Cornelius planning board OK’s Lake Norman Hyundai expansion

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Updated at 9:35 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013

CORNELIUS — The appointed planning board for this crowded north Mecklenburg town voted unanimously Monday night to recommend that the elected town Board of Commissioners grant a rezoning request for a commercial project to allow a car dealership to make a major expansion.

Lake Norman Hyundai on Chartwell Center Drive wants to use a 5.9-acre parcel to build a 23,169-square-foot sales and service building with a parking lot for 362 cars and driveways to an Interstate 77 access road. The project would require a rezoning from residential to highway commercial, as well as a conditional-use permit specific to the project.

Planning board members expressed concerns about some drivers parking their vehicles on the street near the existing building, but the dealership has promised to provide on-site parking for their employees.

On Tuesday, town planner Jason Prescott said the proposal was approved Monday without lengthy discussion.

The existing building is 16,873 square feet and won conditional permits from the town in 1998 and 2011.

The proposal now moves to the Board of Commissioners for a final up-or-down at 7 p.m. next Monday at Town Hall, 21445 Catawba Ave.

In other Cornelius commercial real estate news, the town board in late January OK’d a proposal by West Little Rock, Ark.-based Bank of the Ozarks to build a 3,800-square-foot branch and 19-space parking lot on West Catawba Avenue at Kunkleman Drive.

The board awarded the bank a conditional-use permit allowing drive-thru windows.