5 Things to Know Before Moving to Sherrills Ford, NC

Sherrills Ford has changed more in the last decade than in the fifty years before it. If you are looking here, most of what you will read is either nostalgic about how quiet it used to be or breathless about how much is coming. Neither is much use when you are trying to decide. Here are five concrete things that have actually happened, and one trade off worth thinking about before you buy.

A 206 acre mixed use village replaced woods

The Village at Sherrills Ford occupies 206 acres at the corner of NC-150 and Slanting Bridge Road, on the Lake Norman shoreline. It was planned as a mixed use center rather than a subdivision, combining housing with retail, offices and dining in one place. A decade before that it was wooded acreage. If you have driven NC-150 at any point in the last ten years, this is the change you noticed.

Everyday errands stopped being a drive

A 49,000 square foot Publix opened at the Village Center in 2017, and medical offices followed. That sounds mundane until you consider what it replaced, which was driving toward Mooresville, Denver or Hickory for a full grocery run. The arrival of ordinary services is usually the point at which a lake area stops being a weekend destination and starts being somewhere people live year round.

NC-150 is being widened, and the state is spending real money on it

The Department of Transportation has committed more than 100 million dollars to widening NC-150 from Lincoln County east to Interstate 77 in Iredell County. That is the road most of Sherrills Ford uses to get anywhere, and it is the single largest factor in how the area will feel five years from now. Construction on a corridor like this is disruptive while it happens and transformative afterwards. Ask where the current phase stands before you commit to a commute.

Sewer is the unglamorous reason any of this was possible

Catawba County installed sewer lines along Sherrills Ford Road and NC-150, part of a southeastern system investment running to roughly 22.7 million dollars including the county's share of the rebuilt wastewater treatment plant. Nobody moves somewhere because of sewer lines, but density is impossible without them. Everything above happened because that went in first, and it is why the growth clustered where it did rather than spreading evenly.

The growth is planned, not accidental

Catawba County maintains a Sherrills Ford Small Area Plan, a public document setting out where density is intended to go and where it is not. That matters more than it sounds. It means you can look up what is envisioned for a parcel near a home you are considering, rather than guessing. Plans change and are not guarantees, but a published plan is considerably better than no plan, and it is worth reading the section covering any street you are serious about.

The trade off, stated plainly

Growth is why the grocery store is close and why the road works. It is also why the road is busier than it was, why some of the quiet that drew people here has thinned, and why a lot near you may not stay wooded. If what you want is the Sherrills Ford of twenty years ago, it is worth being honest that you are buying into a place actively becoming something else. Plenty of owners think that trade is worth making. Some do not, and they are better served further out.

Gonzalez Realty is an Equal Housing Opportunity firm. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.