Local

Petition started to stop demolition of family-owned shopping center

CONCORD, N.C. — A family said they're angry and sad because they're being forced to leave the businesses they've worked their whole lives to be successful.
 
The Basile family is making an effort to stop the North Carolina Department of Transportation from demolishing their family business as part of the Interstate 85 widening project.

The family has started an online petition to try and stop the demolition.

"I care for my family. I care for my kids. I built this for my kids," Andrew Basile said.
 
Family has always been the center of the 83-year-old man's world.
 
He moved his family from New York to Concord more than 30 years ago and now owns the Tower Plaza Shopping Center where his two children also run businesses.
"My kids, they make a living on this place," he said.
 
The Basiles told Channel 9 they're heartbroken after learning the family's shopping center on Concord Parwkay North will be demolished in the NCDOT's effort to realign Kannapolis Highway.
 
Basile's son and daughter said that would ruin everything their family has worked so hard for.
 
"This is about his legacy and they are destroying that," John Basile said. "This shopping center should be an example of what you can accomplish with hard work and sacrifice. That's why we feel like this shopping center should remain here."
 
The NCDOT said they looked at several options to make traffic flow safely and that route was the best choice and the Basiles would be getting fair market value for the property.

It’s not about money for the family.

"They cannot value this shopping center for all the hard work and years that we have put into it,” Phyllis Basile said. "We don't want the money. We don't care about the money.”