A new site for the Carson Convenience Center has been a project six years in the making. After years of complications and delays, development of the center remains in limbo with Interim Solid Waste Director Jamie Picou unwilling to commit to a projected date.
The Carson Convenience Center has seen better days. The facility has long had complaints about the lack of space and hazardous traffic conditions. The attendant building was condemned on Jan. 2 because of significant damage to its cinderblock foundation. Center employees have since been moved to a nearby attendant building with temporary power. Picou said there are no plans in place to renovate the current center, saying the most practical option will be to focus on relocating rather than investing in costly repairs.
The Carson center is one of the most utilized convenience centers in Macon County, Picou said, and the new location is expected to have two to three household waste compactors, four recycling cans, fencing and a new attendant building. It will be fully paved. The new center was designed to account for efficiency and future growth.
The county has been trying to get a new center for six years. Then-Solid Waste Director Chris Stahl was discussing moving the Carson center to a new location as far back as July 2019, when negotiations to purchase a lot for a new center were underway. By December 2020 the Carson center’s new location at the old Cartoogechaye Elementary School property had been selected and land surveys were underway. The land was donated to the county.
Planning for the center began in March 2021 through McGill Associates. In the beginning of 2022, the N.C. Department of Transportation determined the site would need a new turn lane to account for the traffic going to the property and required the county to build the lane to continue with the project.
Bids to build the new turn lane went out in May 2024, and in June commissioners approved a bid from Parrish Contracting to build the lane for $249,000. The center’s original estimated cost was $300,000. When construction of the lane was completed in March 2025, the total cost of the project – counting engineering and design fees paid before the bid was approved – was $335,386.07. To build the rest of the center will cost an additional, estimated $500,000, Picou said.
Aside from the building of the turn lane, some sitework has been completed, including partial paving, a fence by the slope entering the property and some clearing and mowing performed by county staff. To complete the new center, the county will have to develop an engineered design, pave the site, lay concrete pads for cans and compactors, get the new cans, complete electrical work, build a new attendant building and fence in the property.
“When designing the new Carson Center, our objective is to build the facility correctly from the start while accounting for future growth and operational efficiency,” Picou said.
One of the department’s long-term recycling goals is to fully transition away from walk-in recycling trailers. Recycling containers are more user-friendly and significantly easier to maintain. Compactors have also replaced traditional dumpsters due to their greater capacity. While compactors require electrical service, they result in cost savings over time by reducing the number of required pulls for emptying.”
Building the center would require funds from Solid Waste. The money could not come out of the county’s fund balance, but Solid Waste is trying to find grant money for the project, Picou said, including a recent application to a DOT recycling grant that could help cover the cost of building the new center. Recipients of awards for the grant will be announced in March.
“Due to delays and challenges encountered over the past several years, I am not comfortable committing to an operation date for the new center at this time,” Picou said. “Some funds from the Solid Waste fund balance had to be appropriated toward a new solid waste landfill cell and once financing was finalized for the project, we were able to reimburse those funds. We wanted to make sure we had available funds in the Solid Waste fund to cover not just this project but any unexpected occurrences anywhere else in the system before we committed a significant portion of those funds to this center construction.”
“We did not want to raise availability fees or tipping fees inappropriately without understanding the full financial picture. We are getting ready to finalize the layout and design and will push through the process now as quickly as we can,” she continued.