Encore Apartments and Murphy gas station advance in Burlington

Burlington inspections approved a building permit about three weeks ago for a Murphy gas station at 866 Huffman Mill Road, clearing the way for a 2,800-square-foot convenience store and six pairs of pumps that could serve 12 vehicles at once. Across Huffman Mill Road, grading and clearing are already visible on the Encore Apartments at Alamance site, a 432-unit project spread across about 22 acres near the Huffman Mill Road interchange.

For Burlington drivers, the two projects mark another shift along one of the county’s busiest commercial corridors. The Murphy site replaces the former Joe’s 66 property, and its location near the Walmart supercenter on Garden Road puts it next to a retail stretch that already draws heavy traffic. Encore, meanwhile, is rising off Whitesell Drive, where the development will add hundreds of apartments close to I-85/40 and the interchange that funnels growth into west Burlington.

The Encore project has been in motion since spring 2022, when Darren Lucas began piecing together the site and filed the first rezoning request for the parcels at 3213 and 0 Whitesell Drive, identified in city records by Alamance County tax IDs 112478 and 112474. Burlington’s planning commission unanimously approved the rezoning on April 25, 2022, after Lucas told planners his company usually builds three-story buildings with 24 units each and said the proposed zoning would allow up to 20 apartments per acre. He described the development as “luxury A-style” apartments.

Neighbors made clear early on that the change would not come without friction. Joe Routh raised concerns about widening Whitesell Drive, setbacks, vegetative cover and keeping his well and septic system, all issues that still shape how nearby residents view the project as site work ramps up. Burlington City Council annexation approval in April 2026 allowed site preparation to begin in earnest, turning a long rezoning process into visible earthmoving this summer.

The two projects also fit into a larger apartment-building surge in Burlington. A 2022 local roundup counted 662 multifamily units under construction in the city and said nearly 1,500 more apartments, townhouses and duplexes could be added by rezonings approved that year. Crews are pushing ahead through the summer heat, which makes the work on exposed sites more demanding even as it stays plainly visible from the road.

For now, the changes are easiest to see in the dirt and the permits: one project is shifting from plans to foundations, and the other is turning an old roadside parcel into a new stop on Huffman Mill Road.