New Hanover County planning officials recommended a rezoning this week that could clear the way for a nearly 16,000-square-foot permanent Biggers Market location on Carolina Beach Road.

Biggers Market has operated a seasonal store on Carolina Beach Road for years. Now, its owners want to build a permanent market and grocery store about a mile north of the seasonal site on roughly 2.7 acres at 6208, 6216 and 6218 Carolina Beach Road.

But before plans for that new market can take shape, the site needs to be rezoned – two of the site’s three parcels are currently zoned as regional business districts. The third tract is zoned for low-density residential development.

On Thursday night, the New Hanover County Planning Board unanimously supported a request to rezone the entire site as a conditional business district, which would allow for retail sales, a grocery store and other limited uses. Conceptual plans for the project include an 11,000-square-foot enclosed market and an attached 4,900-square-foot porch.

“We have a temporary spot about a mile from this proposed location where we operate essentially six months out of the year and are kind of limited on what we can do,” Wells Struble, one of the three partners who own Biggers Market, told the planning board on Thursday. 

“We don’t see a path forward of owning that (seasonal market) spot and being able to build a permanent structure similar to what we have on Market Street,” he added.

Founded in 2010, Biggers first opened under the name Port City Produce before rebranding in 2020. The Biggers Market on Market Street operates from mid-March to Dec. 22, according to its website, while the existing Carolina Beach Road Biggers location is open from April until the end of October.

Plans for the new Carolina Beach Road site include a covered platform that would be used to host live music. The plans also include a small loading dock and a parking lot with an underground stormwater system. Struble told planning board members that the Biggers Market owners have had conversations with the adjacent Za Pie Pizzeria and Sellars Cove condominium community about installing pedestrian walkways between the sites.

The Biggers Market owners have also committed to replacing a fence between Sellars Cove and the proposed market site and following specific setback and vegetative buffer conditions to reduce impacts on the condo community.

A traffic impact analysis shows the project is expected to generate about 100 car trips during peak morning hours and nearly 200 trips during peak afternoon hours. Recommended road improvements include extending nearby turn and U-turn lanes and adjusting traffic signal timings at the intersection of Carolina Beach and Cathay roads.

Struble told the planning board that architectural plans have not been completed for the project, but the store would look similar to the Market Street location. Struble added the new Carolina Beach Road location could include conditioned space or open-air coolers to house certain types of produce.

“We want to have conditioned retail space for, for example, leafy greens,” Struble said. “They don’t do very well in a hot environment. They’re not conducive to being outside and we struggle to retail them in a good way.”

The rest of the market would be open-air space like the Market Street store, which could be closed overnight or during inclement weather with barn doors or garage doors, Struble said. 

“This is an underutilized site along, obviously, a major traffic corridor in the county, and our plan improves the land and maximizes the land efficiency,” he said. “We believe Biggers Market would enhance the overall character of this corridor of Carolina Beach Road.”

The rezoning will go before the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners for final consideration. If the project secures the requested rezoning, the owners will work to finalize its design, Sven Wallin, another Biggers Market partner and owner, wrote in an email to the Business Journal on Friday.

Although Wallin couldn’t provide an exact timeline for the new market’s construction, he wrote it will likely be a “multi-year project.”