A Planning Board decision Monday helped Dabney Exchange out of a bit of a pickle.
The MarkPiercePoole Properties commercial development at the intersection of Dabney Drive and U.S. 158 Bypass planned to have a sweeping semicircular road feeding a retailer at the back of the property as part of Phase 2 of the project, developer Grey Poole told the board.
But soil sampling revealed that the ground is actually fill material to a depth of 10 to 20 feet not too far beyond the building that houses U.S. Cellular and Kelly Rentals. Poole said the fill probably includes the debris of the old pickle plant.
That situation makes it prohibitively expensive to develop the rear lot of the development. Poole said all of the fill would have to be excavated, then refilled.
As a result, Dabney Exchange almost certainly won’t stretch as far from Dabney Drive as once planned, and the Planning Board unanimously approved a change in the site plan to use an L-shaped road in place of the curved drive.
“I always wondered when that pickle situation was coming to light,” Planning Board Chairman Gray Faulkner said. “I knew it was there.”
Poole said his firm knew the fill was on the hill behind the property but was surprised to find the bad soil extended so far from the hill.