Imagine U.S. 17 in Hampstead as a two-lane road, with kids playing games in the roadway all week except Fridays and Sundays because that’s when Camp Lejeune Marines were driving to and from Wilmington and Myrtle Beach.

It hardly seems possible now, sitting in eye-rolling weekday traffic from Scotts Hill to Surf City.

But Brad George doesn’t have to imagine Hampstead as a rural village with little to no traffic most of the time. He was there.

A Hampstead native and Pender County commissioner, George represents Pender County’s District 1, which includes north Hampstead, Surf City and Topsail Island. Now 56, George said it was no big deal when he was 13 to ride his bike on U.S. 17 to get to his job at Food Fair, Hampstead’s only grocery store at the time. “It was nothing like it is now,” George said.

In the Topsail High School Class of 1987, “there were 62 of us, and there’s maybe less than five or seven of us left in the area because back then, there was nothing to do; there was no reason to stay,” George said.

These days, George is one of many county officials and existing Hampstead residents looking at how to plan for the unincorporated area’s growth as its popularity continues to rise as a bedroom community of Wilmington and Jacksonville. But George and others also agree that the area needs more commercial development to go with its influx of people.

While the area considered Hampstead used to be smaller, part of a collection of villages along U.S. 17 during the 1980s, Hampstead’s geographic footprint today is loosely defined by the Census and other sources as a 20-square-mile, choppy triangle on Census maps that lies south of Surf City, west of Topsail Island and north of Wilmington.

Hampstead, a census designated place (CDP) where incorporation efforts never succeeded, needs more retail and office space, according to Jon Schwarz, owner of Pender Pines Garden Center at 20949 U.S. 17.

“That’s what I think Hampstead needs more than anything,” Schwarz said. “We don’t need any more houses or apartments, for sure.”

He feels the community has had “just too much growth too fast.”

Coming from a landscape design background, he said he thinks “it just comes down to no planning, no forward thinking, no projections … we just react.”

Having more commercial space closer might ease some of the traffic congestion arising from rapid growth, Schwarz and others say.

“We need some doctors’ offices. We need some places to eat. There’s a few new ones that have popped up in the last year. That’s nice, but, you know, you basically have to go to Wilmington for most everything, or Jacksonville,” Schwarz said.

Schwarz’s family-owned business, founded in 1996, has grown from 8 acres to 12 acres to meet demand from customers who drive north all the way from Myrtle Beach and south from New Bern.

That demand exists for other types of establishments, too, if they could find the space, Schwarz said.

“There’s plenty of opportunities here for a small businessperson to start something, especially blue-collar services because there’s not enough of them,” Schwarz said, listing off examples such as HVAC, carpenters, painters and “the whole gamut.”

Tammy Proctor, executive director of the Greater Topsail Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, hears from people who live in Hampstead, one of her chamber’s coverage areas, about the kinds of businesses they want.

“They would like something like a Target and then also a Chick-fil-A,” Proctor said. “We have the demographics to support a large business (like Target). I also hear from our residents that they would like a nice sit-down restaurant in Hampstead.”

Developer Louis Dworsky, who owns the retail-and-office complex Oyster Creek Landing off U.S. 17 in Hampstead, concurs. Crews recently finished a third building in the complex, where there are a few spaces left.

“We are trying very hard to get a good sit-down restaurant,” Dworsky said on Feb. 18. If he were a restaurateur, “I’d open one in a minute because I think there’s a huge demand there for a good-quality, sit-down restaurant. But at this moment, we do not have one under lease.”

As for future development, Dworsky said he and his partners intend to finish Oyster Creek Landing, “and we intend to do more in Hampstead.”

Residents and business owners find the area’s dense traffic challenging.

“Traffic is an issue, especially during school days, and then just trying to get to Wilmington,” Proctor said.

A more than $500 million N.C. Department of Transportation project that could ease some traffic congestion, the U.S. 17 Hampstead Bypass, is expected to be complete by 2030.

Randy Burton, the Pender County commissioner whose district, District 2, covers Scotts Hill and part of Hampstead, said he doesn’t think leaders years ago really thought ahead enough to realize the impact growth might have by 2025.

“So, we’re probably 20 to 25 years behind the eight ball on the infrastructure for roadways and highways,” Burton said. “I wish that we as a commission had a little more power to levy the government to do that but that falls under the duty of the state.”

Pender County officials in recent months have been focusing on something they have more control over: the county’s comprehensive plan.

“We’re in the middle of redoing our comprehensive land use plans and hopefully that will lead into some unified development ordinance changes that will help us control some of the explosive growth that we’ve had over the past five, seven years that we weren’t really ready for,” George said.

Pender County’s development rules govern its unincorporated areas, which include Hampstead.

County officials last year launched the Imagine Pender 2050 Comprehensive Land Use Plan, which could get final approval before the end of this year.

Like most of the Wilmington area, affordable housing is an issue in Hampstead, where housing prices have increased exponentially over the past few decades. Bankrate clocked the median price in Hampstead at $579,000 in December. That’s a nonstarter for most people looking for a starter home.

“There’s plenty of opportunities here for a small businessperson to start something, especially blue-collar services because there’s not enough of them,” - Jon Schwarz, owner of Pender Pines Garden Center

Burton said he would like to see developments with single-family homes “where some of our younger families could move in at a better price point than above $500,000. … I’d like to see some stuff in the $250,000 to $300,000 range.”

At the same time, Burton said, he knows the cost of materials and labor make that price difficult.

“I’m hoping moving into 2025 and ’26, with the economy getting better, and hopefully on the federal level, regulations and some of this bureaucratic red tape going away, that prices will go down,” Burton said. “I’m optimistic.”

George wonders how future generations will be able to afford to buy a house in Hampstead. Either way, as he sits in Hampstead traffic going to and from his job in Wilmington, he expects more growth on the horizon. George said, “I don’t see it slowing down.”

In The Zone is a monthly feature focusing on specific areas throughout the region. Coming up next are Wrightsville Beach (April) and Surf City (May). For story suggestions, email [email protected].