The Town of Chapel Hill received a visit from officials from the Embassy of the Netherlands last week.

Mayor Pam Hemminger said that the reasons for the visit included learning more about the town and considering the area for possible corporate relocation in the future.

“There are several Dutch companies in North Carolina,” Hemminger said, “and they employ many, many people, so there is interest. And they talked about thinking about North Carolina differently from California because our quality of life and our cost of living here and the things we offer.”

Since Orange is the color of the Dutch Royal Family, the embassy is visiting every Orange County in the country.

Hemminger said one of the topics discussed was being a “blue bubble in a red sea.”

“They were sort of doing a check in to say, ‘hey, we’re really kind of considering you guys for corporate relocations, but we want to make sure you’re going to be welcoming and that we’re past all this stuff with HB2,” said Hemminger, referencing the global attention given to North Carolina over the so-called Bathroom Bill passed in 2016 before being partially repealed.

According to Hemminger the conversation went well but there are no immediate announcement plans regarding any corporate relocation.

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