Lowe's built a $320 million campus here that houses more than 3,500 employees, and town leaders credit vendors near the campus with about 2,000 more jobs. Racing adds a second economy: Dale Earnhardt Inc. and dozens of other teams and suppliers are based here, the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame sits in town, and the NASCAR Technical Institute has trained technicians here since 2002. Few towns of this size have so many skilled mechanics, fabricators and engineers living close by, and they expect contractors who run a tight operation.
West of I-77, the Lake Norman shoreline shifted from small cabins and trailers to large, expensive homes starting in the late 1980s, with places like The Point reaching several million dollars. Getting there is the hard part. Interstate access comes at Exits 31 through 36, and the I-77 Express Lanes start at Exit 36. NCDOT is widening 1.18 miles of Brawley School Road between I-77 and US-21 in a $34.8 million project scheduled to finish in early 2029, so peninsula jobs will keep fighting construction for years.
- County
- Iredell County
- Population
- About 50,200 (2020 census)
- Corridors
- I-77 (Exits 31 to 36), NC-150, NC-115, NC-3, US-21, Brawley School Rd
- How we work
- About 35 minutes from Charlotte