Growth & Development
I learned from the N&O's excellent new Orange Chat blog that Roger Perry's University Village project has changed it's name to "East 54" due to Chapel Hill Planning staff concerns that the "University" name could confuse emergency responders. The staff has raised the same issue about other recent projects such as "McCorkle Place" condos, which are located across from the UNC quad called McCorkle Place.
Problem is, while East 54 definitely sounds hipper, it's even more geographically ambiguous than the previous name - it's the name of an entire road!
Meanwhile, former Town Council member Pat Evans is reactivating the group calling itself "Friends of Downtown." (You know, as opposed to those enemies...)
The erstwhile Chapel Hill Downtown Commission set up the Friends of Downtown initially as a 501c3c nonprofit, so it could accept tax-deductible donations for the commission, Evans said.
Tonight the Chapel Hill Town Council will hold public hearings on Greenbridge and University Village, will review some concept plans which I know nothing about, and then will hear a petition from the Planning Board about the process for updating the Comprehensive Plan... about which I have something to say. (Here's tonight's Council agenda.)Greenbridge is the radical plan for what I think would be the tallest building in Orange County - though I doubt that height record will stand for long. We have discussed this proposal here on OP. There are many complex issues involved, but I think most people's opinions on it comes down to two things:1. Whether you are invested in a transit-friendly future Chapel Hill that allows for some growth but no sprawl, and2.
Yesterday's Chapel Hill News looked at the rapid pace of new development in northwestern Chapel Hill, as originally blogged by Del Snow here on OP last November.
Developers have plans for at least 1,400 new housing units  more than half as many as in the entire town of Hillsborough  all within a 2.5-mile radius of the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Weaver Dairy Road.
[...]
Town traffic engineer Kumar Neppalli said the town already considers multiple projects whenever they're relevant to any one proposal, but the town cannot include projects that have not been officially proposed.
The Herald-Sun reports,
Developers of the 300 East Main Street project in Carrboro have rearranged and resubmitted their application to town staff members in hopes of hastening the project's approval and possibly beginning construction toward the end of 2007.
The development, which will include a hotel, office space, retail shops and restaurants, has been broken into two separate conditional use applications, said Laura Van Sant of Main Street Properties, the company that owns the strip mall and surrounding properties.
Read the full story here.
Van Sant also said the hotel interested is a "mid-priced national chain." I'm eager to see a hotel in Carrboro, but I hope it doesn't come with huge, tacky signs.
What are other folks thinking about this project? Are there still concerns? Or are we ready for this?
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