (which they were also seeking in Leland) and then applying it to the property will allow them to move forward with necessities such as a hydrological study. 

So far, KFJ Development, which includes Pugh, a Realtor, attorney Jim Lea and Jacqueline B. Amato, retired chairman and CEO of TowneBank Mortgage, has removed about 400 tons of debris, Pugh said. The haul included scrap metal, tires, concrete, boats, cars, planes and more, he said.

"There's a lot of stuff over there. There's still quite a lot left to do, probably another 100 tons of material that needs to be removed," Pugh said. "What we are getting ready to start work on is some soil stabilization and some erosion control measures over there. And then we'll gradually kind of pick away the remaining debris and trash that's over there over the next 30, 60, 90 days."

The property is currently zoned for heavy industrial use, which Pugh and Lea said is not something they think many people want to see built directly across from downtown Wilmington.

"We are trying to get to a zoning district out there, a zone that allows us to at least move forward and there's a lot of things we have to do once we move forward, CAMA permits and things like that," Lea said.

While some experts and local officials have shared their opposition to the project and drawbacks they foresee, Pugh and Lea said KFJ is also working with experts on the project's challenges.

"While all we have right now is a conceptual design, I think it's important to note that overcoming the obstacles – the health and safety issues, the durability of the building, the resilience, the environmental impacts – all of those things are overcome with design and engineering," Pugh said.

Lea said he hopes KFJ's experts can be heard at a future New Hanover County meeting on the topic. 

"We know there's opposition but we are aware of it, aware of the concerns," Lea said, "and we have engineers addressing it so that Wilmington can move forward and not backward or not stay the same."

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Editor's Note: This version clarifies that public hearings on the KFJ Development requests were removed from the Leland Town Council agenda for April 14; the applications for the annexation and zoning matters were not withdrawn.