UNC officially dedicated its latest resource to local entrepreneurs and researchers on Wednesday, as it held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Innovate Carolina Junction. The event saw UNC, town, county, higher education, and local business leaders gather together to explore the space and to learn how it hopes to create more opportunities for ideas to start at Carolina – and have a place to operate in Chapel Hill.
As people gathered around different co-working spaces, office rooms, a patio, and a speaker stage, Sheryl Waddell of Innovate Carolina watched different community members meet or reconnect with each other. As the Director of Economic Development for the UNC initiative, she helped plan and lead much of the effort of transforming 137 East Franklin Street into the modern development it has become in recent years.
For a long time, she said, the area provided different ways to connect and gather others – like restaurants, a way to navigate downtown Chapel Hill, and a spot for pop-up businesses often run out of people’s homes. On Wednesday, with hundreds of people there to champion cooperation and an entrepreneurial spirit, her vision for the reimagined space had become reality.
“Just being able to not only use it as an innovative throughway,” Waddell said to Chapelboro, “[but] for people from the university coming over to here, people from the town coming here, people from [different industries] coming here and [it] being that junction, that connector… I’m just excited to see it come to fruition.”
The Innovate Carolina Junction’s goal will be to provide space for start-ups, research organizations, and partnerships big and small, offering both rooms and resources to help their goals come to fruition. Since the state of North Carolina began tracking start-up business in the 1950s, UNC has produced 939 – with 576 still active today. As those businesses grow, the university is aiming for those successes to stay local, which will add to Chapel Hill’s economy and job market.
UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz touted how the “innovation hub” is one of the few directly bordering a major public university’s campus. He said that isn’t meant to just be beneficial to Carolina, but also to the town and state’s greater good.
“The Junction is now home,” Guskiewicz said, “to the technology [and] the commercialization working to make sure that research translates into new therapies, treatments, devices, and other commercial products that will make a positive difference – not only here locally, but around the world.”
Sheryl Waddell begins the dedication ceremony of the Innovate Carolina Junction on Wednesday, September 27, with some attendants sitting in the amphitheater space on the building’s bottom floor.
UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz speaks during Wednesday’s dedication ceremony, pointing to the fact of how this is a resource that helps UNC stand out from other top public universities.
From left to right: Durham Tech President J.B. Buxton, UNC Trustee Vinay Patel, Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger, Innovate Carolina’s Sheryl Waddell, UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, UNC Director of Innovation Dedric Carter, and the NC Department of Commerce Chief Deputy Secretary Jordan Whichard cut the ribbon on the building’s dedication.
The building is already in use by several start-ups, and also several other established institutions. Durham Technical Community College is one of those, as the school has opened an office for its Small Business and Corporate Service operations. The school also struck a larger agreement with UNC that Durham Tech President J.B. Buxton said reflects the spirit of collaboration in The Junction. A working group will be created to report directly to himself and Chancellor Guskiewicz to share how both colleges can better address workforce demands.
Buxton said with how much the regional economy, national industries, and workforce trends have shifted lately, he believes partnerships like this are more important than ever.
“I think it’s incumbent upon public institutions of higher education [to be] working with local employers and local governments to ensure that the people of our communities are supported and prepared for these challenges,” said Buxton. “And I’d like to think that today’s announcement in this partnership between our two institutions signal that we are up to the task and prepared to meet this moment.”
The Innovate Carolina Junction does not just represent UNC’s step in a new direction. It also marks the first functional redevelopment project on East Rosemary Street, as the Town of Chapel Hill has approved several plans to reshape the downtown corridor into a modernized alley for business.
As part of the Innovate Carolina Junction’s development, a patio was added for business events and for tenants to venture outside.
Several office, cubicle, and seating spaces are available in the Innovate Carolina Junction for those wishes to co-work among others or to quickly tackle a project. Significant office space for companies is also leased on the higher floors of the building.
The Junction offers a variety of workspace options beyond co-working seating and cubicles, including meeting rooms that can be reserved and tracked through keypads on the door.
Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger said by 2025, the goal is to have an expanded parking deck online to help serve the Innovate Carolina Junction, as well as a new life-sciences office building, apartment building, hotel and event space, and green spaces all within a block.
“What towns do to help be part of this is we invest in infrastructure,” said the mayor. “We got together with the university, our downtown together [coalition] and Innovate Carolina to pull this together because we want people to find a place to come to work. We have transit options, we have bike-ped options. We also know people [will] come from other places – we want them to find a place to park. We want [to] get rid of all these little parking areas and consolidate that.”
Speaking to that transformation of 137 East Franklin Street, Guskiewicz said he remembers what the space was before. As the local government and developers sought to redesign the stretch of downtown, the chancellor said he recognized the university’s chance to step up.
“When we had this opportunity a few years ago to do really something special right here in the heart of Chapel Hill adjacent to the campus, I said, ‘we’ve got to do this, we can’t let an opportunity go without a Carolina investment,’” Guskiewicz said to Chapelboro. “The town jumped in and it’s going to be a great partnership. And as I said earlier, I want to make sure Carolina’s an anchor institution for economic development in North Carolina and we’re going to need the town to be a partner in that.”
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