Parking Still Biggest Challenge in Proposed Franklin Street Development

The Chapel Hill Town Council received an update on potential plans for redevelopment of the parking lot at 415 W. Franklin St in late June.

The members of the council gave town manager Roger Stancil a few more months to gather more financial information with developers and potential partners for the project.

Plans for new development always call for a need for more parking spaces in Chapel Hill, and Stancil says officials need to plan for the future of downtown.

“Because it’s an existing parking lot, we need to find a way to provide parking to make the project successful. Losing 65 spaces, new uses, new demands downtown for parking, we need to plan for future growth downtown. The proposal is to build a 450-space deck,” Stancil said.

In April, a proposal for the project called for the town to donate the land, valued at $1.7 million, and pay an additional $500,000.

Another option was presented in late June to have the developer pay a market-rate for the land and the town would then contribute money to build the parking garage for an estimated $13 to $15 million.

Since the newest proposal is such a high investment for the town, Stancil provided some ways the council could collect more money to put this project into place.

“Funding options for the parking deck could include, raising the parking rates 20 percent for all the fees and fines that are charged for parking downtown,” Stancil said. “Another is delaying some other projects and a third is to increase the debt fund tax rate by .6 cents which would provide the funding for the parking deck.”

The issue with the additional space that would be needed for the parking deck is that there are multiple owners of that land that may not be willing to sell. Stancil said they have considered speaking with the university to potentially partner with them to build a parking deck.

Council member Nancy Oates said she was pleased to hear the partnership consideration.

“The university does have those lots on Rosemary Street, and I’m glad to hear that you’re not limiting yourself to a parking deck that is contiguous to the 415 West. That area has a lot of challenges because of the number of owners and some of them don’t want to sell,” Oates said. “That’s going to be a difficult problem to overcome, but if you can talk with the university and use some of their property on Rosemary Street that would be great.”

The Council chose to provide more time for Stancil and staff to gather additional information from the developer and explore potential partnerships. They will present the findings at the first council meeting in September.

Parking Still Biggest Challenge in Proposed Franklin Street Development

On Air Now: 97.9 FM