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Three new and large candy store outlets are coming soon to the Outer Banks. They include two Sugar Planet locations in Kitty Hawk and Corolla, and one Sugar Kingdom store in Avon. There are already two Sugar Planets in operation, one in Kill Devil Hills and one in Nags Head.
Sugar Planet Regional Manager Naor Hilel confirmed with the Voice that the two new Sugar Planet locations are set to open by May or June of 2024. The construction of the Kitty Hawk store—at 5201 N Croatan Highway across U.S.158 from the former Sentara Medical Center—is nearing completion and “will be ready for summer,” according to Hilel.
The building permit for that project was issued in August 2022, and according to Rob Testerman, Director of Planning and Inspections for the Town of Kitty Hawk, there has been no further communication between the town and the company since then.
“They are still working under the original building permit and site plan approvals. We have not heard from them regarding an anticipated completion date,” said Testerman in an email to the Voice.
According to Hilel, the 510 Hunt Club Dr. Sugar Planet location in Corolla, which includes a two-story, 7,700 sq. ft. commercial building on a 1.9-acre parcel at the entrance of The Currituck Club, is nearing completion of its renovation phase.
“Now, we are going to work on new painting for the building and getting new signs up. It’s gonna look nice,” he said.
According to Currituck County Public Information Officer Randall Edwards, the county still has some oversight responsibilities. The Sugar Planet site has “a county permit for renovations and passed a rough inspection on Dec. 29, 2023. The site will need to pass additional inspections as the project is completed,” he said.
Sugar Kingdom, which is a different corporate entity than Sugar Planet, says on its website that it plans to open a new location at 40220 N. Carolina Hwy 12 in Avon, which is currently a Pirates Beachwear store. Despite repeated attempts, the Voice was unable to contact anyone affiliated with the Sugar Kingdom operation. And a Dare County spokesperson indicated that the county has no record of any ownership change at the Pirates Beachware location.
Sugar Planet’s two existing Dare County stores—at 6901 S. Croatan Hwy in Nags Head and 1600 S. Croatan Hwy in Kill Devil Hills—used to go by the name Sugar Kingdom. But they switched to the name to Sugar Planet in the past year. Attempts to discuss the relationship between Sugar Planet and Sugar Kingdom with Hilel were unsuccessful after he abruptly ended the phone call with the Voice. (He failed to respond to further efforts to contact him.) Another representative from Sugar Planet told the Voice that company is unaffiliated with the Sugar Kingdom company.
According to Dare County tax records, Sugar Planet is owned by S&S Properties in Virginia Beach, which shares a Virginia Beach address with Sunsations, LLC. Sugar Kingdom has existing stores in multiple states, including North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Texas.
As reported in a January 2023 Voice story, the plan to open the Kitty Hawk and Corolla locations was met with community concern that the project is contributing to, in the words of one critic, the “Myrtle Beachification of the Outer Banks.”
Kitty Hawk’s Testerman has said that the new candy store is a permitted use and meets zoning requirements, leaving the town no choice but to approve it. “So, even knowing what it was, if we didn’t want it…we really would have no legal basis to deny it. A lot of the comments on social media were kind of acting like we had a choice in the matter, but it met the requirements, so we’re legally bound to approve,” Testerman told the Voice at the time.
In its current CAMA/Land Use Plan, Kitty Hawk had made a commitment to “develop a position paper outlining its desires for maintaining its established community theme as a low density, low rise residential beach community with Coast Guard station style architecture predominant…” It also vowed to study the creation of an architectural overlay district and an architectural review committee. As Testerman confirmed, the town did not follow through on those commitments.
Kitty Hawk released a new CAMA/Land Use plan in September of 2023, after releasing a survey and holding multiple town meetings. In the plan, the Town stated that one of the top concerns from staff, elected officials and community members was the “development scale and character” of Kitty Hawk and it outlined potential changes to the town ordinance to “reinforce Kitty Hawk’s unique low-key coastal identity and sense of community though high-quality design…”
When asked if these potential changes represent an attempt to avoid future commercial projects like the Sugar Planet, Testerman stated that “I would say it is more of an effort to retain the coastal town character the residents value with future commercial development.”
