By SABRINA JONES, Staff Writer for the Raleigh News
& Observer, June, 1998
WAKE FOREST -- Wake Forest's prime
location is drawing newcomers north to escape the buzz of the Capital
City.
This calm town, once a self-sufficient community,
is quickly becoming a commuter suburb.
The population of Wake Forest was predicted to
grow last year to 8,480, an 8.8 percent increase from 1996.
As evidence of the town's expansion, its
commissioners approved an annexation agreement with Raleigh last year to
divide land north of the Neuse River between them.
A dozen new developments are bringing uniform
single-family homes that resemble those in North Raleigh to Wake Forest. A
curfew barring youths under 16 from town streets after midnight was put
into place last year.
Commissioners also voted last year to loan
$286,000 to the Wake Forest Business and Industry Partnership to build an
industrial park near U.S. 1 North. The partnership wants to build a 21-lot
industrial park on about 70 acres of forestland.
The town still boasts horse pastures and rolling
hills that lie at the turn of a winding road. A historic district in town
holds a series of elegant Victorian homes. The Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary, the town's largest employer and one of its biggest
landowners, has sat in the heart of downtown since 1951. The divinity
school is part of the Southern Baptist Convention and trains future
ministers in a conservative tradition.
Seminary officials are planning for a $45 million
campus expansion over the next decade.
Downtown Wake Forest has a smattering of casual
restaurants, a regionally known bookstore for children, called Not Just
for Kids, and a few banks. The quaint town library is in a new, bigger
location on Holding Avenue.
