Town Council Continues To Review American Legion Possibilities

The debate over what to do with the 36-acre property soon to be the former home of the American Legion is far from over.

“We have this opportunity now,” Mayor Pam Hemminger said during the town council’s work session Wednesday night. “I wanted to hear whether the council wanted to look for other options or let it go down the development path that has been proposed at this point in time.”

American Legion entered a contract to sell the property to Woodfield Acquisitions for $10 million.

The Town of Chapel Hill had the option to buy the property for $9 million, but waived its right to first refusal in a closed-session meeting in November.

The decision was made just after the November election, when a new mayor and three new council members were elected.

Councilwoman Maria Palmer was in the closed-session and said the town did not have the money to purchase the property.

“Help me understand how, just because there was an election, all of a sudden we can come up with $10 million,” she said.

Woodfield builds multi-family homes and apartment complexes. Along with these complexes, Woodfield is also considering building office or retail spaces, but their deal is contingent on the developer receiving a special use permit from the town.

Should they not receive an SUP, Hemminger said the town could possibly use bond money to help purchase the property or enter into a partnership with a private business.

“There’s different partnerships that are available if we choose to make those kinds of things a priority,” Hemminger said. “There is a contract on this property, but it hinges on upzoning this property to be more dense and we control if that happens or not.”

Hemminger suggested moving some or all of the $8 million allocated in the recent bond for parks and recreation towards purchasing the property.

“People spent so much time coming up with a list of things on that parks and rec priorities,” said councilwoman Donna Bell. “This was not a priority. This was not listed as one of the things where we’re like ‘let’s put some money away for the American Legion project’ because there were other things that were priorities.”

While no decision was made Wednesday night, the council will continue to discuss possibilities.

Representatives from Woodfield were in attendance, but did not address the council during the meeting.

Scott Underwood, who ran a community forum about the possible development in January, said they would be meeting with council members to help figure out the best way to move forward.