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Downtown Chapel Hill & Carrboro development

DanRNC

By DanRNC
in The NC Triangle

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orulz City

orulz

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They're right over the border at New Hope Commons. Having another set in Chapel Hill would be overkill.

True, but it's just far enough away and traffic on US15/501 can be just bad enough that a surprisingly large number of people (particularly from Carrboro or the west side of CH, not just students) consider New Hope Commons to be inconvenient and avoid going there whenever possible. The shopping center is poorly designed from a traffic standpoint too, sort of like a microcosm of Cary Crossroads.

Now that the Super Target is open at Southpoint, I expect that a lot of people from Carrboro and West CH will go there instead. For them, it's actually a bit closer than NHC, and traffic on I-40 and NC54 (bypass and mainline) is much more bearable.

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DanRNC Burg

DanRNC

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neat idea. of course, it hasn't even gone to the Town Council yet, so construction won't start for another 10 or 15 years.

True, but the fact that it has an affordable housing component should speed things up. That is always the delay in a lot these projects.

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NCMike1981 Burg

NCMike1981

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I remember hearing about how Wal-Mart and new Hope Commons was built just over the city/county line in Durham in 1994 b/c Chapel Hill wasn't going to let Wal-Mart in, so instead Wal-Mart basically built it's store right on the city/county line in Durham to try to draw in Chapel Hill residents w/o having to fight the uphill battle of getting a store in Chapel Hill (as well as possibly in defiance, building a store basically in Chapel Hill without actually being in the town). Same thing with Target trying to build a store across from New Hope Commons a few years back, even though that was never approved. Now there's rumor that Wal-Mart is about to try to build a supercenter on 15-501 barely in northern Chatham County, just over the border from Chapel Hill. I think that this is just a rumor at this point, but I could see Wal-Mart trying to pull something like this.

Really the only truly big box development in Chapel Hill is the Lowes/Borders Shopping Center. I have a feeling that one of the reasons that Chapel Hill allowed Lowes to build such a huge store was because the store had been in Chapel Hill for many years on Franklin Street in the form of the old Hardware Store format, so the town council allowed them to build a larger store so they wouldn't lose Lowes.

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urbanvb City

urbanvb

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I remember hearing about how Wal-Mart and new Hope Commons was built just over the city/county line in Durham in 1994 b/c Chapel Hill wasn't going to let Wal-Mart in, so instead Wal-Mart basically built it's store right on the city/county line in Durham to try to draw in Chapel Hill residents w/o having to fight the uphill battle of getting a store in Chapel Hill (as well as possibly in defiance, building a store basically in Chapel Hill without actually being in the town). Same thing with Target trying to build a store across from New Hope Commons a few years back, even though that was never approved. Now there's rumor that Wal-Mart is about to try to build a supercenter on 15-501 barely in northern Chatham County, just over the border from Chapel Hill. I think that this is just a rumor at this point, but I could see Wal-Mart trying to pull something like this.

Really the only truly big box development in Chapel Hill is the Lowes/Borders Shopping Center. I have a feeling that one of the reasons that Chapel Hill allowed Lowes to build such a huge store was because the store had been in Chapel Hill for many years on Franklin Street in the form of the old Hardware Store format, so the town council allowed them to build a larger store so they wouldn't lose Lowes.

Although I am not a big proponent of big box stores, at some level I feel it is beneficial to have them around mostly because the big chains have already moved into most areas. That means possibly a good many of locally owned small shops have left town making it even more reliant on the giants. I must admit to visiting Home Depot, probably more than I need to or even want to for that matter.

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DigitalSky City

DigitalSky

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One thing i notice about Chapel Hill is that they're saturated with Harris Teeters (not unlike south Charlotte) and then a few food lions and a lowes foods store (in chatham county)...

About the big boxes, it makes sense.. I guess if people need Wal-Mart, Target, etc they must drive to durham.. and it makes a lot of sense of Wal-Mart's location, both in Durham and Hillsborough and it would figure that they'd want to build at the Chatham-Orange county line too.

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  • 4 weeks later...
DanRNC Burg

DanRNC

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I don't think it will be torn down. The tenor of the article was the town council appreciated the input from the NC State architect but we are going to go ahead with the current plans. If they were going to tear anything down it should be the Bank of America building.

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urbanesq Hamlet

urbanesq

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There is another condo project being completed in downtown although units start at almost $900K.

Link

that's cool, I guess. Looks really institutional, though. Not sure I'd pay a mil to live in what looks like an old dorm or administrastion building. Still, it's a great location, and it's nice to see more residential on the Street.

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f0xym0p Hamlet

f0xym0p

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Wow. I had a friend who rented in this building when I was in college. I don't know who is going to pay this much for condos practically on UNC's campus, unless it is rich parents buying a place for their kids to live while going to UNC.

Maybe people will buy them and then rent them to students, but that would have to be a pretty high monthly rent charge.

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DanRNC Burg

DanRNC

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I don't think those will be aimed as being rental units or to students. I think there are 11 units which I think will move pretty fast. The $1 million+ row houses (approximately the same size) in Meadowmont went as fast as they were built. Wealthy retirees /alumni are the target buyers.

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urbanesq Hamlet

urbanesq

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I don't think those will be aimed as being rental units or to students. I think there are 11 units which I think will move pretty fast. The $1 million+ row houses (approximately the same size) in Meadowmont went as fast as they were built. Wealthy retirees /alumni are the target buyers.

Gents, we're in the wrong line of work...

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JDC Burg

JDC

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Man I love Chapel Hill. I'd say it has the most to offer in the way of real street-level "atmosphere". I've never seen a crowded sidewalk in Durham or Raleigh, but there's always people out and about in Chapel Hill.

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