New Buxton ABC store aims to open in the spring of 2025

The new Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) store in Buxton is scheduled to open in April or early May of 2025, replacing the current store located across the street 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 38 years 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.

Construction of the new ABC store officially began in January 2024, and the project has been running smoothly despite the occasional storm or weather challenges.

“Construction has been running pretty much on schedule since the beginning,” said Fields Scarborough, current Chairman of the Dare County ABC Board, and one of the original orchestrators of the island’s 1987 store.

“The completion is scheduled to be mid-February. Of course, that’s when the building will be turned over to us to have other work done.”

Once the contractor has finished the structure, shelves, displays, and the checkout areas will be installed, as well as a rack system for the warehouse area. A security system will also need to be set up before the store can take deliveries of stock to load the shelves and the warehouse.

Though not official, project organizers are eyeing a possible April 1 or May 1 opening date. Once open, the 1987 Osprey Center store will close.

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.”