On the night of January 13, 2026, more than 165 people packed into Morehead City Hall, filling the council chambers and spilling into the foyer outside. Some held signs that read "Stop Eminent Domain." Others carried ones that said "Say No to Project Grander." By the time the meeting ended, the city council had voted five to zero to halt the proposal entirely, and the room erupted in applause.
If you live in Morehead City, you probably remember that night, or at least remember hearing about it the next morning at the Curb Market or over coffee at one of the downtown spots. The story that's settled into the town's memory since then goes something like this: the city tried to take Red Fish Grill through eminent domain, residents showed up and said no, and the council backed down. Win for the neighborhood, end of story.
Except it isn't quite the end of the story. Buried in the coverage of that vote is a detail that hasn't gotten nearly as much attention as the vote itself: Project Grander wasn't killed. It was shelved, and only for as long as the current council holds office.
The Night City Hall Filled Up
The plan that brought all those people out was called Project Grander, and on paper it was framed as an economic development effort to expand public park space and protect waterway access along the downtown waterfront near Big Rock Landing. In practice, what got residents' attention was what the plan would have required to happen. According to city documents, a letter went out in August 2025 to the owner of Red Fish Grill on Evans Street, asking whether the family would consider selling or transferring the parcel. The restaurant sits on land the Purifoy family has held for decades, and the business itself is run by Konstantinos Manousardis.
At the same council meeting where the eminent domain question surfaced, so did the funding mechanism: selling off four existing city parks, including Mitchell Village Park, to help pay for the new one. That combination, a family-run restaurant potentially taken by force and neighborhood parks potentially sold to fund the project, is what turned a planning conversation into a six-thousand-signature petition and a standing-room-only council meeting.
Mayor Jerry Jones called for a motion to stop all discussion and action related to the project. Councilman Richard Abell made it, and Councilman Lee Stiles seconded it. Every member of the council voted yes.
How a Planning Conversation Became an Eminent Domain Fight
The origin of Project Grander goes back further than most residents realized at the time. In February 2025, the council asked city staff to look into private development that was encroaching on the working waterfront, worried that continued residential construction could eat into the restaurant corridor and reduce public water access downtown. Staff came back with Project Grander: a proposal to combine and expand existing park space while keeping that public access intact.
What happened next stayed largely out of public view. The plan was discussed at the council's annual strategic retreat, held December 18 and 19, 2025, at the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. City officials have maintained the retreat was technically open to the public and properly advertised. In practice, more than ten hours of retreat audio only became public after a News 12 Investigates records request, and that audio is what confirmed eminent domain and the sale of four parks had been discussed as funding options.
Manousardis, who has run the restaurant through all of this, put it simply when the ordeal ended.
"It has been very stressful, as simple as that, but we never lost faith."
Councilman Lee Stiles, who had publicly opposed the plan before the vote, was just as direct once it was over: "I'm elated, I'm grateful that we were able to terminate Project Grander."
Why "Shelved" Isn't the Same as "Dead"
Here's the part that matters if you're trying to understand where things actually stand today. The council's own framing after the vote wasn't that Project Grander had been killed. It was that the project is shelved for the remainder of this council's term, with future councils free to reconsider the idea.
That's a meaningfully different outcome than the story most residents settled on. The underlying problem that started this whole process in February 2025, private residential development pushing into the working waterfront and narrowing public water access, hasn't gone anywhere. The council that raised that concern is still the council that governs Morehead City today. What changed on January 13 wasn't the problem. It was the specific solution on the table, and the political appetite for pursuing it without public input first.
If you've felt like this issue could resurface in some form once the next municipal election cycle passes, that instinct lines up with what the city itself has said.
What's Actually Happening on the Waterfront Right Now
While the bigger question sits unresolved, the everyday waterfront keeps running on its usual calendar. A few things worth knowing if you're downtown this fall:
- The North Carolina Seafood Festival returns October 2 through 4, 2026, drawing visitors to the same stretch of downtown waterfront that was at the center of the Project Grander debate. The festival has run since 1987 and remains one of the largest annual events in the state.
- The city's 10th Street Boat Ramp and Kayak Launch closed the week of November 17, 2025, for a site improvement project that includes a new ADA-accessible pier, kayak storage, an accessible walkway, and a living shoreline to fight erosion. The project was expected to run through March 2026. If you haven't been out that way recently, it's worth a quick check with Parks and Recreation before you plan around it.
- That ramp project cost $273,445 total, with a state coastal access grant covering $205,084 of it and the city covering the remaining $68,361. It's a useful point of comparison: when the city needed to fund waterfront improvements at 10th Street, it did so through a state grant program, not through eminent domain or the sale of existing parkland. That's the funding path Project Grander notably didn't take, and it's part of why the alternative approach landed so badly with residents.
What to Watch For
None of this means Morehead City is on the verge of another eminent domain showdown. It means the question that started Project Grander, how to protect public waterway access as private development continues downtown, is still an open one, and the tool the council reached for last time is still technically available to a future council. If you want to keep tabs on where this goes, city council meetings are open to the public and held at City Hall on Bridges Street, with recordings posted afterward for anyone who can't attend in person.
For now, the parks are still parks, Red Fish Grill is still open on Evans Street, and the waterfront is getting ready for another Seafood Festival crowd. That's worth appreciating on its own terms. It's also worth remembering that "shelved" was the word the city itself chose, not "closed."
We've watched this town work through plenty of change over the years, and we'll keep paying attention to what happens next on the waterfront, because that's part of what it means to actually live and work here rather than just visit. If you're curious how any of this fits into the bigger picture of what your own corner of downtown is worth, Copeland & Bernauer Real Estate Team put together an instant home valuation tool that's a good place to start, no pressure, just information.
