FUQUAY-VARINA -- Once quiet Fuquay-Varina, 15 miles southwest of Raleigh, is becoming a hub of growth, but town planners want to maintain the community's village atmosphere while new subdivisions and businesses blossom.
     Many of the town's residents commute to work in Raleigh via U.S. 401, which recently was widened. Another route out of town to jobs in Research Triangle Park is N.C. 55, a highway that has become clogged with traffic during rush hours.
     Recent development has expanded from the residential to the commercial and industrial. Fuquay-Varina now has a 62-room Comfort Inn on Main Street, and a Holiday Inn Express opened last year. Smith Womble Properties Inc. is planning a 27,000-square-foot office complex at Main Street and Smithwood Drive.
     The $30 million John Deere plant, which produces commercial lawn and grounds equipment for landscape businesses and golf courses, opened last year and soon after announced plans to expand.
     Windsor Point, a planned 17-acre retirement community at N.C. 55 and Wilbon Road, is one of the town's largest developments. Downtown redevelopment efforts maintain Fuquay-Varina's old commercial district of restaurants, antique shops, professional offices and banks.
     The town has leased a portion of family-owned land that contains the historic Fuquay mineral spring at the corner of South Main Street and Spring Street. The town will preserve the site that once drew people to the old southern Wake County town of Fuquay Springs to drink natural spring water.
     The town's annual Celebration of the Outdoors is scheduled early in May at Falcon Park, a four-acre town park. The festival features food, crafts, carnival rides and music. The town also sponsors an Independence Day celebration each July 3 at Fuquay-Varina High School with fireworks and patriotic music.