Robbinsville – As Graham County gears up for tourist season, a number of major projects and potential projects are on the horizon. Here are some things to watch over the next couple of years.
Justice center
Plans are being developed to build a multi-purpose justice center at an 11-acre county-owned parcel on West Fort Hill.
County officials plan to have a contract for the facility in 2023, with a price tag of about $24 million.
The center would house Graham County Superior and District courts, the Sheriff’s Office and county jail.
The courts, jail and some county offices are located at the old courthouse downtown, and the new justice center would free up space in the old courthouse for other uses. For the moment, plans are for county operations now housed at the Community Building on Knight Street to move back to the courthouse, where they were once located.
The Graham County Board of Elections Office – now located next to Robbinsville Town Hall – is already moving into the community building. The Sheriff’s Office would move from a former bank building on Rodney Orr Bypass. The futures of the old elections office and the former sheriff’s building have not been determined.
Owens property
This 32.49-acre property was acquired by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians for $1.3 million in December 2021. Located between Tapoco Road and the Cheoah River – just north of Robbinsville – it is among the largest remaining developable parcels with major highway access in the Robbinsville area.
No plans have been announced and there has been no response to a request for information from tribal officials. However, there has been talk about relocating the Junaluska Museum – which had been at the 3.68-acre Junaluska grave site and memorial until a storm damaged it in 2015.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Project Management Office conducted a public meeting in 2017 in the Snowbird community, to discuss the future of the Junaluska Museum. The tribe has been working on a plan for a new museum that would highlight the life and achievements of late Cherokee leader as well as restore the gravesite and memorial. The museum would also preserve the history of the Snowbird Cherokee and provide “a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art experience for the community and visitors,” according to the Cherokee One Feather.
During that meeting, Travis Sneed – of the EBCI Project Management Office – said the existing site would allow limited development and expansion and may not be cost effective or beneficial to the community to overdevelop.
“The Junaluska Museum could be an anchor for the Graham County economy and another tourism attraction for the region,” according to a Cherokee One Feather article about the 2017 meeting.
Corridor K
Work is expected to begin on a $681.1 million section of the Corridor K project in Graham County in August.
Corridor K is part of the Appalachian Development Highway System, which stretches 127 miles between Cleveland, Tenn., and Dillsboro, N.C. – a network of road corridors established by Congress in 1965 to provide a safe, efficient transportation system for the Appalachian Region.
The N.C. Department of Transportation is studying improvement options from Andrews in Cherokee County through to Stecoah in Graham County, as part of a proposed project to provide the transportation infrastructure necessary for the well-being of local residents and regional traffic.
The upgrades would improve mobility and reliability between U.S. Highway 129 in Robbinsville and the existing four-lane section on N.C. Highway 28 at Stecoah.
Because of the challenges associated with the region’s mountainous terrain and sensitive natural habitat, the proposed project is among the last of the Appalachian Development Highway System’s corridors to be completed.