BUSINESS BRIEFS

REAL ESTATE business briefs

COMPILED BY CATHERINE KOZAK

Dare Looking to Make Salaries Competitive

Faced with a shortfall in competitive pay compared with other local governments on the Outer Banks, the Dare County Board of Commissioners agreed in January to immediately increase staff salaries in the Public Works Department. County Manager Bobby Outten told the board that county starting salaries were $8,000 to $10,000 lower than what the towns pay, and that off ering fl exible schedules and hiking the county pay will help them retain employees. The board also agreed to have a salary study completed by a qualifi ed contractor prior to the next budget year.

Upgrade for The Lost Colony

Audience members at the Waterside Theatre on Roanoke Island will be sitting pretty – and comfortably – while watching The Lost Colony this summer. Located in the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, the outdoor theater is being outfi tted with 1,600 new seats, all with cupholders. The National Park Service Outer Banks’ Group, which owns Waterside Theatre, recently awarded a $236,000 contract to Irwin Seating of Grand Rapids, Michigan. According to the park service, it is the fi rst full replacement of the seats since 1998, and the project is expected to be completed by May 1, 2022.

Corolla Golf Club Under New Ownership

ClubCorp, a Dallas-based lifestyle company that operates more than 200 private clubs, is now the full owner of The Currituck Club in Corolla. Although the company has already operated the northern Outer Banks golf and country club under a lease for more than 20 years, its new ownership will allow for long-term investments to enhance the site, according to a company press release. Located along the Currituck Sound, the 18-hole golf course was planned by renowned designer Rees Jones and was named one of the Top 25 Courses in North Carolina in 1999 by Golf Digest.

Gardens’ Director Resigns

Carl Curnutte, the executive director of The Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island, has resigned from his post after his 12-year tenure in that role. While announcing Curnutte’s decision in a statement released this past January, Linda Davenport, president of the Gardens’ board of governors, wished him well. “We accepted Carl’s resignation with a tender heart,” Davenport said. “His dedication to the Gardens has helped us grow and become a premier attraction on the Outer Banks.”

The site has operated as a nonprofi t project of the Garden Club of North Carolina since 1951, and Curnutte will reportedly assist the Gardens in searching for his replacement.

Real Estate market snapshot

New Theater for the Theatre

The Theatre of Dare will soon be staging its productions from a new home in Kitty Hawk Plaza. In February, the 31-year-old nonprofi t organization announced that a three-year lease was signed for the former Paparazzi OBX nightclub across from the Kitty Hawk Post Offi ce on the U.S. 158 Bypass.

The community theater group was essentially homeless after its venue at the Dare campus of the College of the Albemarle closed in 2017. New paint, lights and seats will be part of the improvements to the new space, according to the Theatre of Dare’s website. With more room to expand, the group hopes to partner with others in the community to increase their off erings, including adding musical performances and summer arts camps. As expected, real estate sales on the Outer Banks have continued to cool a bit since the end of last summer, but housing inventory only got tighter during the same time period, according to the January 2022 MLS Statistical Report from the Outer Banks Association of Realtors. Residential sales dropped by 16% in January 2022 over January 2021, and sales of lots/land were down 22% over the same period, while commercial sales stayed the same, making an average 17% decline in sales from 2021 numbers. Under contract listings for early 2022 also decreased, with a drop of 13% compared to 2021. The average number of days on the market for residential houses also dropped, however, going from 92 days in January 2021 to 41 days in January 2022. For land/lots, the average number of days spent on the market during the same period also decreased, from 184 days in 2021 to 106 days in 2022. Inventory, meanwhile, has declined a total of 29%, with

residential down 36%, lots/land down 25% and commercial

down 7%. Even with an increase in inventory, though, it would be hard to beat the 2021 market anytime soon. According to the Outer Banks Association of Realtors’ year-end MLS report for 2021, inventory averages were down by 34%, sales averages were up by 17%, total volume sold was up 45% and sales totaled more than $2 billion. It was the lowest inventory and the highest number of sales in MLS history on the Outer Banks.

Big Numbers at the Seashore

Visitation at national parks on the Outer Banks broke records in 2021, with more than four million people combined visiting the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

Of the parks, Cape Hatteras enjoyed the most visitors by far, with a total of about 3.2 million people traveling to the nation’s fi rst national seashore in 2021 – a number that was 20% higher than the year before and 35% higher than the visitation average of the previous 10 years. It also earned the seashore a spot in the top 25 mostvisited national parks for 2021. Out of the 423 national parks across the U.S., Cape Hatteras came in at number 23, only two spots below California’s Yosemite, which ranked 21st with about 3.3 million visitors. The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park were numbers one and two on the list.

Pioneering Weeping Radish Brewery Sold

The Weeping Radish Brewery, Butchery & Pub, the fi rst micro-brewery in North Carolina, has been purchased by Sumit Gupta with SAGA Realty & Construction as of January 1, 2022, according to published reports. In 1986, Uli Bennewitz opened the Weeping Radish in Manteo, where Oktoberfest dances were popular annual events. In 2005, the business moved to Currituck County, while expanding its brewery and adding a butchery. Gupta said he plans to refresh and expand the operation.