Big changes are coming to Franklin Street’s University Square starting this month.

“The construction fencing is going up as we speak, and it will look like there’s not much activity for several weeks,” says Meg McGurk, executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership. “Then those three buildings in the front that are closest to Franklin Street will come down, and construction of the new buildings will begin.”

For decades the downtown strip mall just west of Colombia Street was known as University Square, then later called 123 West Franklin.

The new Carolina Square, as it will now be known, will include 246 apartments, 159,000 square feet of office space and 42,000 square feet of retail as well as one acre of green space and a parking deck with 880 spaces.

McGurk says it’s the largest downtown redevelopment in Chapel Hill’s history.

“It’s going to be a dramatic change for our downtown, a vast improvement and a better use for that site, bringing a lot of new businesses and people living and working downtown,” says McGurk. “So it’s really exciting.”

The $120 million project will consist of two six-story buildings and one ten-story building. Construction will start once the trio of buildings currently on the site is torn down. Demolition begins this month and will last through October.

Despite the complexity involved in tearing down what’s already standing, McGurk says you’re not likely to see any large scale explosions on Franklin Street anytime soon.

“I have begged to be able to blow up those buildings, but it will not be a massive explosion, even though I think that would be fun to see. It will be a typical deconstruction with machinery.”

The property is owned by Chapel Hill Foundation Real Estate Holdings, which is the real estate arm for UNC.

Developer Northwood Ravin will manage the residential side, while Cousins Properties will oversee commercial leasing.

To date, UNC has already committed to leasing 62,000 square feet to accommodate the Carolina Population Center and the School of Public Health’s Biostatistics and Epidemiology groups.

There are no changes are planned for the student housing complex Granville Towers, which shares the 11-acre lot with Carolina Square.

The full project is slated for completion in summer of 2017.

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