Chapel Hill is expanding in 2023. Here are seven places to watch.
Google already calls Chapel Hill home with an office on West Franklin Street. Promising tech startups like Well Dot and Quantworks also have headquarters there.
Once a small college town, Chapel Hill is transforming into an economic hub in its own right, with new office buildings, co-working spaces, and apartment buildings to rival its neighbors in Durham, and attract investor dollars and new talent.
Here’s a look at some of the town’s biggest construction projects now underway or in the pipeline.
One thing to note: This list is not exhaustive, and construction schedules often change.
Downtown innovation district
Chapel Hill’s new downtown innovation district is slated to launch in September.
A partnership between the town of Chapel Hill and UNC-Chapel Hill, the innovation district has been 10 years in the making.
It encompasses two buildings, 136 E. Rosemary St. and the adjoining 137 E. Franklin St. and occupies seven floors and roughly 118,000 square feet of space.
It’s being redeveloped by Charlotte-based Grubb Properties. By 2025, it’s expected to include a visitor center, life science center, downtown parking lot, apartments, hotel and conference center.
“This is a big step forward,” Dwight Bassett, Chapel Hill’s director of economic development and parking services, told the N&O. “Occupancy is looking good, and we’re excited about the future potential.”
Among its first tenants: Innovate Carolina, the university’s central team for innovation and entrepreneurship; and Launch Chapel Hill, the business and venture lab accelerator created in 2013 through another joint effort by the town, university and county.
California-based BioLabs, a co-working space for life science startups, is leasing the entire third floor, over 23,000 square feet, for shared wet labs and office facilities for new research-based startups.
University Place redevelopment
Ram Realty bought Chapel Hill’s only mall, University Place, in 2018. It has since launched a modernizing effort to transform the 40-acre property into a mixed-use community.
Construction began last year on a seven-story building in the western parking lot between Willow Drive and Silverspot Cinema. That phase of the project is adding 253 apartments, 9,514 square feet of retail space, a pool and a 422-space parking deck.
The apartment building, 900 Willow, will include both market-rate and affordable apartments, and upStart, a retail incubator for eight small businesses on the ground floor. Leasing will start in late 2024, Ram officials said.
In March, crews began a second phase on the mall’s eastern end, demolishing the vacant A Southern Season, which closed in early 2020. The demolition will continue Ram Realty’s effort to turn indoor storefronts outward.
Future phases will follow over the next several years, creating a total of 350,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 60,000 square feet of office space, and 253 apartments. Up to 150 hotel rooms also are possible, along with multiple parking decks.
UNC Health’s Eastowne expansion
UNC Health is pushing ahead with expansion plans for its Eastowne medical campus after the town greenlighted the project in June.
The campus is off Interstate 40 and U.S. 15-501 (Fordham Boulevard).
Plans include adding 1.1 million square feet of medical clinics and offices, roughly seven medical buildings and up to five parking decks inside the Eastowne Drive loop over the next 20 years.
It preserves a stream and landscaping buffers within the Eastowne Drive loop, along with 12 acres of the natural heritage forest, between Eastowne Drive and Interstate 40.
Affordable housing isn’t part of the project, but UNC Health is providing $5 million to create a zero-interest, revolving loan fund for preserving and creating affordable housing.
As a public entity, UNC Health does not pay taxes on its land, but it will continue to pay $148,608 to Chapel Hill, $218,724 to Orange County and $46,998 to the city schools in lieu of property taxes.
UNC Health opened its first new Eastowne building in 2021. Construction of a second building could begin right away, officials have said.
Link Apartments Calyx
At the intersection of Lanark and Maxwell roads, a two-acre parcel is being redeveloped into a seven-story complex called Link Apartments Calyx.
It’s part of the second phase of redevelopment for Glen Lennox, a 70-acre historic master-planned neighborhood that was purchased by Charlotte developer Grubb Properties in 1985.
The complex will include 304 units with a mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments. Amenities include a pool, courtyard, cycle center, pet spa, fitness center and co-working space.
“The first units should be ready in November 2023,” Emily Ethridge, Grubb Properties’ spokesperson, said in an email.
The circa 1950 neighborhood, built to house World War II veterans attending UNC-Chapel Hill, sits on prime real estate at the university’s gateway, with access to heavily traveled U.S. 15-501 and N.C. 54.
In addition to the apartments, the site is being primed for a new retail district built around a community green space.
Overall, plans call for up to 650 residential units, 90,000 square feet of retail space, a 150-room hotel and 275,000 square feet of office space.
Grubb Properties is also building another apartment complex under the Link brand in downtown Chapel Hill. See below.
Link Apartments Rosemary
A seven-story apartment building is slated for the corner of East Rosemary and North Columbia streets in downtown Chapel Hill.
Called Link Apartments Rosemary, it’s one of three Grubb Properties projects downtown. Along with the town’s new parking deck and a West Rosemary Street hotel project, it’s set to significantly change the corridor that parallels East Franklin Street near UNC’s campus.
The 150-unit complex will serve primarily young professionals. For 30 years, five apartments will rent at a rate affordable to those earning 80% of the area median income — up to $53,520 a year for an individual or $61,120 for a couple.
The remaining apartments will be included in Grubb Properties’ “essential housing” program, leasing at slightly less than the market rate for young, middle-income tenants. The apartments will be restricted to tenants ages 22 and older. The building’s ground floor will have about 3,500 square feet of retail space, a portion of which could be rented at half the commercial market rate, or about $18 a square foot, officials said.
South Creek development
A new neighborhood is set to be built on a 120-acre plot of undeveloped land along U.S. 15-501, directly across from Southern Village.
New York developer Beechwood Homes recently got the green light for South Creek, a mixed-used “village district” with up to 815 apartments, and for-sale condos and townhomes.
The community will have up to 101 units — 15% of condos and townhouses and 10% of the apartments — priced for sale and rent at below market rates. Over 54,000 square feet will be designated for ground-floor commercial space that is expected to complement the businesses on Market Street at Southern Village.
The retail node at South Creek will have a plaza for outdoor dining and a lawn. A terraced green surrounded by condos is planned near the Sumac Road intersection and also could provide co-working and pop-up business space, officials said.
Over 80 acres east of Wilson Creek, which cuts through the site, will be preserved and offer public trails.
It will be built over several years, with buildings away from the highway up to five stories tall. The for-sale units could range from roughly $300,000 to $900,000, project officials have said.
South Creek replaces the failed Obey Creek development, a project with roughly 700 apartments and over 1 million square feet of retail, offices and hotel rooms that never got off the ground.
Barbee Chapel Hill Road apartments
Dozens of affordable apartments are coming to 5101 Barbee Chapel Road, near N.C. 54.
Fort Washington, Pennsylvania-based developer Toll Brothers Apartment Living got the go-ahead to build several apartment buildings and townhouses. The 10.5-acre site is across from the Finley Forest neighborhood, in the part of Chapel Hill inside the Durham County limits.
The complex will have 350 apartments and townhouses in three- to five-story buildings. The final plan approved May 24 cut parking to 446 spaces and designated 23 units for households earning up to 60% of the area median income — up to $42,480 a year for an individual and $60,660 a year for a family of four.
The project will include a pedestrian crossing near Finley Forest and a multiuse path along its Barbee Chapel Road frontage, which has the potential to be extended about 100 yards to the crosswalks at N.C. 54 in the future.
