The corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Estes Drive has been undergoing changes for the last year, as construction on a major development project is underway concurrent with upgrades to the road.
But it’s not just the land itself that’s changing. The project name, Aura Chapel Hill, has also undergone a rebranding and is moving forward under the name Booth Park.
The change is meant to highlight a public park that will be at the center of the 1000 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard property. Booth Park earns its name from the owners of the property before Trinsic Residential Group bought it in 2022. J.E. Booth ran a timber business and used the 16-acre property – along with many others he owned across North Carolina – as a place to grow and cut trees.
Ryan Stewart, the managing director for Trinsic’s projects in the Carolinas, said after several other projects fell through at the site, he eventually approached J.E.’s daughter – Kathryn Booth Butler – about Trinsic developing and purchasing it. In a recent interview, Stewart said the two realized they had a special connection.
“So, I have a son named Booth Stewart, and she was Kathryn Booth Stewart [at one point from a marriage],” he told Chapelboro. “There was just a special connection to this site. Call it an alignment of the stars or whatever you want to say it is, we just felt that this was a very special project, and it was worth putting every ounce of energy into.”
An aerial site plan of the Booth Park project in Chapel Hill. Multi-family housing is designated in blue, townhomes are designated in peach, and mixed-use buildings are in red. The multi-family building will have a subterranean parking deck, which is visualized in the site plan. (Photo via CI Design and the Trinsic Residential Group.)
A closer aerial and street view design of Booth Park, which is meant to be a public fixture within the housing community off MLK Boulevard and Estes Drive. (Photo via CI Design and the Trinsic Residential Group.)
When it came onto the scene in early 2020, the Aura Chapel Hill project drew mixed reactions based on its design and the increase of housing brought to the corridor. It earned approval for its conditional zoning request in 2021 with a split Chapel Hill Town Council vote after working with the town’s urban planner to better accommodate their wishes. The final approved plans landed on 361 apartment units, 58 townhomes, and 15,000 square feet of retail space for the site.
While it’s been several years since the project was before the public, Stewart said not much has changed – but the rebranding of the area to Booth Park is meant to reflect Trinsic’s final vision.
“We’ve developed a little bit more of the park, and how the park will function which is the core element – if you will, the anchor of the site,” said Stewart. “Often times, you have anchors like a grocery store or some other event. For us, the park is the anchor that the community will hopefully gravitate toward.”
The titular feature of the property – which will have a dedication ceremony once it opens – will be nearly 1 acre long and narrower than most village greens, according to Stewart, in order to best use it for linear functions. The park will be split by a pavilion structure with a full kitchen and bathrooms and book-ended by roundabouts that will allow full traffic flow even when the roads parallel to Booth Park are shut down for events.
Stewart is quick to point out that the property will also still have village green areas for its multi-family buildings and an area called the Woodlands near the southeast corner of the property that will have walk paths, a playground, and a pedestrian bridge over the creek.
While Booth Park aims to be the main public attraction, Trinsic also aims to bring in several businesses to offer different services to the 2,000 residents within walking distance of the property. Stewart said the “desolate” retail offerings in the corridor means the three restaurants, co-working space, veterinarian’s office, and fitness center he’s in lease discussions with could bring valuable services to nearby communities beyond just the houses within the project. The managing director added that one of the restaurants is an established Franklin Street business, which would use Booth Park as a chance to expand – not replace – its Chapel Hill operations.
A rendering of the future Booth Park in Chapel Hill, which is flanked by multi-family buildings and townhomes. (Photo via CI Design and the Trinsic Residential Group.)
A closer rendering of how the townhomes in Booth Park are envisioned. (Photo via CI Design and the Trinsic Residential Group.)
The housing in the community, particularly the apartments, will remain under the Aura branding Trinsic uses for its multi-family projects. Stewart said it will not be long before those units will be on the market for community members.
“We are delivering the townhomes starting in July this year,” he said. “With that, we’ll be opening half the park and the central gathering building in that park. We’ll be doing the first mixed-use retail building also this summer, into early fall. The retail tenants will take about nine months to build out. Most of the apartments will be coming online [in the] first quarter 2025, as well as the retail into first quarter 2025.
“So, about this time next year,” Stewart concluded, “there should be restaurants open and a lot of buzz going.”
Although Booth Park received criticism from some and skepticism from others during its application process, Stewart said he’s gotten good feedback from people as buildings have begun coming out of the ground. He said he looks forward to naysayers over the project coming to the park and its businesses, and all of the Chapel Hill community realizing its benefits.
“When you look at the technology of buildings and stuff that we’re doing, they’re 100-year buildings – for good and for bad,” said Stewart. “So, for me, my personal philosophy is if I’m going to have a 100-year impact on the physical built environment, then I want my legacy to be something that is not just transactional. To my point, these are community benefits that will hopefully longer than 100 years.”
Booth Park will be on a Chapel Hill Town Council agenda again later this month, as it seeks a modification request for offsite lighting along the property line with Shadowood Apartments. It will begin a legislative hearing with the council on March 20 and is expected to receive action on April 17.
More about the Booth Park and Aura Chapel Hill project can be found on the Town of Chapel Hill’s website.
Editor’s Note: The Trinsic Residential Group is an advertiser with the Chapel Hill Media Group. This article was written free of editorial control from Trinsic and is not a contractual part of the business’ partnership with 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
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A park should be accessible to all. This looks like a small green space for residents. Even if it is technically open to,the public,,it’s location discourages the public at large from using it. Allying something a park doesn’t make it so.
That is a park? Looks like a glorified median strip to me.