Elon council advances plan for small EV charger at Beth Schmidt Park

After cooling on the idea earlier in April, Elon town leaders moved a small electric-vehicle charger proposal forward and told staff to work out an agreement with Greensboro resident Gerald Merchant for a town-owned site, possibly Beth Schmidt Park.

The April 30 vote was 5-0, a clear shift from the council’s earlier hesitation over placing charging equipment so close to the park’s playground area. Council members had raised concerns about a charger sitting near a children’s play space, along with questions about fire risk and whether a four-hour charging time would make the station useful enough to justify using public land.

Merchant and his wife, Sara, returned with a more flexible version of the plan and answered questions from council members. Merchant said he was driven by a long-standing interest in electric vehicles and by the chance to build a business after retiring from a more traditional corporate career. He acknowledged that he had not run a commercial charging station before, but told council he was willing to adjust the proposal.

The town’s April 27 agenda listed the item as a request to lease space for an EV charging station, and the Sustainability Committee had already reviewed the proposal on March 24 and recommended support with two conditions. Elon News Network reported that council conceptually approved the lease request on April 27, with Council Member Randy Orwig saying, “We don't want to get into this with legals and everything else until we kind of know we want to do this.”

Beth Schmidt Park, which opened in 2005 as Elon’s first recreational facility, has a fenced playground for children ages 2-12, a 9-hole disc golf course, a one-mile trail and a gravel event lot. The town says it has only two parks open for use, Beth Schmidt Park and Lawrence Slade Park, which helps explain why the proposed charger drew close scrutiny over how public space should be used.

Merchant said he was open to a Level 3 charger that could serve two vehicles and cut charging time to about 30 to 45 minutes. He also said his first choice had been parking spaces near the railroad tracks in downtown Elon, but that site would have required approval from North Carolina Railroad. The town’s move on April 30 did not install anything yet, but it gave Merchant and staff a green light to keep working toward an agreement and left the final site, cost and timeline still to be determined.