Planners approve concrete facility, church

Published 9:23 pm Wednesday, November 29, 2017

The Planning Commission last week unanimously approved two conditional use permits, which will be considered by City Council at its Dec. 20 meeting.

One of the permits it approved is for a Commercial Ready Mix Products facility on Kenyon Road. The proposed facility will be a batch plant for ready-mix concrete and will include silos, hoppers and storage tanks for the production of concrete, a gravel work yard for material storage, waste wash pits, and a two-story office building on the eight-acre parcel.

During the public hearing, Raeford Eure of Hoggard Eure Associates said the facility should have minimal impact on the public. It will be located at 304 and 306 Kenyon Road and is accessed by a private, unnamed road that runs off Kenyon Road. The structures won’t exceed 65 feet in height.

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“It being an industrial area, it will have the least impact on the public,” Eure said. “They’ve chose this area because they want this operation to support the construction, primarily, of the widening of U.S. 58. That industrial park is growing quite fast, so we hope they’ll have a long future here in the city of Suffolk with industrial growth.”

The facility will be required to connect to city water to minimize groundwater withdrawals in the area.

Also during the planning meeting, commissioners unanimously approved a small church that plans to meet in the former Tony’s Trophies building at 412 N. Main St.

True Word Temple of Faith plans to be able to seat about 71 occupants in a 1,680-square-foot sanctuary.

Linwood Gilchrist, pastor of the church, said the congregation plans to meet there only for about a year, until its church on property it purchased on Prospect Road is complete.

“We’re not a rowdy group,” Gilchrist quipped during the meeting. “We’re not planning to be there long.”