North Carolina’s first Buc-ee’s breaks ground, could draw Buncombe travelers

Buncombe County travelers heading east on I-40 will soon have a new stop to weigh against the usual fuel-and-food exits. North Carolina’s first Buc-ee’s will break ground June 10 in Mebane, putting a 75,440-square-foot travel center on a 34-acre parcel near the I-40/I-85 interchange in Alamance County.

The site, at 1425 Trollingwood-Hawfields Road, is built for highway traffic at a scale far beyond a typical interstate gas station. Plans call for 120 fuel pumps, 24 electric vehicle charging stations and 652 parking spaces, along with about 200 full-time jobs once the store opens. Buc-ee’s now says the Mebane location is expected to open in late 2027, later than earlier projections that pointed to May 2027 or even late 2026.

For Buncombe residents, the location matters because Mebane sits on a key stretch of the drive between western North Carolina and the Triangle. Asheville-area drivers who already use I-40 for trips to Raleigh, Durham or points farther east could find the stop hard to miss, especially on long family road trips, holiday travel and weekend traffic through the Piedmont. The store’s scale and its interstate access make it less a novelty than a new waypoint on a route many Buncombe travelers already use.

The company says it will spend between $6 million and $11 million on road improvements, including widening ramps and the bridge over the interstate. One estimate puts total local investment at about $91 million. Local analysts have also said the store could draw as many as five million travelers a year and generate about $1.8 million in sales tax revenue for Alamance County, a sign of how much traffic and spending Buc-ee’s could pull off the highway and into Mebane.

That promise has come with controversy. Mebane City Council approved the rezoning and a special use permit by a 5-0 vote in January 2024 after an eight-hour meeting that drew record attendance. Before that, the Mebane Planning Board had voted 6-3 against the plan. Environmental advocates have warned about traffic, pollution, air quality and property-value impacts, and Rania Masri of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network said, “We do not need more toxic infrastructure.”

For western North Carolina, the bigger question is not whether Buc-ee’s becomes a destination in Alamance County. It is whether the first North Carolina location becomes part of the travel routine for Asheville-area drivers, pulling some road-trip spending away from familiar Buncombe exits and turning a Piedmont interchange into a new stop on the mountain-to-coast corridor.