Kroger has sold a former grocery store in Cary that had been under consideration for a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office near residential neighborhoods.
Cincinnati-based Kroger Co. sold the vacant store for $4.1 million to The Crown Cos., a real estate firm in Dobson. The sale was recorded on Dec. 20 by the Wake County Register of Deeds.
The feds this summer gave up on their plans to relocate their office to the Cary grocery store after a public outcry against the move. The federal General Services Administration is continuing its search for an alternate site.
Communities under consideration include Cary, Raleigh, Garner, Apex, Morrisville, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina and unincorporated portions of Wake County, according to a Friday update on the Town of Cary web site.
The immigration facility, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, would not have been an overnight detention facility but residents and town officials were alarmed nonetheless, prompting a resolution opposing the site from the Cary Town Council.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has leased an office in Cary off Evans Road for more than a decade, but the agency is looking for another location as its lease is nearing expiration. The feds say the facility will have no beds, showers or food service.
John Murawski has been a full-time newspaper reporter since 1991, with stints at Legal Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy (both in Washington, DC), The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Palm Beach Post (in South Florida) before arriving at the N&O in December 2004. At the N&O he covers energy (nuclear, coal, renewable, efficiency), hydralic fracturing (or "fracking"), public utilities (both electric and natural gas) and health care. His beat includes Progress Energy, PSNC Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, PowerSecure International, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Biogen Idec and others. You can reach him at 919-829-8932 or