CHAPEL HILL-Adam Golden is the vice president of development for Northwood Ravin, the company that’s been planning the Edge project for more than a year. He came before the Chapel Hill Town Council this week to ask the town to help pay for the $3.5 million dollars worth of road improvements needed to widen Eubanks Road.
“Please consider participating in these road improvements to fix an existing condition that is already in trouble,” said Golden. “Enable the Edge to move forward. Open the northern edge of town for economic development opportunity.”
The Edge is a 54-acre site on Eubanks Road next to the town’s Park and Ride lot. Golden says the proposed project would be pedestrian and transit-oriented, with a mix of retail, residential and office space. But he told the council it can’t happen without help.
“Our firm can absorb some of the costs associated with The Edge, but we cannot absorb all of the costs associated with some of this background improvement that’s required,” said Golden.
Town officials and representatives from NC DOT agree that to support the proposed development, Eubanks Road needs to be widened with new turn lanes and bike lanes.
The developer is planning to submit a formal application soon, but council members said they couldn’t offer any guarantees that the town would contribute to the road improvements. Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said the council would be willing to listen but could not make a commitment.
“There is no way that the Council can provide you assurance today or this week that the end of those discussions is going to be affirmative and that you’re going to have that level of participation that you seek,” said Kleinschmidt.
Golden said his company would likely abandon the project if the town decides not to chip in. “If we can’t get help with the improvements, we may be left with a project that’s not feasible.”
Council members agreed to refer the matter to staff for a report, but warned Golden they would not likely have a reply any time soon.
http://chapelboro.com/news/local-government/edge-developers-seek-help-road-improvements/CHAPEL HILL- A plan for a new hotel on East Franklin Street met with opposition from residents and the Chapel Hill Town Council last week
Anthony Carey is the general manager at the Siena Hotel on the corner of East Franklin and Estes Drive. He told the Council he’s skeptical about a plan to build a new upscale hotel less than half a mile down the road.
“We currently do not have an urgent need for hotel rooms,” said Carey. “Between July 1 of last year and December 31, how many times was the Aloft, Siena, Sheraton, Franklin, Carolina Inn, Residence Inn and Courtyard sold out harmoniously? Zero.”
The concept was introduced to the Town Council at a public hearing last week. No formal plan has been submitted to the town, but developers heard an earful from neighbors critical of their proposal to build a five-story, 110-room hotel on less than two acres along East Franklin Street.
Dr. Terry Vance runs a psychotherapy practice across the street from the site. She said a new hotel would pose a threat to her business.
“The increased traffic and the noise of building a hotel would make our practice impossible,” said Vance. “We depend on listening, quiet and privacy.”
Residents in the nearby Coker Hills neighborhood also voiced concerns about noise, light pollution and traffic.
When the time came for the Council to offer feedback, members were similarly unimpressed. Lee Storrow told developers he was not excited about the plan.
“We have an approved hotel in the southern part of town that’s likely to break ground very soon, we have approved a rough concept that would, in the future, lead to a hotel across from Carolina North, and there’s discussions about ones in Ephesus-Fordham,” said Storrow. “So I don’t think this concept make sense at this space. I think we’re just moving around people who are in other hotels and I don’t think that has the benefit of expanding our market or tax base the way we want it to.”
Developers must now decide whether to formally apply for a rezoning and special use permit, or shelve the hotel plan in favor of a new idea.
http://chapelboro.com/news/local-government/town-council-wary-east-franklin-hotel-plan/CHAPEL HILL- Town planners call the chance to redevelop the Ephesus Church-Fordham Boulevard area a watershed moment in Chapel Hill’s history.
Members of the business and development community turned out Wednesday night to cheer on the Chapel Hill Town Council as the Council took the first steps of a process to rezone 190 acres in the Ephesus Church-Fordham Boulevard area.
“I rise in support of this plan, wholeheartedly,” said Jeremy Browner, who runs a law office on Legion Road. “I believe that it would bring much-needed private investment to encourage commercial redevelopment in Chapel Hill.”
The Ephesus-Fordham renewal plan is the result of nearly a decade of planning to redevelop an area currently known for vacant lots, twisted intersections and traffic snarls.
The plan calls for the Council to reconfigure the intersection of Ephesus Church Road and Fordham Boulevard, extend Elliot Road and create new mixed-use zones that allow three to seven stories of commercial and residential development.
It’s also an experiment in a new type of zoning for Chapel Hill called form-based code.
Using form-based code, the Council will set parameters for development including building height, setbacks and parking guidelines for each zone, but once these are in place, individual developers will not need to bring their projects before the council if they meet the established criteria.
Town Manager Roger Stancil said this will provide clarity for both developers and the Council.
“We have proposed a form-based code for this district that clarifies and streamlines the development process and improves predictability for the developer,” Stancil told the Council. “We are testing the assumption that if we are clear in what we want, we might get it.”
In addition to spurring redevelopment and expanding the town’s commercial tax base, Stancil said the plan will also address the long-standing traffic and flooding problems that have plagued the area for decades.
“The rezoning creates the opportunity for new tax revenues that allow us to solve problems the community has not been able to afford to resolve in the past,” said Stancil.
Town planners said individual redevelopment projects have been scuttled in the past due to the high cost of the required road and stormwater improvements.
Instead, the town will invest in the improvements upfront and be paid back incrementally as development within the district occurs.
The $10 million dollar investment in infrastructure will be financed using Chapel Hill Town Hall as collateral. Business Management Director Ken Pennoyer explained the money will also cover the recently-approved Town Hall renovations.
“Basically this is a strategy of using the collateral of one project to cover two projects, which is not all that uncommon in using installment financing,” said Pennoyer.
The majority of the 26 speakers at Wednesday’s public hearing lauded the plan as an exciting opportunity to change the way business is done in Chapel Hill. Others were more wary, worried that form-based code will remove public input from the development approval process. Critics also wanted more specifics on how and when stormwater and transit improvements would occur.
Some Council members also expressed doubts, as the form-based code model does not allow the Council to mandate affordable housing, green space or energy efficient design.
Still, most were optimistic about the plan.
“There are a lot of challenges moving forward and I think we’ve heard a lot of them from the public and the Council tonight,” said Lee Storrow. “But my God, that is a challenged area of town right now that has so much potential and, I think, a lot of excitement.”
The council voted unanimously to adopt a two-month timeline for approval of the plan. A public information session is scheduled for February 20; the council will likely take a vote on the Ephesus-Fordham rezoning March 24.
http://chapelboro.com/news/local-government/chtc-eyes-ephesus-fordham-renewal-plan/CARRBORO- The past twelve months have seen a whirlwind of economic development blow through downtown Carrboro as the town welcomed its first hotel and parking deck as part of the 300 East Main project.
Though the opening of the Hampton Inn and Suites was a long time coming, Mayor Lydia Lavelle says it was worth the wait.
“Now having the hotel open, its so exciting with all the people coming to Carrboro and the synergy of the businesses opening around it,” says Lavelle.
Other stores are moving into the retail space below the hotel, including Cameron’s gift shop and Womancraft Gifts. Several restaurants are currently in the works as well.
This year also saw the long-awaited reopening of the PTA Thrift Shop at its newly-renovated location on Jones Ferry Road. In addition to helping fund education, Lavelle says the mission of the thrift shop is a good fit for the town.
“It’s just very Carrboro- reduce, re-use, recycle.”
And Carrboro’s office of Economic Development recently rolled out a new town logo and motto to help convey Carrboro’s unique ethos to the wider world.
“We’ve unleashed this new marketing campaign: ‘It’s Carrboro, feel free.’” says Lavelle. “It’s a great logo and there are shirts for sale with taglines like, ‘Openly Carrboro.’ Those are best-sellers, I think.”
Though there’s not yet much to see, Lavelle says ArtsCenter leaders and town officials are beginning to plan for another project that will redefine downtown.
“The folks with the ArtsCenter have been starting to meet with groups of people about the vision for the ArtsCenter moving to the far end of the property that it is on right now and having a brand-new, free-standing building- what that might look like, what it might include, how parking will work with that, how it will fit into our Carrboro landscape.”
As she looks ahead to next year, Lavelle says town officials will need to consider how construction and new development might be disruptive to those who work, shop or live downtown. But she says she’s confident Carrboro can come together to plan for the future.
http://chapelboro.com/news/local-government/2013-marks-banner-year-carrboros-downtown/CHAPEL HILL- Though the details are shrouded in secrecy, University Mall General Manager Peter DeLeon confirmed Friday afternoon that a key new addition would be coming to the mall on South Estes Drive.
The name of the new tenant will be revealed at a ceremony on November 12 at the mall’s main stage. Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt, Economic Development Officer Dwight Bassett and local Chamber of Commerce President Aaron Nelson will be on hand to make the announcement.
Speculation has swirled in recent months about the fate of the Dillard’s department store at University Mall, but DeLeon said he could not discuss the location of the new anchor.
CHAPEL HILL- Masao Hoshino, President of Morinaga America, Inc., told Orange County Commissioners on Tuesday that state and local economic incentives played a significant role in the Japanese company’s decision to build its first American production facility in Mebane.
“We decided to locate in Mebane, Orange County because it has a remarkable business environment: access to transportation, access to raw materials, infrastructure, et cetera,” said Hoshino. “Additional encouragement is the incentives. It obviously supported our decision.”
By a unanimous vote, the Board of Commissioners agreed to offer Morinaga performance-based incentives including a $1 million dollar grant to be paid out over the next five years. The grant money would represent three-quarters of the annual tax value of the $34 million dollar facility.
In addition to investment from Orange County and the City of Mebane, the state will contribute slightly more than $1 million dollars to the project.
Located just outside of Mebane, the 21 acre site, which up until recently was used to grow soybeans, lacks water, sewer or direct road access. The county will partner with the state to cover the cost of extending water and sewer infrastructure, which could total $700,000. The state will pay 75 percent of that; the county will pay 25 percent.
NC DOT will chip in half a million dollars to build a road to access the plant, and Durham Technical Community College will offer training to new workers at no charge.
The nearly 100,000 square foot production facility is slated to employ 90 people in the production of Hi-Chew candy. Hoshino told the board it will be a green facility.
“At the planned facility we will cook sugar and syrup, add fruit juice, vegetable oil and other ingredients to make chewy candy,” said Hoshino. “In the process, we do not produce harmful materials, there is no chemical pollution. It is environmentally-friendly.”
Board Chair Barry Jacobs said this project represents the culmination of 20 years of planning to bring new businesses to the 400 acre Buckhorn Economic Development District.
“We have just started as a county to embark of the course of providing incentives to companies to either stay here or locate here,” said Jacobs. “This has been a very amicable and collaborative process and we feel it will be a very fruitful process for everyone concerned.”
He also thanked Orange County voters for approving the quarter-cent sales tax, as proceeds from that will likely be used to cover some of the cost to extend water and sewer to the plant.
The board also unanimously approved a $140,000 contract to hire an engineering firm to design the road, water and sewer extensions. Planners estimate the facility could open for business in July of 2015.
http://chapelboro.com/news/local-government/bocc-approves-incentives-to-bring-morinaga-to-mebane/CHAPEL HILL- When developer D.R. Bryan first suggested building a hotel in the heart of Southern Village back in late 2008, residents of the neighborhood responded with such vehement dismay that the proposal was tabled.
Fast forward five years and the concept of a hotel in the mixed-use village has resurfaced, though this time it would be at the edge of the development instead of at its center.
Barbara Crane lives and works in Southern Village. She told the Chapel Hill Town Council on Monday that though she fought the prior plan, she’s changed her mind.
“Since the difficult times in 2009 when I and others questioned whether there was a market for an additional hotel, the market has improved greatly,” said Crane.
The new proposal is slightly smaller, and in a different location. Bryan wants to build a five-story, 112 room hotel on four acres along 15-501 across from Solar Strata.
At Monday’s public hearing, residents and business owners were lining up to praise the plan, which many said would bring much needed business to the merchants on Market Street.
“As an independent business we face a lot of challenges, and now we have big box stores like Wal-Mart encroaching on our territory,” said Micki Cashman, the store manager at Weaver Street Market’s Southern Village location. “We are looking for an additional anchor on the commercial center to really help strengthen all of our retail businesses.”
Gary Kahn, a Southern Village resident and town council candidate, was the only speaker to criticize the plan, warning it could generate unwanted traffic in the area.
“I encourage the mayor and the town council to act very slowly on granting the permit for the Southern Village hotel, or make it part of the Obey Creek process and let the community say whether we really need a hotel,” said Kahn.
The council was largely supportive of the hotel concept, although some questioned the idea that hotel guests would drive into the center of the Southern Village commercial district instead of driving.
“Real walk-ability is about passing places that are interesting and seeing windows and seeing activity and having the option of popping in and stuff,” said Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt. “You make a five minute walk feel like a 20 minute walk when you don’t have those things and so people won’t even take the five minute walk.”
The project will return to the council for a vote on October 28.
http://chapelboro.com/news/local-government/new-hotel-plan-draws-praise-from-those-once-opposed/HILLSBOROUGH- Orange County officials have been negotiating in secret for months to bring a major candy manufacturer to the Mebane area. At Thursday’s meeting of the board of commissioners the public got a first look at the incentive package offered to sweeten the deal.
“We had to find a way to be competitive, to make our site draw them here,” said Economic Development Director Steve Brantley. “They very much liked the idea of living in Orange County. They particularly told me that the [company] president likes the diversity. But that was not enough. We had to do more.”
Morinaga & Company announced this week it would invest $48 million to build a manufacturing facility in Orange County’s Buckhorn Economic Development District. The facility will employ at least 90 people, paying average salaries of $38,000 a year.
And though local leaders are seemingly thrilled to have landed the deal, the package of incentives that helped attract the company will have to be formally approved by the board of commissioners following a public hearing this fall.
To that end, Brantley laid out the details of an incentive package that had previously been kept tightly under wraps. He stressed the money will not come out of the county’s general fund, but will come out of the property taxes on the new facility instead.
“It’s based upon the investment by the company,” said Brantley. “We have proposed 75 percent of the estimated taxes of the project’s capital investment for up to five years, so if for example the company made a $48 million dollar investment, it would receive approximately $308,000 annually in a performance grant for each of five years.”
Brantley added there will be a claw-back provision for the county to recoup the money should the company fail to meet its growth goals.
The City of Mebane is also considering an incentive package, and the N.C. Department of Commerce will offer a quarter million dollar grant from the One North Carolina Fund.
The 20 acre Buckhorn site is currently undeveloped, lacking water, sewer, electricity and road access. Brantley said all these will be put in place at no charge to Morinaga, as North Carolina and Orange County will share the cost.
“We are highly confident that the state of North Carolina has pre-qualified this project as eligible to apply for and receive a Community Development Block Grant and it will reimburse Orange County for 75 percent of our initial costs to front the water and sewer extensions to the site,” said Brantley.
Water and sewer infrastructure are estimated to cost about $675,000, some of which could come from the county’s quarter-cent sales tax.
In addition, the N.C. Department of Transportation has offered half a million dollars to provide road access to the site, and gas and electricity will be extended to the building free of charge by PSNC Energy and Progress Duke Energy.
County Manager Frank Clifton told the board that if the Morinaga facility develops as planned it could become one of the top three taxpayers in the county. More importantly, he said this project could spark renewed interested in Orange County’s economic development districts.
“This is only 20 acres out of roughly 700 that have been rezoned by this county commission for economic development purposes in the Buckhorn area,” said Clifton. “Twenty acres has the potential to produce roughly $100 million dollars of asset valuation for Orange County. That’s a significant impact and it offers us great opportunities for the future. It is a big deal in Orange County.”
The public hearing on the incentive package will likely be held in October. If all parties approve the deal, Morinaga could host a ground-breaking ceremony as early as next March.
http://chapelboro.com/news/local-government/bocc-eyes-incentive-deal-for-candy-maker-morinaga/
CHAPEL HILL- Would a big box store be a boost to the tax base or a drain on the local economy? In Chapel Hill and Carrboro the debate has flourished for years.
Now Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, says Chapel Hill may be ready to embrace at least one new name-brand store, and he’s got the numbers to prove it.
“There’s always been a lot of controversy over whether Chapel Hill would be open to a big box store, and what we found in this poll is that 56 percent of voters in town would like to have a Target in Southern Orange County,” says Jensen. “Only 15 percent are opposed to that idea.”
The proposed Obey Creek project across from Southern Village has been earmarked as a potential location for large-scale retail development, with Target as a possible anchor store.
Jensen also asked respondents how they’d feel about an Olive Garden in downtown Carrboro. While many in Orange and Chatham counties were receptive to the idea, Carrboro residents were not interested.
“Overall, voters in Orange and Chatham say they would support an Olive Garden in downtown Carrboro by a 44-35 margin,” says Jensen. What’s kind of funny when you break down the numbers is that voters in Carrboro itself are opposed to an Olive Garden- they don’t want it by a 55-33 margin.”
With many Orange County residents opening their property tax bills this time of year, Jensen says he thinks some taxpayers may be considering how to expand the commercial tax base.
The survey polled 484 registered voters living in Orange and Chatham counties. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percent. You can find the full results here.
http://chapelboro.com/news/business/ppp-poll-suggests-chapel-hill-may-welcome-big-box-retail/CHAPEL HILL – Orange County is by many measures the most affluent county in North Carolina, but its poverty rate is also well above the state average—a striking statistic that’s troubling for residents who say they’re committed to progressive values like social and economic justice.
It’s a reality that’s existed for years, and there’s no easy or quick solution. But local economic development leaders say attracting the right kind of business to the area may offer a boost to those living at or below the poverty line—not to mention those who can’t afford to live in Orange County at all.
“I was talking to (CHCCS Superintendent) Tom Forcella recently about the number of teachers that teach in our public schools that actually can afford to live in Chapel Hill–(and) that number’s very low,” says local entrepreneur Jim Kitchen. “I was talking to (Chapel Hill Police Chief) Chris Blue about the same thing for policemen and women and other public servants, and that number’s very low.”
Kitchen made that comment at a panel on economic development during Thursday’s Community Forum on WCHL.
Economic inequality was a key point of concern at the forum, not only for Kitchen but for all his fellow panelists—Orange County Economic Development Director Steve Brantley, Chapel Hill Planning Board member Amy Ryan, Carrboro Economic Development Director Annette Stone, and Chapel Hill Town Council member Jim Ward. But while conversations about development in Orange County usually tend to revolve around the need for more retail business—the better to increase the county’s commercial tax base—Thursday’s panelists all agreed on the need to think outside the box.
Annette Stone, in particular, keyed on two novel approaches.
“The emphasis that the town has put on arts and entertainment and the food economy–the ‘creative economy’–in the past few years has been very successful,” she said Thursday. “And working to really help what I (call) the ‘hidden economy,’ those entrepreneurs that are sort of embedded in the town–and you can map out privilege license and see how many little home businesses there are–and really helping them up and out–I think those are the things that we can do.”
Speaking for Orange County, Steve Brantley said the future of local economic development also lay in light industrial business, as well as retail and other office space.
“I think that a company coming in and bringing high-tech skills, where the community college trains those people, where those people get full-time jobs, not part-time jobs–(where) they get the benefits, health care, retirement, maybe for the first time in their life–to me, that’s the social justice that economic development can bring,” he said Thursday.
Brantley says much of his work as economic development director has focused recently on attracting light manufacturing to the area.
Also in the works are a variety of large retail projects—including proposed developments at Ephesus Church Road, Glen Lennox, Obey Creek near Southern Village, University Square in downtown Chapel Hill, and the EDGE project on Eubanks Road, to name only a few.
Amy Ryan says there are many possible benefits to those projects—but one of the most important may be the degree to which they can address the issues of affordability and economic justice.
“We have very high ideals for ourselves and the kind of values that we have–and they’re very expensive,” she says. “And I think having that discussion–saying, look, if you have this amount of economic development, you’re going to be able to let your teachers and firefighters live in town, you’re going to be able to provide more affordable housing–it may be worth it to you to put that big-box retailer somewhere, if it then brings those extra benefits to town.”
Click here to listen to all ten hours of this year’s Community Forum.
http://chapelboro.com/news/community-forum/oc-economic-officials-say-development-key-to-social-justice/ 33.3°F |
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