Business parks rise in Northern NHC
By Emma Dill, posted Jan 14, 2026 on wilmingtonbiz.com
New business parks and industrial buildings are popping up in northern New Hanover County – one of the few parts of the county with undeveloped tracts large enough to house them.
Joe Jacobus, the former CEO of Markraft Cabinets, is developing a business park on a roughly 15-acre tract he’s owned since the late 1980s off Castle Hayne Road in Wrightsboro. In early December, crews poured the slabs for the first of the park’s proposed 17 buildings and erected the steel frames for the structures.
Barry Coppedge, co-owner of Leeward Construction, worked with Jacobus to determine the land’s highest and best use and to design the project. Coppedge said the site’s proximity to Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, Interstate 140 and Wilmington International Airport makes it ideal for industrial and business users. But it’s also one of the few tracts left for industrial development.
“If you zoom out on a map of our region, (these are) the last bits of land that meet these zoning criteria in New Hanover County,” he said. “There’s not a lot of opportunity left to do these types of developments.”
Will Leonard, senior vice president with Cape Fear Commercial, is marketing leases in the developing Wrightsboro Business Park. He said he’s seen interest from several construction and building products companies and businesses in the service trade industry.
Leonard sees the size of the proposed buildings – 5,100 square feet each – as hitting a “sweet spot” in the local industrial market. Each building includes around 900 square feet of dedicated office space and a laydown yard.
“There’s not really many of these newer, smaller flex products going up,” Leonard said. “Part of that is because there’s somewhat of a land shortage in New Hanover County.”
Leonard said the regional market for light industrial space has been strong for the last several years.
In recent years, the area has seen a handful of other small-scale business park proposals. Last year, for example, New Hanover County leaders rezoned 8 acres off North College Road for a 3,600-square-foot retail building and four flex buildings.
New Hanover County leaders have focused on extending water and sewer infrastructure into the northern parts of the county to spur residential and commercial development.
Alongside the smaller-scale proposals, parks made up of industrial buildings with thousands of square feet of space are in varying stages of development.
In September, sister companies Risley Padula Construction Inc. and Coastal Millwork Supply Co. became the first to move into New Hanover County’s Blue Clay Business Park. The firms supply and install interior doors, trim, stair parts and cabinets to single-family and multifamily residential builders throughout Southeastern North Carolina.
Their newly constructed 68,000-square-foot facility, which sits on a 5.5-acre site, houses production space and offices for both companies.
During an event marking the opening of the new facility, Scott Satterfield, CEO of Wilmington Business Development, said ongoing activity at the business park could be a “catalyst” for future industrial growth in the region. Approximately 65 acres remain available for future development within the business park, according to county officials.
New Hanover County is developing the Holly Shelter Business Park, a roughly 300-acre site located off Holly Shelter Road. Once completed, the park is expected to accommodate more than 2 million square feet of industrial space. New Hanover County recently issued a request for bids for the first phase of roadway improvements inside the park.
Other privately developed industrial projects are in the planning stages.
Standard Technologies, an Ohio-based metal fabricator, plans to develop an 85,000-square-foot industrial building in northern New Hanover County. The building, slated for a nearly 35-acre site in Castle Hayne, would house the company’s operations, including laser metal fabrication, welding and powder coating surfaces.
The company expects to employ 65 people at the facility and plans to build additional buildings on the site in the future. The company is currently working to secure a special-use permit for the project from county officials.
Also in the area, Maritime West Development is developing 19 light industrial or flex spaces, with buildings ranging between 10,000 and 30,000 square feet, according to member Scott Gerow. The project’s focus is on building speculative lease space.
The project will be Maritime West’s third venture into the flex space market in the Wilmington area. Previous projects include Maritime West Business Park, a 24,000-square-foot multi-tenant development near the Port of Wilmington, and Maritime North Business Park, a 138,500-square-foot development in the growing U.S. 421 industrial corridor.
Site work on the project in northern New Hanover County began this fall, and completion of the first 20,900-square-foot building is expected in early summer of 2026, Gerow wrote in an email to the Business Journal.
“Riding on the momentum of North Kerr Industrial Park,” Gerow wrote, “the site’s proximity to the central business districts of Wilmington, the airport and major highway networks should ensure a successful project geared toward small- to medium-sized distribution operations and local service providers.”
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