Downtown Carthage Is Running on Two Different Clocks Right Now

Stand at the courthouse circle on any weekday morning and you'll see the same thing you've seen for months: survey stakes in the grass median, a stack of concrete pipe sections waiting near the county parking lot, and across the street, the dark windows of the old buggy building. One of those things is about to move fast. The other has no schedule at all, and pretending they're the same story is why half of downtown Carthage seems to be holding its breath for news that isn't coming.

Here's the distinction worth understanding before the orange cones show up: the courthouse circle work is a government project with a federal funding deadline that expires December 31. It is happening whether or not anyone ever figures out what goes into 106 S. Ray Street. The building everyone keeps asking about, the one that used to be The Buggy Factory, is a private real estate transaction with no deadline attached to it whatsoever. Treating the two as one continuous "downtown revitalization" story means you'll misjudge both.

What's Actually Starting This Month

According to Town Manager Emily Yopp's recent update to the Board of Commissioners, construction on the first phase of the downtown project is expected to begin in late August, though the delivery schedule for storm drain materials remains the swing factor on the exact start date. The scope is specific: four storm drains and underground piping beneath the roadway, plus crosswalk improvements and new pedestrian islands near the circle itself. Town officials have said portions of the circle may need to close temporarily while crews install the drains and piping, and detour plans are still being finalized.

The part that matters for anyone who works or shops downtown: county government offices and downtown businesses are expected to remain accessible throughout construction, and the county parking lot is expected to stay available. This is disruption, not closure.

A second, unrelated project is moving in parallel. Underground infrastructure along Summit Street was damaged following Tropical Storm Chantal last summer, and a FEMA-funded repair is now in the pipeline. The town has authorized roughly $415,000 for two culvert pipes, with Fred Smith Company serving as contractor. No firm construction date has been announced yet, though town officials expect work to begin in the coming weeks as the company finishes other jobs and schedules a pre-construction meeting.

Notice what's absent from that table: any mention of a restaurant, a brewery, or a storefront. That's the point.

Why the Deadline Isn't Negotiable

The redesign behind the courthouse circle work, developed through a plan from Koontz-Jones Design and approved by Carthage's Board of Commissioners in 2024, carries a hard constraint that has nothing to do with construction logistics and everything to do with money. The federal funding earmarked for the work expires December 31. Miss that window and the town doesn't get an extension, it loses the money. That's why, even after the board went back to the drawing board earlier this year to make design adjustments based on county feedback, the contractor remains confident the first phase can still be finished on time.

This is worth sitting with for a second. A lot of "the town is fixing up downtown" chatter treats revitalization as one soft, ongoing vibe. It isn't. Part of it is a hard government deadline tied to a grant that disappears if unused. The other part, which we'll get to, has no deadline because nobody is required to sell a building by a certain date.

The Building Everyone's Actually Watching

The Tyson and Jones Buggy Company building at 106 S. Ray Street is the most photographed structure in Carthage for a reason. Built in 1856, it's the sole survivor of a carriage factory that at its 1890 peak produced about 3,000 buggies a year and gave the town its nickname, Buggy Town. When Southern Pines Brewing Co. announced plans to renovate it into a restaurant, brewery, and speakeasy, Carthage's mayor at the time framed it as central to downtown's future.

"It's really going to help with our downtown revitalization."

The Buggy Factory opened on May 22, 2024, with Detroit-style pizza and a 30-tap beer list. Four months later, on Sept. 30, it closed without warning. Thirty employees were laid off on the spot, and the owner told local press the concept simply wasn't working financially. It reopened Dec. 20 with a scaled-back menu, fried chicken sandwich and burgers replacing the more ambitious original lineup.

That second act lasted about a year. By the end of 2025, the building had closed for good after First Citizens Bank sued Southern Pines Brewing over falling behind on more than $2 million in loans taken out for the Carthage renovation and a separate Fayetteville taproom project. As of this spring, the building was set to be sold, though it's uncertain when it will officially be listed. It has now sat vacant for more than half a year, with no announced buyer and no announced timeline.

If you've been waiting for a signal on downtown's momentum by watching that one building, you've been watching the wrong indicator. It was never on a schedule. It still isn't.

The Momentum That Doesn't Need a Flagship

While the buggy building sits empty, downtown's actual occupancy story is happening somewhere less photogenic. The Tyson Sinclair Building, originally built in 1905 as the Tyson Mansion and later expanded with a Sinclair storefront facade, now holds more than 20 businesses under one roof. That's not one flagship carrying the block. That's two dozen small tenants splitting the risk.

Downtown's newest addition follows the same pattern. Moore Coffee is set to open just off the courthouse circle, joining an existing local roaster, Buggy Town Coffee, that's been supplying beans to other downtown kitchens for a while now. Neither of those businesses needs a $2 million renovation loan or a brewhouse to open its doors. That's a meaningfully different bet than the one the buggy building made twice and lost twice.

None of this means the historic building won't eventually reopen as something worth visiting. It means downtown's day-to-day vitality, the farmers market that still sets up on Fridays, the historic courthouse square with its murals, the karaoke and line dancing nights at Time Out Sports Grill, the live sets at The Jive Hive, isn't waiting on a real estate deal to close. It never has been.

What to Actually Expect This Fall

If you live downtown or drive through the circle regularly, here's the practical version of everything above:

• Expect construction activity and possible partial circle closures starting late August, with the Town of Carthage posting detour details as they're finalized.
• County offices and downtown storefronts should stay open and reachable throughout the work, and the county parking lot is expected to remain usable.
• A separate Summit Street culvert project may add its own temporary disruption sometime this fall, on a timeline that hasn't been set yet.
• The old buggy factory building will likely stay vacant and quiet for a while longer. Its fate is a private sale, not a public project, and nothing about it is required to happen on any particular date.
• The Friday farmers market, the courthouse square, and the small-business mix in buildings like Tyson Sinclair aren't affected by either the road construction or the buggy building's status. Downtown's actual routine keeps running underneath both stories.

The two clocks aren't in conflict. They're just not the same clock, and conflating them is how a resident ends up either impatient with a government timeline that's actually moving fast, or hopeful about a private sale that has given no indication it's moving at all.

If you're watching downtown Carthage change and wondering what it means for buying or selling here, Brittany Paschal tracks these local shifts as part of working Moore County day to day. Get exclusive access to her private listings before they hit the broader market.