There were many reasons that led Jud Watkins to open his second brewery across the bridge in Brunswick County.   Watkins, who also owns Wrightsville Beach Brewery on Oleander Drive in Wilmington, started scouting locations for expansion in 2019. Growing in Wilmington was an option, he said, but after driving around the tri-county region and crunching Census data, Wa ...

The first thing Daniel Jones wants people to take away from Boundless, a life-size bronze sculpture representing members of the United States Colored Troops by artist Stephen Hayes, is the “recognition of a story most people didn’t know,” he said.    Jones (pictured), cultural curator of the statue’s home, Cameron Art Museum, leads tours ...

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In early March, the 31 tiny homes (about 405 square feet each) in Eden Village off Kornegay Avenue in Wilmington were expected to be ready for occupants potentially in a matter of weeks.   Organizers of the village, built to help the homeless and disabled find shelter, were awaiting certificates of occupancy to allow tenants to move in. Those sign-off documents were ...

Over the past several years, entities around the state have done a lot of hard work to make North Carolina the No. 1 state for business. Combining this robust business growth and the overall desirability of our coastal location, we are now facing an immediate challenge: Where are people going to live? More specifically, where are the workers for all the new jobs going to l ...

Denise Kinney became president of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage, one of the largest residential real estate firms in the region, in 2021, and the firm has continued to grow under her leadership.   A couple of the firm’s most recent growth announcements have included the opening of an office near Charlotte and a merger with longtime area Realtor Buddy Bla ...

Water has been gone from the lakes long enough to give way to nature, but the new views – while not unsightly – aren’t quite as picturesque.    Hurricane Florence stole Boiling Spring Lakes’ identity more than four years ago. Floodwater from the storm overpowered the dams, causing them to breach and prompting an exodus of water that hasn ...

It’s a familiar pattern: Following the announcement of any new apartment development, area residents scratch their heads and ask why more apartments are rising. There are complaints about the prospect of more noise and snarled traffic.   But the demand for apartment living seems to be ceaseless as the region’s population continues to grow.   In ea ...

Data and capital. Those are key areas Cape Fear Collective identified from conversations with nonprofits as two niches it could fill, driving towards the collective’s mission of enacting social change.    At the wheel is Meaghan Dennison, the organization’s CEO.   Dennison has served as CEO since May of 2022; she was the fourth person hired b ...

High-tech touches weren’t the only thing decked out in the HGTV Smart Home last year. The 3,000-square-foot house with three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms also featured a state-of-the-art kitchen, wet bar, wrap-around porch, pool, pergola and more. And the modern cottage – built by Charter Building Group – showcased looks by interior designer a ...