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YOUNGSVILLE -- Developers of a 110-acre, 1.4 million-square-foot business park expect to have tenants in place and be complete with the first of three phases by the spring of 2024.
Last week, as construction equipment rumbled in the background, and their U.S. 1 North Commerce Center banner hung between two excavators, Summit Real Estate Group brass, along with their development partners, county and state officials, and staff broke ground on a site that leaders said they saw coming.

LOUISBURG -- A judge refused to lower the bond in a murder case, but did agree to release an alleged getaway vehicle to the suspect's family.
In Franklin County Superior Court last week, an attorney for Dillon Piper petitioned the court to have his bond reduced from $2.5 million.
When Franklin County sheriff's deputies arrested Piper and Gavin Miller for the January shooting death of 19-year-old Hamilton Woods Jr., they were each placed in the Franklin County Jail in lieu of a $5 million bond.

LOUISBURG -- Maria Parham Franklin has gotten over COVID.
That was the message the facility's executive director of operations delivered to county commissioners during their Sept. 18 meeting.
It was a better message than the one Emilee Johnson presented to commissioners in March 2022 -- when the COVID pandemic kept hospital numbers and revenues lower than anticipated.

FRANKLINTON -- Town officials agreed to support a high-efficiency rail project that's expected to connect Washington D.C. to Florida.
But, they haven't yet put their money where their mouth is. And, they want to give state transportation officials more lip about the project's design.
The S-Line is a freight line connecting Richmond, Va., to Tampa, Fla and Virginia and North Carolina has bought the right of way between Petersburg, Va. and Raleigh for freight and passenger rail services.

Barbara Thorne (left) and Barbara Oram, part of the Grub Club, with the Louisburg Senior Center