Emily Baragwanath loves her backyard. In fact, the yard and trees bordering the property line were major factors that led her to move from elsewhere in Chapel Hill’s Glen Lennox neighborhood to the first block of Oakwood Drive a few years ago. But now knowing a grocery store could be only a few yards away, she questions whether she should have made the move.
“These trees, this is where the grocery [store] would be,” Baragwanath said on a sunny evening in August. “There would be the service road [here], because this fence is where the property line is, I believe.”
Emily Baragwanath stands outside her home and at the entrance to her backyard on Oakwood Drive in Chapel Hill. Baragwanath’s property directly neighbors a Glen Lennox parcel set for redevelopment. (Photo via Emily Baragwanath.)
While not having formally submitted plans to the Town of Chapel Hill, Glen Lennox’s developers and owners – Grubb Properties – are aiming to add a grocery store on the land between Oakwood Drive and Hamilton Road in its latest phase of redevelopment. Having approached the residents in April, Grubb Properties shared site plans depicting more than 150 surface level parking spaces near a 50,000-square-foot store and additional retail fronting NC 54. The proposal deviates from an initial designation for the land shared in 2014, when the Town of Chapel Hill adopted a 20-year development agreement (DA) with Grubb Properties that established a framework for future construction at Glen Lennox.
Baragwanath is among a group of concerned residents asking whether the plan strays too far from the legally binding agreement. She said she supports the ideas and plans in the document, but this potential outcome would significantly impact her family’s experience since their yard would be along the service road and back of the grocery store.
“It’s a Chapel Hill issue – it really is,” said Baragwanath of possibly losing the wooded area behind her home. “Chapel Hill has lost so many of its beautiful spaces. This is one that remains, so far.”
When Grubb Properties approached the Oakwood Drive residents in April with the idea, the business asked for feedback on the initial plans. After the group provided it – predominantly saying they do not want a big-box grocer with lots of surface parking that close to their homes – Grubb representatives subsequently returned. They said the project would not only go forward but would aim to without modifying the development agreement, meaning a town council vote would not be necessary. Feeling like their input was disregarded, a working group of Oakwood residents started combing through the DA to determine how such a change could qualify under the permitted uses.
Tom Whitworth (right) and Sherilyn Williams (center) sit with Emily Baragwanath (left) in her house during a meeting of concerned Oakwood Drive residents on Aug. 19, 2025 (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
A concept site plan shared with Oakwood Drive residents in April 2025. The aerial view depicts a layout of a future grocery store, parking lot, service road and retail building’s proximity to Oakwood Drive. Grubb Properties told Chapelboro the plans have since changed and are not yet finalized to be submitted to the Town of Chapel Hill. (Photo via Trude Amick and Cambridge Properties/Grubb Properties.)
In earliest stages of Glen Lennox’s redevelopment, Grubb had proposed a big-box store along 15-501 near the Episcopal Church – which started community dissent and ultimately led to both input sessions and the development agreement. When the DA was adopted in 2014, the parcel of land boxed in by NC 54, Oakwood Drive, Berkley Road and Hamilton Road (called Block 3) was designated for hospitality with low-density housing buffering the property line. When passing a major modification of the DA in 2021, Grubb presented a master plan that featured a greenway running parallel to the property line and providing a buffer to new residential buildings. A 2022 concept plan for seven-story multi-family buildings got pushback from a concerned group of Oakwood Drive residents and was eventually scrapped. Still, more than 60 apartment units on the parcel were slowly cleared out to allow for future development.
Trude Amick – who moved to her Oakwood Drive home in 2016 – leads the working group of residents now. She said she and her peers understand Block 3 will not remain undeveloped, but their primary concern is Grubb building what is allowable in the development agreement. Amick maintains a critical part of the agreement is attached as Exhibit H: the 2012 Glen Lennox Area Neighborhood Conservation District Plan, which relied upon significant resident feedback and is referenced in the DA. That plan indicates whatever development there should fit within the design guidelines of ‘small neighborhood buildings’ and ‘small urban, medium neighborhood buildings.’
With this new proposal by Grubb Properties, Amick said she worries whether the conservation district plan will be used in the Chapel Hill planning staff’s review of any new site plans.
“If the people at the town [government] and the people at Grubb have no context for interpreting that,” she said, “then they can just look at the zoning overlay and say, ‘Oh, well, this is what it is.’ There’s this whole 93-page document full of context that was discussed and agreed upon by the town, by the developer and by the neighborhood.”
Kevin Foy, a former Chapel Hill mayor, was one of the original residents who helped contribute to the neighborhood conservation district plan. He pointed to the changes in 2021 that allowed the construction of the Calyx Apartment building — the second phase of redevelopment — as an example of the developers collaborating well with the neighborhood.
“When that major modification came up, we worked with Grubb, the town worked with Grubb…and we worked something out,” said Foy. “Not everybody was so happy, but it got worked out.
“This seems,” he added, “much clearer [to me] to be a major modification. We don’t know what the town is going to do yet.”
Sherilyn Williams (left) sits with Trude Amick (right) on Amick’s porch for a conversation on Thursday, Sep. 11, 2025. Amick said she believes the trees that add to the porch’s view are likely to be casualties of Grubb Properties’ plans for a grocery store. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Trude Amick sits with her copies of Grubb Properties’ and the Town of Chapel Hill’s development agreement, as well as the Glen Lennox Area Neighborhood Conservation District Plan and her own notes. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Grubb Properties contends it is taking the residents’ feedback into account while developing its plans for the land, with any formal submission being made to the Chapel Hill Planning Department later this year. But the developers maintain their stance that the proposal would qualify under the current agreement and would not need a major modification to move forward. The planning department’s main focus is the zoning overlay regulations and permitted use table, which states what type of development can and cannot be built on the land.
“We do have the belief that this is a ‘Business – General’ use, which is allowed on Block 3,” Project Manager Kristen Myers said to Chapelboro during an interview on Aug. 29. Other business types listed in the permitted use table for Block 3 are restaurant, convenience, office-type, child care and hotel/motel. The table also allows many types of residential development, ranging from single-family to multi-unit dwelling, and recreation facilities.
Myers – who is among the Grubb Properties leaders communicating with residents and who walked the property line with them earlier in 2025 – said Grubb explored other options for the site, although she did not specify what type of development or businesses. She said this remains the most feasible one for the company’s goals and argued fits with the vision of Glen Lennox providing a ‘work, live and play’ environment for residents.
“We’ve really worked hard on creating this walkable, bike-able community,” said Myers. “Having a grocer within Glen Lennox that people can walk and bike to is also very important to us.”
Residents of Oakwood Drive are quick to point out 14 other grocery supermarkets within a five-mile radius of the site, with six being within two miles. But they also point out how the change to Block 3 would diversify what development and tenants Grubb Properties has within Glen Lennox, which may be of higher importance than ever before with the rising costs of construction for residential and commercial spaces.
Grubb Properties called a meeting with some Oakwood Drive residents on Sep. 4, their first face-to-face meeting since late June. Multiple attendees of the meeting said CEO Clay Grubb pleaded for the group to negotiate with him while not budging on the plan to add a grocery store to the land – citing a bleak landscape presently for most types of development projects.
Amick, and five other sources from the meeting, said the indication was clear: the entire Glen Lennox redevelopment could be in financial jeopardy without an anchor tenant.
“He was telling us how he needs to build the grocery store…he needs to build it,” Amick recalled. “There’s this desperation in this [phrasing], ‘need to build.’ And that if he doesn’t build, he could be foreclosed on.”
In a statement provided to Chapelboro, Grubb Properties Senior Director of Corporate Communications Emily Ethridge said the company will continue meeting with the neighbors of Block 3 as the plans progress. She also affirmed the goal of having the Glen Lennox redevelopment show “how seriously we take our commitment to the community at large.”
“We believe the development of this parcel as a retail property is in the best interest of the entire community,” said Ethridge. “Without an anchor tenant, the economics don’t favor the development of the hundreds of additional apartments as laid out in the vision plan, which are essential to addressing Chapel Hill’s housing shortage. A grocer within walking distance consistently ranks among the top requests from residents, allowing some of them the convenience of giving up car ownership. While we have no plans to allow anything like foreclosure, the current national real estate crisis may mean we lose the opportunity to do what is in the best long-term interests of the neighborhood and Chapel Hill if we cannot move forward.”
Motivations aside, the Oakwood Drive residents say they believe this proposal and process is a misstep for Grubb Properties after taking such extensive resident consideration into the initial DA 11 years ago. Between what little feedback has been incorporated in the developer’s shared plans and its stated desire to avoid a major modification, community members feel the changes are not being made in good faith. And with the old Glen Lennox – with its affordable single-family starter or apartment-style homes – already having changed from the local housing crunch and redevelopment, they worry big-box retail in such proximity to residential would permanently alter the character of Oakwood Drive and the neighborhood.
Tom Whitworth, who has lived on Oakwood Drive since the 1990s, remembers meeting Clay Grubb in 2012. At the time, Whitworth and his wife were remodeling their home and he asked Grubb whether they should be concerned about future development affecting their living situation. Whitworth remembers Grubb adamantly saying that any changes would be beneficial to the neighborhood and its home values.
While Whitworth said he is not opposed to a grocery store on Block 3, he said he doubts there could be an appropriate transition from the property line to a grocery store and its parking lot – and he is discouraged by Grubb Properties showing few signs of taking resident feedback into its plans.
“I do believe he’s strapped financially and I understand that – but it’s not our problem,” Whitworth said of Grubb. “It shouldn’t be the environment’s problem. It’s his problem.”
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