On January 9, 2026, a subsidiary of Pennsylvania-based Silvi Concrete purchased Lester Properties’ contaminated 17.62-acre Brownfield site at MacKay Road and Gate City Blvd. The site is addressed in Greensboro, but located in the Jamestown ETJ between Fox Hollow/Adams Farm and the commercial strips along Gate City Blvd and Mackay Road (behind the Walgreens corner).
The site was marketed in real estate listings as a “LIGHT INDUSTRIAL” commercial property, but it is now zoned “INDUSTRIAL,” which opens it up to more industrial, trucking and railway transport uses (there is a railroad spur there) in the middle of a high-traffic residential, retail and commercial area. The timing of the rezoning from “LIGHT INDUSTRIAL” to “INDUSTRIAL” is unknown.
Locally, Silvi is represented by D.R. Horton lawyer Marc Isaacson, with Amanda Hodierne as registered agent for the Silvi’s new North Carolina company, called “Metals Drive Concrete LLC:”
The most recent document in the NCDEQ public records is a proposed soil and groundwater assessment dated June 26, 2025. Project Manager Lauren Fleming said the Brownfields Redevelopment Section is “still in the process of reviewing and approving the assessment report and Environmental Management Plan with the Prospective Developer [Silvi].” Here’s the Assessment plan:
BACKGROUND
On January 8, 2025, a revised Brownfield application was submitted for redevelopment of the 18-acre former Fortress Wood Products site at Mackay Road and Gate City Blvd .
The prospective developer/responsible party was listed as Riverside Construction Materials, a subsidiary of Pennsylvania concrete company Silvi Construction Materials.
Lester Properties, owner of Fortress Wood Products, is acting as realtor, and is also the owner of Fortress Wood Products and the property.
In April 2025, the Greensboro Council adopted a resolution to approve a water and sewer connection to service the site, addressed at 1 Metals Drive:
In April 2024, the 17.62-acre site was listed for sale by Lester Properties (owner) which is based in Martinsville, Va.
Assessment reports in the NCDEQ public records show high levels of petroleum hydrocarbons, chromium, arsenic, lead, copper, mercury, barium, cadmium and TCE (trichloroethylene) are in the soil and groundwater.
The real estate listings marketed the property with a Greensboro address, zoned as LIGHT INDUSTRIAL: “Commercial Zoning 17.62 acres Light Industrial (LI), 1.09 acres HB.”
The site is located in Jamestown’s ETJ, and in Jamestown’s planning jurisdiction:
The images below (swipe left) are from the Guilford County GIS property records site:
In 2024, Lester Properties applied for Brownfield status.
Included with the application were soil and groundwater surveys from 10 years ago. The authors of a 615-page report by Progress Environmental said groundwater at the site is contaminated to a depth of at least five feet, and properties within a half-mile radius of the site have reported contamination.
High levels of TCE and chromium have also been detected at the nearby Alberdingk Boley and GTCC Advanced Manufacturing School (from a former Burlington Industries plant), also on West Gate City Blvd. TCE is carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure, including vapor intrusion (TCE in the groundwater or water table can form a vapor that migrates through soil and into structures.)
Groundwater contaminants at the Alberdingk Boley site include arsenic, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, thallium, zinc, acetone, benzene, chlorobenzene, chloroform, 1,4 dichlorobenzene, 1,1 dichloroethene, 1,2 dichloroethane, ethylbenzene, tetrachloroethene, 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, xylenes, trichloroethene, vinyl chloride, naphthalene, antimony. Soil contaminants include acetone, tetrachloroethene, ethylbenzene, 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, xylenes, isopropyl benzene, trichloroethene, napthalene, 2-butanone, 1,1,1-trichloroethane.
The engineers observed impact areas of “stressed vegetation” near streams and wrote that “NC DEQ records indicate that the stormwater runoff” impacts Bull Run stream and the Deep River (Randleman Lake) watershed:
Like all of Jamestown, the site is in the Randleman Critical Water Supply WS-IV Watershed, is surrounded by residential, retail and restaurant districts, and is uphill from the D.R. Horton Kinsley and Atwater Drive residential developments (in progress).
Lester Properties’ listing says the site offers the potential of “direct rail access” to Norfolk Southern and close proximity to Fedex and PTI airport. The listing says nothing about the surrounding residential neighborhoods, shopping center, restaurants and retailers, the contamination, nor the Critical Class IV water supply stream (Bull Run) that runs parallel to and downhill from this and two other Gate City Blvd Brownfield sites:
The site map shown on the property listing is from February 1987 (revised July 1994):
