Construction begins on new ABC store in Buxton

Construction of a new Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) store in Buxton has officially begun as of January 8, with the new store expected to be open and operational by the spring of 2025.

The new store is being built by contractor A. R. Chesson Construction, which has built several other ABC stores on the Outer Banks, and the new location will replace the current ABC store located in the Osprey Shopping Center.

The original store, which opened in 1987 and was the first ABC store on Hatteras Island, has become too small for the island community, which has boomed over the past 35 years or so, while the store’s space has remained the same.

The new Buxton ABC store is modeled after the current store in Kitty Hawk, (also built by A. R. Chesson Construction), and will be around 6,000 square feet in area.

There are a few differences from the Kitty Hawk design, however. The new Buxton store will not have a lightkeeper’s tower because of maintenance concerns, and it will also have a regular roof as opposed to a flat roof, due to Hatteras Island’s routine brushes with high winds and heavy rains.

The Buxton ABC store will also be self-supportive, which means that tractor-trailer trucks will be able to make deliveries directly from Raleigh, instead of the store relying on smaller shipments from Dare County.

“The building is expected to be [complete] by January 25, 2025, and then we’ll need time to put in shelves and merchandise, so we’re hoping for an April [2025] opening,” said Fields Scarborough, Chairman of the Dare County ABC Board, and one of the original orchestrators of the island’s 1987 store. “And the [current] ABC store in Buxton will be open throughout the construction process.”

The new store is located across N.C. Highway 12 from the current ABC store, next to the Dollar General in Buxton.

The Buxton ABC store serves all seven villages from Rodanthe to Hatteras, and currently, there are no plans to add a second store on Hatteras Island, but this is a potential option down the road.

“We’ve looked at [a second ABC store] in the past, but by the time you staff and employ people, it wasn’t feasible. [The costs] got on the high end,” said Scarborough in an earlier interview. “But it’s not out of the question – it would just be as to where we would put one in the future.”