Stanly County, North Carolina

in different areas of the County. That project will likely be in the neighborhood of a $7-8 million project.” Enhanced road access is also on the agenda, as Lucas believes it’s important to have fast and efficient highway connections to neighboring cities, such as Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Durham, and Fayetteville. “Currently, the Department of Transportation has a major highway expansion project in Stanly County, which is one of the few counties in North Carolina that does not have a four- lane, restricted access highway transversing the entire county,” he explains. “We do have four- lane access in the central and western part of our county, but we don’t have four-lane access through the entire county. But the State is working on a road expansion project – grading and civil work has already started, moving power lines, and things of that nature. Within the next two to three years, we’ll have a four-lane road that will transverse our entire county. It will help with transportation and logistics and just make us more accessible, so we’re extremely excited about that investment by the State in our community.” Two other critical construction projects are under the purview of the county’s two post-secondary educational institutions: Pfeiffer University and Stanly Community College. “Pfeiffer University’s main campus is located in Misenheimer, which is in the northern part of our county,” says Lowder. “They are close to finishing the construction of a downtown Albemarle facility, which will host their Health Sciences programs. We’re real excited about that because it will be transformational for our Five Points area, which is located in downtown Albemarle.” One of Pfeiffer’s two new graduate health sciences programs is for physician assistants and the other is for occupational therapy. Once fully developed, these programs are expected to matriculate several hundred students. Not only will the new Health Sciences Center provide