Who will design Carolina North? UNC’s plans come into focus
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Ayers Saint Gross was selected as the board's top contender.
- Board set aside $8 million for the master planning stage expected to last 12 to 14 months.
- The Mini-Brooks Act bars considering fees until contract negotiations begin.
The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees has selected a top contender for the firm in charge of the master planning of Carolina North: Ayers Saint Gross.
Whether UNC moves forward with this first-choice firm remains dependent on how much Ayers Saint Gross plans to charge the university. The board has set aside $8 million to fund this stage of the process.
The Baltimore-based design firm has worked on the design of buildings and campus projects at Emory University, Rice University and Ohio State University, as well as work on the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
Once the cost is settled, the master planning will begin.
Carolina North is a 230-acre tract of land one-and-a-half miles north of the main campus, where the school plans to build a satellite campus. The final product will host academic classrooms, research facilities, retail and entertainment options, restaurants, health services, a hotel, green space, and student and workforce housing.
The master planning phase, which is expected to take 12 to 14 months, will consider things like transportation, stormwater drainage, utilities, architecture and landscape design, Tiffany Lacey, UNC’s executive director of real estate development, told the board at its Wednesday meeting. The chosen firm will evaluate multiple scenarios for the layout of the satellite campus.
The school also announced the roster of its Carolina North stakeholder advisory committee, which includes business and nonprofit leaders, students, professors, real estate brokers, and city planners. That group will meet multiple times over the summer.
Carolina North “is intended to feel like a public space,” Lacey said. “It’s not intended to feel like it is necessarily the campus. It’s intended very much to be a destination for daily life for the community. ... We want Carolina North to be inviting and welcoming to the public.”
But there is one question on everyone’s mind: Will UNC choose to relocate its basketball arena to the new satellite campus?
Basketball at Carolina North?
At one point, UNC had decided it was moving the location of its legendary basketball arena to Carolina North. Then, the outrage from former coaches and players started rolling in, causing the university to backpedal.
Now, Chancellor Lee Roberts says conversations about whether to build a new basketball arena at Carolina North are on pause.
The only UNC athletics representative on the stakeholder advisory board is Jenny Levy, head coach of the women’s lacrosse team.
But in addition to the large stakeholder advisory committee, there are several other committees working on planning recommendations for Carolina North — including about the arena.
“The basketball advisory committee has met several times to talk through with folks from the athletic department options around the basketball arena in particular,” Roberts said. “And the student advisory committee, similarly, has met several times to provide feedback on, principally around the basketball experience and for Carolina North more broadly.”
How students will get between main campus and Carolina North is an active question that the design firm will consider.
What master planning will cost
The university was unable to find out what Ayers Saint Gross plans to charge before it selected the firm as the school’s top choice. That’s because of state law.
The Mini-Brooks Act requires that the procurement process focus “on the qualifications of potential firms rather than their fees or the price of the contract,” according to the UNC School of Government. The school cannot ask for or consider cost as a selection factor until the negotiation process with the selected firm begins.
Multiple trustees, including the chancellor, spoke out against this requirement, suggesting it be addressed with legislators.
“It is crazy that we’re hiring people without knowing what it’s going to cost,” trustee Marty Kotis said. “... That needs some reform.”
Roberts agreed, calling the law “the tip of the iceberg as it relates to the inefficiencies in the bid state construction process.”
Should negotiations go well between UNC and Ayers Saint Gross, UNC will come up with a “not to exceed” number for the master planning budget — and that number could be around $3 million, trustee Brian Allen said.
“My concern for what’s going to drive the cost of this is, without better wording, herding the cats at Carolina to make decisions,” Allen said. “I think that’s going to drive cost.”
If negotiations with the firm fail, UNC will go to its second-choice firm.
The university is planning to put out a call for a master developer for Carolina North next.
