Modern office building could transform downtown Chapel Hill skyline
The story was updated at 7:54 p.m. Jan. 6.
Another piece of a plan to bring office and wet lab space to downtown Chapel Hill got a positive reception Monday night and a few suggestions for how to make it better.
The Town Council will review the Grubb Properties concept plan — a rough sketch of what could be built — on Jan. 19. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. and will be livestreamed at chapelhill.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx.
The plan could replace the town’s Wallace Parking Deck with its rooftop plaza at 150 E. Rosemary St. with a six- to eight-story, 250,000-square-foot, modern office building with specially designed laboratory space.
At eight stories, the Grubb Properties project would be the tallest building on East Rosemary and East Franklin streets.
The project is the third part of a major transformation planned for the downtown corridor, which also includes Grubb Properties’ proposed Innovation Hub in the former CVS building at 137 E. Franklin St. and 136 E. Rosemary St.
Grubb officials also are working with the town to build a 1,100-space parking deck at 125 E. Rosemary St. next year.
The development agreement and land swap the council approved in October also will consolidate much of the town’s public parking.
It’s also expected to boost the town’s longstanding vision of having year-round jobs and residents downtown. Businesses now depend heavily on UNC students and visitors, which can slow down considerably when the university is not in session. The town also needs office and research space to attract and keep research companies and startups, especially from UNC.
Grubb is taking advantage of the federal Opportunity Zone tax incentives program to complete its projects. Downtown Chapel Hill is part of Orange County’s only Opportunity Zone, which stretches from East Franklin Street to Estes Drive.
The $80 million office building alone could bring 800 jobs downtown and generate $4.2 million in downtown sales and roughly $1.3 million in property tax revenues for the town, Orange County and local schools, town staff said.
Grubb Properties also is wrapping up work on The Gwendolyn, a 106,000-square-foot office building in Chapel Hill’s Glen Lennox neighborhood. That project was launched with a $2.2 million, performance-based tax incentive.
Offices, labs, town green
The conversation about a new downtown office building kicked off Monday with a Community Design Commission review. The commission and Town Council review concept plans to give developers feedback for drafting official applications.
Commission members said they favored a seven-story building and a town green space with terraces and a gradual slope to the corner of East Rosemary and Henderson streets. The former CVS building is three stories on East Franklin Street and seven on East Rosemary.
Roughly 175 parking spaces could be tucked under the building, urban designer Michael Stevenson said. Drivers would use two East Rosemary Street driveways and the NCNB Alley behind the Wallace deck to access the parking.
The commissioners reviewed several drawings of the proposed building and urged a more modern design that also fits in with the church spires and the historical character of the brick and wood structures around it.
Commissioner Ted Hoskins said he expects the team to deliver “a creative, innovative design.”
“I think that eight stories, when viewed from Franklin Street, really would take your breath away and possibly not in a good way, so if this thing gets to be that tall, it’s really got to be special up at the top,” Hoskins said. “Otherwise, I have a great deal of confidence in this design team.”
The commissioners also advocated for fewer driveways, traffic-calming street design and retaining pedestrian links to restaurants, churches and the courthouse. The NCNB Alley could become an asset for the office building and the East Franklin Street businesses that share it, they said.
“You as an applicant with multiple buildings along this stretch of Rosemary Street, have both an opportunity and to some extent a responsibility to be thinking holistically about this … given the number of buildings that your project includes and the public-private nature of what you’re doing,” Commission Chair Susana Dancy said.
Most commissioners seemed resigned to losing a large magnolia tree at the corner of East Rosemary and Henderson streets, but Commissioner Chris Berndt urged saving it, as well as the “Pencil” mural on the Henderson Street retaining wall.
“I think historically people have attached a lot of community significance to that tree, just on an emotional level,” Berndt said.
The developers are working with arborists and landscapers, Stevenson said, but the tree might have to be removed or its roots, which span the hillside, could be severely damaged.
This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 2:04 PM with the headline "Modern office building could transform downtown Chapel Hill skyline."
