Things are looking up for the downtown Chapel Hill area, as local businesses are claiming to experience a record-breaking summer.

Chapel Hill Mayor, Mark Kleinschmidt, spoke with WCHL’s Aaron Keck about the success stories from such local businesses he has heard and how the town’s economy is growing.

“There’s so much more activity,” says Mayor Kleinschmidt. “There’s so much more life happening in these really slow days. This town economy is really starting to steer towards a 12-month year, and it’s really exciting.”

With the amount of recent developments in downtown, including the amenities of 140 West, Mayor Kleinschmidt says that simply talking about the growth has even played a role in how members of the community participate in making the area bigger, better, and more exciting.

“As people moved in, it raises expectations,” Mayor Kleinschmidt says, “and the fact that the people are thinking about that gets them downtown, and because they’re downtown, it does become what they say.”

Mayor Kleinschmidt says that though he has not heard much about as many closing businesses, he says that the few places that do go out of business have for more understandable reasons.

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