Another hotel approved for Chapel Hill. This one has a rooftop bar and a public park.
A five-story hotel with a rooftop bar and public park is coming to downtown Chapel Hill beside the historic Old Town Hall.
The Town Council voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the West Rosemary Street hotel proposed by developers Clarendon Properties and Smart Hotels.
Project planner Dan Jewell, with Coulter Jewell Thames, said the building will complement a proposed apartment building at the northeastern corner of Rosemary and Columbia streets and Grubb Properties’ office building planned for the corner of Rosemary and Henderson streets.
Both of those projects, proposed by Grubb Properties, are slated to be seven stories tall. The town also is building a seven-story, 1,100-space parking deck on East Rosemary Street.
The 92,500-square-foot hotel includes up to 135 rooms, with four stories along West Rosemary Street, rising to five stories for most of the building. Along North Columbia Street, the building also could step down to four stories.
The Rosemary Street terrace would be open to the public, while a second terrace on North Columbia Street would be reserved for hotel guests.
The addition of more people will make the downtown neighborhood “much more lively, vibrant and cosmopolitan,” Jewell said.
Council members agreed, thanking the development team for significant changes that Council member Karen Stegman said are “going to be good for downtown.”
“I think the park is a really inviting place that people want to go to,” she said. “It will bring people to the nice rooftop bar, employing local community members, the trees, the shared parking. It’s really exciting to see some of the things we talk about in action and really come together.”
Council member Allen Buansi, who leaves the council this month to run for state Rep. Verla Insko’s seat, also expressed appreciation for the developer’s pledge to work with the local nonprofits Empowerment Inc., El Centro and the Marian Cheek Jackson Center to hire local residents.
Hotel, park, changes for Rosemary
An earlier version of the project reviewed in June raised more concerns about its driveway and parking on West Rosemary Street, the proposed height, and how drivers might access the 1.3-acre site.
Council members expressed appreciation at their Nov. 10 meeting for the hotel’s revised design, which features a largely brick facade accented with dark-colored towers and window frames.
“I think when the first version came, I remember that it was so bland,” said council member Hongbin Gu, who will leave the council this month after running an unsuccessful bid for mayor this fall.
“This one really shows the downtown character of Chapel Hill but, at the same time, has some modern twists to it,” Gu said.
The revised plan moves the Rosemary Street driveway to the western side of the building to create a larger, 8,180-square-foot town-owned park between the hotel’s entrance and the Town Hall building to the east. The new plan includes larger shade trees in the park, in response to concerns expressed last week by council members Jessica Anderson and Amy Ryan.
The relocated driveway would run behind the building, exiting through a right-turn-only lane onto Columbia Street. A second right-in, right-out Columbia Street driveway would provide hotel dropoff and parking access, as well as serve the Old Town Hall.
The redesign also reduced the hotel’s parking from 80 to 40 spaces, including in the hotel drop-off lane, but it added handicap parking near the Old Town Hall.
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 5:55 AM.
