PINEVILLE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — The city of Pineville has put up a tight timeframe to decide where a new electric substation will go before the city outgrows and overloads its current electric grid, but families have continued to push back on the proposed location.

The city owns its own power, but contracts with ElectriCities to oversee usage.

According to a news released from December, Pineville City Manager Ryan Spitzer announced that the “new substation will provide capacity for many years to come and will serve as a back-up source to an existing substation that will increase system reliability to help prevent power outages.”

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At a public hearing on Thursday, representatives from ElectriCities revealed that the electric grid could become overloaded by 2025, which would lead to more power outages.

To accommodate this, ElectriCities and the Pineville officials have researched and proposed the addition of a new substation to be added to a one-acre square spot of land in the corner of Miller’s Flea Market.

The announcement in December caught many families by surprise, which lead to a large outpour of concern for property values, traffic congestion and potential dangers from those who have targeted substations in the past.

Thursday representatives from both entities tried to address close to two-dozen commonly asked questions.

On the issue of property value, real estate agent and homeowner of the neighborhood next to the proposed station Sean McGovern said the effect of property value was not predictable.

“The damage that will occur to property value is probably already happening because of the unknown,” he explained. “Over time the values would go back up.”

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Other questions included:   

Q: How will this affect our safety due to potential sabotage on the substations? What about the risk of stray bullets hitting our children?   

A: The proposed substation will be surrounded by a brick and/or block wall. This configuration will provide better security than most electrical substations in the country. The location of the substation provides limited obscurity from public view making a sabotage event less likely.  

Q: Has loss of revenue been considered since no future grocery store, school, medical center, etc. will ever be built on or near the Miller Flea Market?

A: Without this substation, there would not be adequate electric capacity for any of those businesses to location there. The new substation will provide that electric capacity.  

The overloaded power grid has been researched for several years, and in that time frame ElectriCities and city electric leaders explored 10 potential locations.

Out of those 10, only two were found to be suitable.

The substations must be near or close to existing powerlines to “tap into” for supplies and they must not be within flood plains.

The two that remained belong to the Miller family; a corner acre of parking lot of Miller’s Flea Market, and a plot of vacant land directly across the street.

Steve Miller told Queen City News just hours before the Thursday meeting, he originally did not want a survey done on his Miller’s Flea Market property.

“I don’t want to sell,” he explained.

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Pink/red markers were placed in a square plot of land in the back of his parking lot near the corner of Miller Road and Greenway Drive, which also backs up to a neighborhood.

Roughly 200 people live in these nearby neighborhoods, and would be more than 300 feet away from the substation.

Miller explained that the substation would take up roughly 100 parking spots and some locations for vendors to set up.

“People gotta have a place to park,” Miller explained. “If they can’t park here then people will probably park up and down Miller Road, and they will probably park in these neighbors’ streets.”

Thursday, ElectriCities representatives admitted that they had begun to explore options to remedy traffic concerns.

However, Miller told representatives at Thursday’s meeting that he was insistent on not selling the flea market parking lot.

He explained that his brother owned the lot across the street, and that it was for sale.

City Manager Spitzer explained that they were originally informed that spot of land had been reserved for commercial development.

Miller responded that they were open to discuss the building of power lines over the road to a substation on the vacant land.

It’s unknow if that would been explored.

If so, the proposed could see power lines go from existing Duke Energy lines, over Rock Hill-Pineville Road to a substation in a lot across the street.

Town Council will hold a work session on this topic on Jan. 22, with another public hearing to be held on Feb. 12.

A vote on approval could take place in March.

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