To reflect on the year, Chapelboro.com is re-publishing some of the top stories that impacted and defined our community’s experience in 2024. These stories and topics affected Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the rest of our region.
This past year saw several projects in the Chapel Hill / Carrboro area come to fruition, including some major, long-term projects. The town’s focus on connectivity and strengthening the downtown business corridor, and a major municipal building in Carrboro all took major steps forward in 2024. We will look back at the completion of the Estes Drive Connectivity Project, the opening of the Rosemary Parking Deck, and the near completion of the Drakeford Library Complex.
Estes Drive Connectivity Project
Town officials, staff, and North Estes Drive residents gather for a ribbon-cutting of the multi-use path in August. (Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.)
Some of the most noticeable changes to North Estes Drive include the addition of a left turning lane and significant changes to the intersection with Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. This picture is from the first day two-way traffic reopened to drivers.
This summer saw the completion of the Estes Drive Connectivity Project, a major undertaking to improve one of the most important East-West throughways in the community. The project broke ground in March of 2022. Soon the westbound lane of Estes Drive was closed between Caswell and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, as the town began a series of improvements including widening the road, adding substantial sidewalk and bike lanes, and allowing for moving and upgrading several utilities.
The closure of the westbound lane was felt by the community immediately, with travelers detouring on Franklin Street, Weaver Dairy Road, and winding through residential neighborhoods in the northern part of town. The project experienced several delays, with its initial end date of summer 2023 being pushed back to its eventual completion in June of this year.
The project was a major effort towards the town’s Vision Zero commitment, which seeks to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2031. The improvements to North Estes especially prioritized vulnerable road users, or those who travel by way other than a car. The reopening culminated with a “Roll and Stroll” event in August, as students at Phillips Middle School and Estes Hills Elementary School were joined by the community to celebrate the enhanced pedestrian improvements.
125 East Rosemary Parking Deck
August also saw the completion of one of Chapel Hill’s longest standing projects, the parking deck at 125 East Rosemary Street. The parking deck initially broke ground in 2021, but issues with the underground foundation led to a deeper dig and some lengthy delays, culminating with a ribbon cutting ceremony on August 26.
A mural commissioned on the front-facing columns of the new parking deck depict rosemary blooms with different insects. A new crosswalk in front of the facility was also installed last week.
The seven-story parking deck boasts 1,100 spaces, dozens of electric vehicle charging stations and some of the newest technology, which can point drivers to open spaces along each section of the deck.
“The reason we ever undertook this was about consolidating parking,” Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson told 97.9 The Hill earlier this year, “so the surface lots can be used for better, cooler, more exciting things — like apartments and a new hotel that are planned for that block. And along with that, there’s some work to improve bike and pedestrian connections, there’s going to be bike racks… So it’s going to be nice and fun to have that whole area, and have a public gathering space.”
Drakeford Library Complex
Rendering of the new Drakeford Library Complex, scheduled to open in February 2025.
A photo from April 2024 of the development at 203 South Greensboro Street taking shape.
Perhaps the biggest unfinished project in the community this past year was the Drakeford Library Complex in downtown Carrboro. Depending on how you want to tell the story, this project has been in the works for as long as 30 years, with advocates pushing for a branch of the Orange County Public Library in Carrboro. In 2016 the town identified the parking lot at 203 S. Greensboro as a potential site for the building, and in May 2022 ground broke on what the community would come to know as “The 203 S. Greensboro Project.”
As construction progressed, the new dynamic of downtown Carrboro began to take shape. The $42 million development is the future home of the Orange County Southern Branch Library. The facility will also provide a permanent home for the Carrboro Recreation, Parks and Cultural Resources Department; Orange County Skills Development Center; WCOM Radio; and performance/multipurpose uses, and a modern parking deck with increased capacity over the previous parking lot on the site.
In October, the building was formally named The Drakeford Library Complex, named after Carrboro’s first black mayor, Robert Drakeford, who served from 1977-1983. Carrboro’s current mayor, Barbara Foushee, spoke with 97.9 The Hill about when the Drakeford Library Complex may open. She said, “We are honing in on a date mid-to late February,” after the town had initially aimed for it to be finished by fall 2024.
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Two years of closure was far too long for the Estes Road project. It was essentially a reconfiguration of the existing street footprint, and the permitting and utility issues could have been better planned before the closure began. I have the same complaint for the traffic circle at the intersection of Estes and Greensboro St in Carrboro. Long stretches of interstate highway can be completed in two years.