Greenbridge Condos in Chapel Hill

[orulz]

Part of the reason WHY the only condos that ever get built in downtown CH cost a $million or so is because of issues like this.

On the one hand, some people say "it's gotta be beautiful, gotta use quality materials, gotta be LEED, gotta incorporate lots of open space, gotta be stunning distinctive architecture, gotta have underground parking!"

Yet at the same time, others say "Gotta include affordable housing, gotta be sensitive to everyone who has lived within a quarter mile radius for the last 50 years, can't cast shadows, gotta help our community remain quaint!"

It takes so much time and effort to come up with a solution that pleases enough people that developers have no choice but to go for luxury buildings in order to make a profit. No wonder that the vast majority of all development in the US happens on farmland on the fringes of the city. There's nobody around to impose all these cost-escalating requirements!

Did our grandparents (the one who built these cities) expect this sort of treatment? No. If their neighborhood's property values went up, what did they do? Stage protests? Petition to council? Call the newspaper to get stories printed about their unfortunate plight? No - they would sell their house, take the windfall, and move somewhere else. If you're worried about renters being displaced, I'm sorry - but that's part of the deal when you rent. You don't get to control what happens with the house you live in.

Besides, with the current debt crisis and its impact on the economy, it will take a long time for the luxury housing market to get moving again, and even then it probably won't reach the heights of gluttonous excess that it had in mid 2007.

Actually, if we weren't so fixated on the sacrosanctity of every single neighborhood of single family houses to the point where even a shadow cannot be cast upon somebody's lawn, then our cities and towns could densify the old fashioned way WITHOUT as much real gentrification. Density restrictions in zoning are the main culprit. Without them, if property values are going up, you can let some poorly constructed houses (As with most neighborhoods, there are more than a few such houses in Northside) get replaced with three-flats. ETC. Divide the cost of the land and the building by three; then the increased property values don't matter so much. Ever been to Chicago? There are plenty of dense and safe but still affordable neighborhoods there - and they've mostly grown organically over the years, just like that.

[ChiefJoJo]

Greenbridge supposedly follows the town's small area plan, is going after LEED gold certification, has underground parking, and adds sustainable (walk, bike, & transit friendly) development and tax base (though not commercial) to the town. It seems to have MANY more positives than negatives from my vantage point, so if Greenbridge isn't what you'd like to see in Chapel Hill, I'd ask what would you like to see? For that matter, East 54 is adding density to the future transit line & 140 is two blocks from the town center on a completely underutilized asphalt parking lot fronting the town's most retail important street. What am I missing here?

The public money for Lot 5 notwithstanding, I would like to put some of these opponents in the shoes of a Roger Perry or Clay Grubb who wants to invest millions of dollars in town, and do things the "right way" and see what kind of maze one must go through to navigate the marketplace, & get something approved, financed and built in a reasonable time and within budget. I'm not saying developers are angels, but if put in their shoes, folks would realize just how difficult a position it can be, especially in Chapel Hill. Sometimes I think there's a segment of the status quo elite in Chapel Hill that want the unattainable... no sprawl, but no density either... affordable housing, but NIMBY... no big boxes in town, but I'll go drive across the county line to Target. Luckily, it seems the town council is not allowing these folks to derail moving the town in a smart direction.

FYI, I found a link to their construction photos.

[orulz]

I hate to get off the topic of Greenbridge, but:

and Eas54, which is noxious new-urbanism at its worst (one of the ugliest developments in years) - are all examples of projects whose benefit is concentrated primarily towards the developers, whose benefits are tenuously justified at best and whose supplementary costs have been thrown on the taxpayers shoulders.

[Jones_]

Based on trips to Chapel Hill over the years, I don't see all that much neighborhood all that close to Greenbridge. Now to be sure, I am pretty outspoken about scale of development and my preferred types of architecture and preservation of historic architecture. "Smart" growth has to include density. For a given city or town this density either should be in new growth areas (in order to preserve historic fabric) or redevelopment where it makes sense such as on parking lots. For Chapel Hill, moving outward has resulted in unconnected areas like Southern Village and Meadowmont....neither dense or close in. So density Tenet can now be attempted somewhere inside town. I think this is best accomplished within the Rosemary-Franklin boundary....exactly where Greenbridge is located. Issues of affordability run deep throughout America and I am not sure where the best place to tackle that is. Living wages? Historic levels of discrimination? Tax codes? All are candidates for examination. If Greenbridge is a symptom of something that needs addressed though, I think its misdirected effort. Instead of plugging a hole in the boat, how about rebuild the boat? (silly analogy of mine...)

[sax184]

Somebody else nailed it on East 54. NC 54 is an ugly six-lane auto sewer, and the previous building there was a motel of little use to town residents. Yes, it makes a shadow over a place you can't enjoy without getting killed by a car. This is not a loss.

[ChiefJoJo]

Time for a web update on Greenbridge. i'm super excited to see this open, as this is the type of development we need more of in the Triangle, though a bit more affordable would be nice. I think many of the Green features (passive solar, green roof, etc) will come down with the price/volume curve in the future as green development moves into the mainstream.

From this past summer (probably topped out by now):

Renderings:

[dmccall]

The articles point out that community members want to see positive benefits for the trade-off. Change is going to happen, but are the rewards for moving forward going to be broad-based or narrowly constrained? The projects you mention - 140 Franklin, which presents an $8.5+ million public liability with limited public returns (a shaft, to be specific) - Greenbridge, .....

[RealDealer]

Any idea which retailers will be going into the project?

[ChiefJoJo]

This topic has been dormant for a while, but there's been a lot happening. Greenbridge is about to open, and the Indy has a story on what that may mean for the Northside in CH. This is perhaps a simplistic view, but as someone mentioned in the comments section, the Orange rural buffer is the third rail of CH/Carrboro politics, and if you can't build out, the only choice left to accommodate growth is to build up.

[Jones_]

I personally feel like the emotions around the community's demise are being misdirected toward this project. Many other factors are to blame, and it this point there is little left. The little left, is not impacted by this project.

[DCMetroRaleigh]

Any new pics of the development? Dang, we have to beg for pics of projects from Triangle forumers. Charlotte folks post pics ad naseum.