Chapel Hill gets new housing plan for site where it rejected student apartments
The story was updated Friday, Nov. 15, 2024.
Over a year after a proposed apartment building near downtown Chapel Hill was rejected, a different developer is floating the idea of a larger project serving UNC students and workers.
A concept plan from Landmark Properties, based in Georgia, shows 175 apartments with parking tucked underneath on 1.8 acres at 701 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
The building could add up to eight stories to the steeply sloped site at the corner of East Longview Street. A small stream crosses the northeastern corner of the site now occupied by the long-vacant Johnson’s Garage and a single-family house.
The council offered feedback on the project during a Nov. 13 review.
Council members split on whether the apartments should be attractive to students or just workers and families, but they agreed that a coffee shop or cafe would be a better choice at the corner plaza than a rental leasing office.
“As you start thinking about who your retail tenants could be, please consider one that could offer coffee … but also one that could go into the evening,” Council member Camille Berry said. “In Southern Village, we have La Vita Dolce. That’s a great venue, because they go from coffee to gelato, they have sandwiches, they even have wine, so you can linger there all day long.”
The town’s urban designer, Brian Peterson, has also weighed in, recommending a building design and exterior materials that make the structure seem less imposing and a highly visible entrance off the corner of Longview Street and MLK Jr. Boulevard.
He also suggested extending the public plaza north along the front of the property and giving it a “more ‘urban’ character, with evenly spaced street trees, planters, benches, and paving materials to suggest a plaza space,” his report states.
- Concept plan: The council does not vote on concept plans, which are rough ideas that might lead to an official application.
- Rezoning needed: The council would have to approve a rezoning to allow more dense housing on the site.
Previous student apartments rejected
The 701 MLK Jr. Boulevard project was submitted roughly 19 months after the council rejected Aspen Chapel Hill at the same location. Aspen Chapel Hill — 112 apartments, including 14 affordable units, in a seven-story building — was defeated in March 2023 when the council deadlocked 4-4.
The decision required the developer, Aspen Partners, to wait at least a year before submitting another application for the same site.
Then-Mayor Pam Hemminger and three council members — Adam Searing, Amy Ryan and Jessica Anderson — cited the focus on housing for students instead of workers and potential harm to the site’s steep slopes in rejecting the plan.
Searing and Ryan are still on the council, and Anderson is now mayor.
The development site is on several bus routes, including the future North-South bus-rapid transit line, and backs up to a residential area popular with UNC students. The Grove Park and Union Chapel Hill student apartments are across the street, and UNC’s campus is less than a mile away.
Because of its proximity to campus, “the developer expects a significant portion of the resident base to consist of students, graduate students, professors, and employees from within the university community,” the application says.
What the council said
Council members said they liked the project’s density and the idea of affordable retail or co-working space in the building, but would like to see more affordable housing.
Council member Melissa McCullough suggested reducing the parking spaces and the height of the building or making the parking optional, which could cut the monthly rent for an apartment.
McCullough, one of four council members who asked the developer to discourage student renters, suggested passing on a pool.
“We need things for people besides students, and if it becomes largely populated by students, it’s not as attractive for people who aren’t students,” McCullough said.
Others said they know students need to live somewhere, and the MLK Boulevard transit corridor is better than family neighborhoods.
“I think it would be lovely for UNC to suddenly decide they’re going to build lots of housing, but that’s not actually going to happen, so I think we have to deal with our reality as it is before us,” Council member Karen Stegman said.
Reducing the building’s visual size from the sidewalk and duplexes to the rear, and ensuring enough trees and shade, is also important, council members said.
The concept plan “is a reiteration of things that we have been saying we are trying to get away from, which is a big blocky building along a busy road,” Council member Elizabeth Sharp said.
“I think there’s some ways you can achieve that density without that feeling that will really prohibit our goals of bikability and walkability and potentially extending our downtown and our activated downtown down MLK,” she said.
701 MLK project details
▪ Developer: Landmark Properties
▪ Location: 1.84 acres at Longview Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
▪ What’s there: A vacant auto garage and single-family house
▪ What’s proposed: 175 for-rent apartments. Up to eight stories with six residential levels and 290 parking spaces on three levels, including a basement, under the building.
▪ Affordable housing: The town could lease five apartments for an annual payment of $1 each. The plan is still being negotiated with town staff.
▪ Amenities: internal courtyard, public plaza
▪ Getting around: A bus-rapid transit station is planned, and the site is within walking distance of downtown Chapel Hill, the Midtown Market shops and the Bolin Creek Greenway.
This story was originally published November 7, 2024 at 8:00 AM.
