How Chapel Hill will use parking to keep a homegrown robotics company downtown
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- Chapel Hill council approved up to $261,000 in parking credits and $57,000 grant.
- Company's new HQ could mark a $1.55M-plus investment downtown.
- Blue Sky agreed to hire 152 full-time employees averaging over $77,303 annually.
A business incentive approved Wednesday night — Chapel Hill’s third since January — again leveraged the town’s newest parking deck to keep a local company growing downtown.
The council approved the incentive 9-0, giving Blue Sky Robotics Inc. up to 30 parking spaces worth about $261,000 and a $57,000 cash grant over five annual payments.
As an advanced robotics and precision software company working with health care, logistics, manufacturing and hospitality users, Blue Sky has high-growth opportunities, said David Putnam, the town’s economic development director.
The company’s new headquarters in the Innovate Carolina Junction building at 136 E. Rosemary St. could mark a $1.55 million-plus investment, he said. The building is across the street from the town’s East Rosemary parking deck, which opened in 2024 and has generated lower parking revenues than expected.
“Chapel Hill is the right choice for our business and for our employees,” company founder Steven King said in a news release. “It’s a place where innovation is a part of the culture, and it has the space that we need to grow. Our team is incredibly excited about what’s ahead — and truly thankful for the Town’s support.”
Blue Sky could hire 152 full-time employees over the next five years, at an average wage of more than $77,303 a year. At least 106 of those jobs must pay $70,442 or more, in line with the county’s average private sector wage, according to a staff report.
The deal could mean more than $2 million in property tax revenues and parking fees for the town in the next decade, Putnam said.
Town luring Launch accelerator startups
King, also the company’s chief innovations officer, started Blue Sky in 2023 through Launch Chapel Hill’s Powered by KPMG program, “an AI-enabled, next-generation accelerator model.”
He’s also the UNC-Chapel Hill’s Reese Felts Jr. Distinguished Professor of Emerging Technologies and an award-winning journalist, with a master’s degree in computer science.
“We’re on the third cohort of [Powered by KPMG], and so we’re really excited to see these sorts of investments from you all, and partnerships are being fruitful and have rapid turnarounds on return on investment to the town,” Putnam said.
At least three other cities — two in Texas and Greenville, South Carolina — also showed interest in Blue Sky, he said.
Before the vote, Town Council member Elizabeth Sharp noted the company already hired away an employee from her family’s restaurants. That person recently graduated from UNC with a computer science degree, she said.
“We wish we could keep him, but it is a great opportunity for him, and I love that it means that one of our UNC graduates [stays] in town,” she said.
Downtown parking as an incentive
The Blue Sky Robotics incentive is the third parking incentive for economic development approved this year. The others are:
- Eats2Seats: Approved in March. Provides $87,000 over five years in return for 41 local jobs paying an average wage of $122,683 a year.
- Rosemary Hotel (Element): Approved in April. Provides 90 discounted parking spaces worth up to $280,000 to Chapel Hill Ventures LLC. The five-year incentive depends on the creation of 35 full-time jobs, paying $40,000 to $112,500, and an investment of $28 million.
- The Rosemary Hotel was approved in 2021 for at least 135 rooms, and also swaps a house at 208 Pritchard Ave. to the town, in exchange for a small public parking lot beside the hotel site. The developer also agreed to help build a public plaza between the hotel and Old Town Hall.
This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 8:32 AM with the headline "How Chapel Hill will use parking to keep a homegrown robotics company downtown."
