Economy & Downtown

Parking, like traffic, is a recurring theme in local conversation about growth and development. We often hear from some community members that there is nowhere to park in downtown Chapel Hill/Carrboro, that a lack of parking is hurting local businesses, and that the parking minimums required for the Ephesus-Fordham renewal district are insufficient.

But the facts simply don’t support these claims. The reality is that providing more parking – especially surface parking – is fundamentally incompatible with urban land uses.*

Numerous urban planning scholars have researched parking, and their research has consistently confirmed that more parking is not desirable on any metric – unless, that is, you want more people to drive and create more traffic.

More than 40 people came out to Carrboro Town Hall earlier last night to give the Board of Alderman their thoughts about a proposed Carrboro Arts and Innovation Center downtown. The project, a joint effort of The ArtsCenter and Kidzu, would consist of a center with three performing arts center and kids museum located at at the intersection of Main and Roberson Streets.

The two partners propose raising half of the $15 million cost, with the town paying for the other half. They argue that the costs on the public side would be covered by tax revenues from a new hotel on the current ArtsCenter site that would also be part of the development. The town would own the new building, and the two non-profit partners would form a new organization that would raise funds for operations and manage the facility. That organization's new board will be appointed by the town. The partners estimated the economic impact of the project at around $320 million over the next 25 years.