Plans for two new buildings and infrastructure at Wilmington Trade Center, an industrial park along U.S. 421, will go before New Hanover County’s technical review committee this week.

The two buildings will each bring 152,880 square feet of warehousing and manufacturing space to the site at 3930 U.S. 421. At the same time, the proposed road extension and utility improvements will lay the groundwork for future growth, said Chris Norvell, a principal with investment firm Edgewater Ventures.

In recent weeks, crews broke ground on the industrial park’s third building. The approximately 100,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed in March 2025, Norvell said. Two other buildings with a combined 315,000 square feet are already complete within the park.

New Hanover County leaders approved $3.3 million in incentives earlier this year to help fund the expansion of the master-planned industrial park.

Once complete, the park will have 13 buildings, ranging from 84,000 to 1 million square feet and encompassing a combined area of more than 3.2 million square feet. The proposed structures will be shell buildings that can be leased or sold to business users.

Norvell said he’s starting the permitting process for the two new buildings, which plans refer to as Buildings 4 and 7, to stay ahead of the park’s development.

“We’re just trying to stay ahead of the game so that we’re already permitted and ready to go for the next building,” Norvell said.

Once the park’s third building is around 50% to 60% leased, Norvell said he plans to break ground on Building 4. To stay ahead of demand, he plans to follow a similar model for the rest of the park’s permitting and build-out.

“I’ve got a bunch of prospects and people we want to sign leases with, but I don’t have enough space,” he said. “So we want to make sure we’re not behind the 8 ball again with a deal designed, but we don’t have the building up.”

While work on Buildings 4 and 7 is underway, the site will also see new road extensions and utility and infrastructure improvements that will allow for future growth across the park.

The two buildings, set to go before New Hanover County’s technical review committee on Wednesday, are part of the 10 buildings proposed on 187 acres that Edgewater Ventures purchased for $7.65 million last fall.

Construction of the 10 proposed buildings is expected to require approximately $82 million in direct investment and an estimated $8.8 million in infrastructure. The new buildings could add $300 million to $400 million to the county’s property tax base and generate more than 1,500 jobs for the area.

County leaders approved roughly $3.3 million in incentives in mid-April. The agreement structures the incentive money’s payout into three payment buckets based on infrastructure investments, direct site investments and jobs created.

Per the agreement, the company could receive no more than one-third of the total incentive amount in a single year, and the infrastructure and direct investments would be paid on a “pro-rata basis.”