After weeks of demolition, the Town of Chapel officially broke ground on the East Rosemary Redevelopment Project on Tuesday.
The completed demolition of the “CVS” parking deck, formerly located at 137 East Rosemary Street, will now pave the way for a new, seven-story parking deck with roughly 1,100 parking spots. 100 of those parking spaces will be sold to UNC to support a new, undergraduate admissions building on East Franklin Street.
As the new parking deck is constructed, the sidewalk on the south side of East Rosemary Street is closed to pedestrians. The sidewalk on the north side of the road, directly in front of this project, will also be closed intermittently.
View of demolition process on East Rosemary Street (photo via Town of Chapel Hill)
Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger, who attended the groundbreaking on Tuesday, said this redevelopment project is “game changing for downtown.”
“It’s not just about a parking deck,” Hemminger said. “It frees up this parcel to become an office building, it frees up some space to have green spaces downtown, it helps UNC move admissions to Franklin Street because now people could come here and park – but they’ll also wander Franklin Street and frequent our businesses. So, there’s just so much more that it’s going to open up, to bring those jobs downtown that we need, to be here 12 months out of the year and have an economy that’s just thriving all the time.”
The parking deck will add 343 new spaces and cost up to $39 million to be self-financed through the Town’s Parking Enterprise Fund over 20 years. Initial estimates for the parking deck were $28 million; however, the town saw increased costs due to hikes in construction material prices during the pandemic.
Hemminger said the parking deck’s expected date of completion is in fall of 2022.
“It takes about a year from the complete demolition here to get up and running,” Hemminger said. “So, we’re hopeful that early fall we’ll have this up and running. Meanwhile, we have some big announcements coming next week of companies that are actually going to move in already and that’s so exciting.”
Plans for the parking deck also include a “retail porch” to provide a space for small businesses and vendors.
(Photo via Town of Chapel Hill)
After the 137 East Rosemary deck is completed, demolition of the 309-space Wallace parking deck will begin. That lot will be used for the construction of a new, 200,000 square foot office and lab space building. The town expects that project to bring 800 new jobs and $50 million in new investment.
According to the town, the development of office space has remained stagnant for over a decade. Chapel Hill Town Manager Maurice Jones said the project is expected to attract new entrepreneurs and retain local businesses.
“We’ve seen too many companies have to go somewhere else because they couldn’t find class an office space,” Jones said. “We hope that we’ll be able to provide that with these new endeavors in downtown and with the partnership with the University of North Carolina.”
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