Dayco plant demolition to start next week
The first phase of demolition will start next week at the old Dayco rubber plant in Waynesville to make way for a shopping center that will house a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Home Depot.
Crews are expected to start staging equipment to take down the plant’s Banbury rubber mixer on Monday. Demolition could start by Wednesday, said Mark Clasby, the county’s economic development director.
The demolition of the mixer is key. Once it is gone crews can clean up around it. Part of the 40-acre site Dayco site is considered a brownfield, meaning some of the soil is polluted. The state has allowed development as long as it does not spread the pollution.
A developer in August said he would raze the plant, which once employed 1,000 people, and turn it into a shopping center called Waynesville Commons. The Wal-Mart and Home Depot will anchor the shopping center. It will also include smaller retailers, restaurants and a bank, Clasby said.
Waynesville town leaders hope the redevelopment will improve the south Main Street area.
The town Planning Board last summer approved changes to Waynesville’s land-use plan to accommodate the development. One of the biggest compromises was allowing two 25-foot signs at the entrance and parking in front of the buildings. But the developer compromised, too. The Wal-Mart will have timber gables and a stonework façade and the shopping center will have pedestrian-friendly walkways.
The town has approved all of the developer’s site plans.
The project is already changing the south end of town, said Byron Hickox, the town’s land development administrator. He said he expects to see new development ahead of the Waynesville Commons project.
South Waynesville has not developed into the tourism hotspot that Main Street has become. The town has had trouble in the past getting some property owners to remove junk from their land.
“The free market is going to do for that end of town what the government could never do,” Hickox said.
The deal to bring the companies, and potentially other national retailers, to the Dayco site has been in the works for years. The town and county governments gave a nonprofit $1.3 million in public money in 2002 to buy the old plant and redevelop it.
Clasby said the deal could close in mid April with construction starting this summer. He said the companies have already spent $7 million on the project.
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