Buc-ee’s picks Mebane for first North Carolina travel center

Buc-ee’s broke ground in Mebane on its first North Carolina travel center, settling on a site at 1425 Trollingwood Hawfields Road after first pursuing a project in Efland in Orange County. The move puts the chain on the I-85/I-40 corridor in Alamance County, where the company now expects to open in late 2027.

The shift matters because the project did not just change zip codes. Orange County development documents said the earlier Efland proposal would have brought about 200 jobs and at least $40 million in capital investment, but Buc-ee’s ultimately moved east to Mebane, where the site won unanimous rezoning and a special use permit from the Mebane City Council in early 2024. Alamance Chamber officials said the Mebane location will create at least 225 full-time jobs with an average annual wage of about $45,000, a bigger payroll and a slightly larger job count than the Orange County plan.

The proposed travel center is enormous by local standards, with plans calling for roughly 74,000 to 75,440 square feet and up to 120 fueling positions. That scale explains why the site’s location near the interstate was so important: Buc-ee’s depends on highway access, and the Mebane parcel offers a direct line to regional traffic moving through Alamance County. For local leaders, that means a larger tax base and more jobs; for nearby roads, it means more cars, more turning traffic and more pressure on a busy interchange area.

The project has also drawn resistance. Concerns about traffic congestion, environmental impact, fuel storage and watershed protections surfaced around the earlier Orange County proposal and carried over into the Mebane debate, especially around sensitive areas tied to Seven Mile Creek. Those worries underline the tradeoff that often follows a marquee retailer: the promise of investment and employment on one side, and the cost of handling runoff, road strain and development pressure on the other.

With the June 10, 2026 groundbreaking now in the books, the question around Buc-ee’s has shifted from where North Carolina’s first store would land to how much change it will bring to the land around it. Alamance County won the project, and Mebane now carries the burden of making the deal work.