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Redesigning University Square to
reconnect campus to West Franklin
Street
Architect John Martin lives in Boston now, as a principal
with Elkus Manfredi Architects. But Martin grew up in Shelby, married a a young
woman who had lived in Granville Towers and whooped it up in Chapel Hill when
the Tar Heels won the national basketball championship in 1982. He knows about
Franklin Street.
“Franklin Street is one of the five to 10 best college
streets in America,” Martin told an audience of about 75 attending a public
meeting on Oct. 15 to discuss the future of University Square and Granville
Towers. “We don’t want to mess that up.”
Elkus Manfredi is the architectural firm hired to guide the
redevelopment of 123 West Franklin Street, the 12-acre tract that is now the
site of University Square shopping center and Granville Towers student housing.
Cousins Properties Incorporated, a national Atlanta-based
developer that specializes in mixed-use projects, will develop the site in
partnership with Chapel Hill Foundation Real Estate Holdings. This
not-for-profit corporation, founded by the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill Foundation to assist with real estate projects for the University
and its affiliated organizations, purchased the site for $45.75 million from
US/GT LLC, a limited liability company affiliated with the Kenan family.
Because the property is not owned by the University, it will
stay on the town’s tax rolls and produce revenue
for the town.
The developers and architects together hosted the first of
three public meetings to listen to what tenants, residents, neighbors and
others had to say about the future of the site. A standing-room-only crowd at
the afternoon listening session, as well as a second group about half that size
at the evening session, enthusiastically shared their opinions.
Developing a wish list
The public’s wish list for the site includes a downtown
grocery store, more retail (preferably a mix of affordable chain and locally
owned businesses), a public square or park, and entertainment venues. People
also want to be able to walk from Cameron Avenue, the southern boundary of the
property, to Franklin Street without having to detour around dumpsters or dodge
cars.
“We want the pedestrian to prevail over the car,” said
architect David Manfredi, the Elkus Manfredi principal in charge of the
project.
The developers plan to include a parking structure that will
offer more spaces less noticeably than the current sea of asphalt and to move
retail shops, now the only block set back by suburban-style rows of parking, up
to the 700 feet of frontage along West Franklin Street.
Another important goal is sustainability, which is why the
developers plan for new construction to be Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certifiable, said John Goff, senior vice
president of development with Cousins Properties Incorporated.
Ideas presented by University employees included on-site
child care with outdoor play areas, requested by Leslie Kreizman of Information
Technology Services, representing the Chancellor’s Child Care Advisory
Committee.
Also, a proposal called the UNC Gateway was presented by
Fletcher Fairey, associate University counsel. “It could be the face of the
University on Franklin Street,” said Fairey, whose idea included moving the admissions
office and a visitors center to the site and adding exhibition space to
showcase Carolina research and teaching.
University Square tenants in attendance expressed concern
that they would be displaced during the redevelopment. Gordon Merklein, UNC’s
executive director of real estate development, assured them that the project
would be done in phases, with meetings to address individual concerns. “We want
to sit down and work with each of you,”
he said.
Next steps
The Oct. 15 public meetings were an early step in a process
that will take years, the developers emphasized.
Taking suggestions from the meetings, from comment cards
passed out to those in attendance and a new Web site
(www.123westfranklinstreet.com) that will go live Nov. 1, the developers will
hold a second set of public meetings in early to mid-January to show
alternative plans for the site.
After public comment on those plans, the developers will
further refine them and present the results at a third set of public meetings
in late February or early March. A concept plan will be presented to the Town
of Chapel Hill in the spring, beginning an 18-month to two-year approval
process, with construction starting about four years from now. |
