RDU board approves deal to lease airport land to Wake County for off-road cycling park

A network of off-road cycling trails on property owned by Raleigh-Durham International Airport will become the basis for a new Wake County park.

The RDU Airport Authority board on Thursday agreed to lease 151 acres to the county for use by mountain bikers, closing a deal that has been years in the making. Wake County commissioners approved the lease agreement last month.

The forested land lies off Old Reedy Creek Road, adjacent to William B. Umstead State Park and near Cary’s Black Creek Greenway trail and existing mountain biking trails in Lake Crabtree County Park.

The county expects to spend about $3 million to put in a gravel parking lot, composting toilets and a shelter, and rebuild a network of trails already on the property. Those trails were blazed over the years by cyclists despite “No Trespassing” signs erected by RDU.

“I’m thrilled,” said Sig Hutchinson, the former Wake County commissioners chair who pushed hard for the deal. “Five-plus years in the making and a significant part in making Lake Crabtree County Park and Umstead State Park a regional recreation destination for the Triangle.”

Under the agreement, Wake County will pay RDU $1.76 million over the coming decade. The towns of Cary and Morrisville will kick in another $3.5 million, for a total to the airport of nearly $5.3 million.

RDU is also counting on $3.6 million from the Wake Stone Corporation. Wake Stone has begun making $360,000 annual payments toward the county’s lease, as part of its agreement with RDU to quarry stone on airport land across the road.

Those payments proved contentious as terms of the lease agreement became public last month.

The original proposal put before county commissioners would have required the county to make up those payments if Wake Stone chose or was forced to abandoned the quarry project.

Several commissioners objected to the lease being tied in any way to the quarry plan. Since the RDU board approved the mineral lease in 2019, opponents have fought the quarry in court, saying the land should remain undeveloped and become part of Umstead State Park.

In the final agreement, Wake County’s payments would not change if Wake Stone stops contributing, a point the county’s two representatives on the airport board, Ellis Hankins and David Kushner, emphasized before voting to approve it.

“I do not view this lease agreement to be related, directly or indirectly, to the Wake Stone lease agreement for potential development of a quarry,” Hankins said.

But Dickie Thompson, who represents Raleigh on the board, disagreed, saying he didn’t think the lease would have happened if Wake Stone wasn’t kicking in money for it. Thompson thanked the company and its owners, the Bratton family, for agreeing to contribute toward the lease “when we asked them to do that.”

“I think the irony of it is that the people that were so opposed to the quarry are the same folks, a lot of them, that are pushing for this park,” Thompson said. “And so in doing so they’re recognizing, to me, the benefit of the quarry and the money that’s generated from that lease. It should be a win-win for both folks.”

It’s not clear yet whether Wake Stone will be able to develop the quarry and continue making those payments. The state Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources denied the company’s request for a permit to quarry stone on the RDU property in February, citing potential impacts to Umstead State Park. The company has appealed that decision.

Another airport-county lease agreement lies ahead

RDU acquired the land on both sides of Old Reedy Creek Road in the 1970s as part of an unrealized plan to build a new runway. It put it up for lease in 2017 to generate income for airport projects.

Lease negotiations between RDU and Wake County were suspended in the fall of 2018, after Wake Stone offered to contribute money as part of the quarry agreement. Because quarry opponents were fighting the project in court, Wake’s attorneys advised the county not to get involved with the 151 acres until the lawsuit played out, said Greg Ford, the board’s chairman at the time.

Negotiations resumed after opponents lost that first round of legal challenges.

The lease payments were based on an appraisal of the property done by the airport, which values the land at more than $15 million. Kushner said he understood some people think RDU should give the county a discount but said the Federal Aviation Administration would not allow the airport to take less than a private developer would pay.

“I’m glad we are not developing a hotel on it,” Kushner said. “But it was imperative that the airport achieve fair market value for this piece of land. Otherwise we would not be able to obtain FAA approval.”

The negotiations over the 151 acres are a prelude to another land lease agreement between RDU and the county.

Nearby Lake Crabtree County Park, just south of Interstate 40, sits on land owned by RDU. The county has leased 33 acres on the lake, where it built a boat house, bathrooms and parking lots, since 1988. It has leased another 148 acres used for mountain biking trails since the early 1990s.

The annual rent for both properties is $1.

The county and RDU have agreed to renegotiate when the lease on the lakeside land expires in 2025. The county will likely pay considerably more given the FAA’s insistence on fair market value.