AUTRYVILLE — After the newly developed Highway 24 bypassed the heart of Autryville, leaders of the town in western Sampson County are looking forward to bringing back attention with a beautification project.
As part of the extension project for the highway corridor, a certain percentage of groundwork was required to be set aside for visual improvements and signage. The town recently received preliminary plans from the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s (NCDOT) Division of Highways. It starts at the Cumberland/Sampson County line all the way to State Road 1404 in Sampson. After a meeting in March, Mayor Richard Spell said it’s something the town is excited about.
“It’s going to give us an identity,” Spell said. “For one, it’s going to vastly upgrade the signage from just the little green highway signs that have an arrow pointing toward Autryville. There will be structure included in the signage so you know that you’re coming into a municipality as you’re traveling along the road, so we’re very excited about what they’re doing.”
Upcoming work include signs on both sides of town, and landscaping at the Highway 24 intersections of Minnie Hall Road and Autryville Road, which goes towards Salemburg.
“It does come with the caveat that, after a year, the town has to maintain it. Any of the plantings and work that they put in, the town becomes responsible for it. So that’s why we’re working so closely with them. We want indigenous plants that will not impact significantly what we have to do here to maintain.”
Improvements such as paving and grading for roads and plans for noise abatement next to some of the homes are also included.
“It’s created new traffic noise problems for the homeowners,” Spell said about the new road coming through.
The NCDOT plans are being finalized, but due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, an official completion date has not been set.
“With everything going on, all timelines I think are off the table because meetings can’t be held and a lot of things are going on,” Spell said. “It’s possible that there will be implementation in the fall. There’s no guarantees on that, but it would at least put us in the system to be next up.”
Grant to aid flooding study
Autryville was informed Thursday about receiving a $25,000 grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation for a hydrology study for stormwater and drainage infrastructure. It’s expected to help with flooding issues associated with the South River.
“Hopefully, going forward, we can alleviate some of the flooding issues we had with the last two storms with Matthew and Florence,” Spell said. “We had significant damage flooding and some of that is quite franklybecause of how the hydrology changed after the construction of the road.”
Another reason behind flooding issues is the town’s storm water drainage system. The grant is expected to find areas that need to be upgraded to solve issues and prevent flooding over the river bank.
“This will help us going forward to resolve those problems,” he said. “It’s going to fully fund the study and with the study in hand, we can approach the state and other federal funders about helping us with the actual cost of doing the infrastructure work.”
Established in 1999, the mission of the Golden LEAF Foundation is to increase economic opportunity in North Carolina’s rural and tobacco-dependent areas. The efforts to help includes grants and partnering with state and local governments. More than $888 million in grant has been awarded to communities.
Virus spoils Easter parade
The Easter Parade, set for Saturday, April 11, is cancelled because of the COVID-19 outbreak. With many disappointment residents, Autryville officials would like to have another event in the summer.
“We hope to have some type of celebration parade when this is over, if it’s over, possibly around the Fourth of July or later in the fall of this year,” Spell said. “The Easter Parade is now off the board. One of the things that the specific things that governor mentioned in his executive order was parades. We were anticipating that, but we just went ahead and cancelled it at our last meeting.”