Agenda - 09-06-2007-4f - Laserfiche WebLink

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-1 SCOPE OF WORK Cultural Resources Survey Hollow Rock Access Area and New Hope Preserve Orange County, NC 1. Project Background Orange County owns portions of a future, 97-acre, low-impact park and natural area, made up of a series of adjacent tracts located along Erwin Road and New Hope Creek. The subject property is located along the southeast side of Erwin Road (SR 1734) at the intersection with Pickett Road (SR 1303). It extends from New Hope Creek, on the west, to just beyond the boundary line between Orange and Durham counties. A multi- jurisdictional project, the property is owned by Orange and Durham counties, the City of Durham, the Town of Chapel Hill, and others. The site is predominately wooded. New Hope Creek forms the western boundary line of the park property and with a smaller tributary flowing diagonally through the center portion of the property, roughly parallel with Erwin Road. The property is approximately six miles southeast of Exit 266 of Interstate 40) and approximately two miles west of the NC 751 exit from 15-501. (See Hollow Rock Access Area and New Hope Preserve map) The property is surrounded by a combination of undeveloped and rural residential properties. It is bounded to the east by a subdivision on Cambridge Road, to the south and west by New Hope Creek and to the north by Erwin Road. (See Hollow Rock Access Area and New Hope Preserve on USGS map and on 2006 ortho photograph.) The property was acquired in a series of transactions from 2001 to 2007. Triangle Land Conservancy purchased the first two acres in 2002. Orange County purchased a one- acre parcel in 2005, a seven-acre parcel from Duke University in 2006, a twenty-acre parcel from Wade and Carolyn Penny in 2006, and a 26-acre parcel from Trinity S , chool in January 2007. Acquisition of a 43-three-acre tract owned by Duke University by Durham and Orange counties will be completed in April 2008. The City of Durham and Town of Chapel Hill will own partial interest in that 43-acre portion. All of this lies directly across Erwin Road from one of the entrances to Duke Forest's Korstian Division, which encompasses about 1,900 acres on New Hope Creek. At least two general stores were located along this stretch of Erwin Road, near where the road crosses New Hope Creek, during the twentieth century. The earlier store was a simple one-room frame structure, probably constructed during the 1920s-40s period. Following a standard country-store/rural gas-station design, this front-gable building was moved from the site to a location nearby and used by a private owner as a pottery workshop and related storage. Somewhat later, a modern-day convenience store and gas station was constructed at the site; it was removed in the late 1990s as part of the North Carolina Department of Transportation's campaign to replace the bridge over New Hope Creek. A dark green Arts and Crafts style bungalow sits along a slight rise M