Flower shop has been in downtown Chapel Hill for 78 years. Where is it going next?
A locally owned Franklin Street business that has supplied Chapel Hill residents with flowers and gifts for 78 years is moving next year.
University Florist, which opened in 1946, will remain open at 124 E. Franklin St. until a new, bigger shop is built at 107 N. Roberson St., said Henry House, who owns the business with his father, Charles House.
Henry House said the University Florist business model no longer works downtown, because they don’t have as much walk-in traffic with online and phone orders, and there’s limited parking on East Franklin Street.
“We certainly will miss being downtown, but we haven’t moved very far,” House said Thursday.
Thell’s Bakery shared the building when University Florist first opened, he said, and when the bakery closed in the mid-1980s, they expanded.
In May, they sold the East Franklin Street building for $2 million to Chapel Hill Foundation Real Estate Holdings Inc., a not-for-profit corporation founded by the UNC-Chapel Hill Foundation, county records show. House said they have signed a lease with the Foundation until their new location opens.
They are “really happy for the change,” House said.
“You have to change with the forces of nature when it compels you to do what you need to do,” he added.
Big changes for Franklin Street
Crews began demolishing the two-story house on North Roberson Street this week, across from First Baptist Church. Construction on the new building could start by next spring, House said.
The Sun magazine, which occupied the house for many years, has moved into a smaller house at 109 N. Roberson St., which House said he and his father also bought.
Their existing location was one of the last buildings on the south side of East Franklin Street downtown that the Foundation and the state of North Carolina did not own, House said.
The only privately owned building that remains between University Methodist Church and South Columbia Street is the Top of the Hill building on the corner, owned by Riddle Commercial Properties, county records show.
The university has proposed a Porthole Alley project that would demolish much of the strip west of Porthole Alley, a key pedestrian connection to UNC’s campus, along with the Porthole Building located behind it.
A new building ranging from three stories on East Franklin Street to taller in the back could add ground-floor retail and also provide space for the UNC Visitors Center, Undergraduate Admissions and other university programs. The project has been on hold for a few years, and an official application has not yet been submitted to the town.
This story was originally published September 12, 2024 at 3:37 PM with the headline "Flower shop has been in downtown Chapel Hill for 78 years. Where is it going next?."
