As the more than one thousand new apartments attempt to fill up for the coming academic year, Link Apartments Linden at Glen Lennox has the highest percentage of their (215) units already under lease at close to 90 percent, according to the Link leasing office.
The Elliott at Blue Hill at the corner of Elliott Road and 15-501 has 275 apartments and Trilogy behind Rams Plaza with 328 apartments both report having leased about 50 percent.
Grubb Properties, which is redeveloping Glen Lennox and hoping to begin two projects on Rosemary Street in downtown Chapel Hill, wants to enhance the connectivity in town through less automobile traffic and more access to the free Chapel Hill Transit bus system and additional walking and bike paths.
“One of our goals is that by 2030, 50 percent of all the commutes to and from Glen Lennox uses some form of transportation other than a car,” CEO Clay Grubb said in an interview with Chapelboro.com. “That’s a bold goal that will not be easily achievable in today’s world, but we think the world’s changing very quickly.
“Chapel Hill has to embrace the scooter for that to happen. They have to enhance the bike connectivity to and from downtown. And we’re making big strides. The fact that we got the North Carolina Department of Transportation to sign off on a stop light at the new intersection of Glen Lennox Drive and 15-501 to stop cars to exclusive all pedestrian and bike crossing is a major step in the right direction. I think it’s going to greatly enhance the connectivity of Meadowmont to downtown and to the university.”
Along with the three new intersections on 15-501, all with stoplights, the Gwendolyn commercial office building is bordered by bright green wide bike lanes. The Link Apartments Linden also offer spiffy new covered bike racks for visitors.
“One of our top priorities is connecting the Meadowmont bike trail that stops at Burning Tree Drive to Glen Lennox. Once that connection is built, it will create a much safer commute. Currently anyone trying to ride their bike down 54 and under the bridge at 15-501, I mean, you’re taking your life in your hands.”
One of Grubb’s goals is to “Copenhagenize” the town to make it more bike and scooter friendly like many cities in European countries.
“In a town like Chapel Hill, this should be very strongly embraced,” Grubb said. “I think pedestrian and bike transportation should be a top priority because, to me, it’s one of the biggest solutions for housing affordability to get people so they don’t have to own cars. The average American spends $9,300 a year on their car. If you’re making $40,000 a year, that’s a third of your after-tax income, just owning your car. We need to be able to change economic mobility in this country and coming up with alternative transportation is one of the best methods.”
Although there is a large parking deck hidden between the Link Apartments Linden and the new Gwendolyn, Grubb is pushing the town to make bus stops more accessible to the development in its side of 15-501.
“Chapel Hill has a free bus system that is phenomenal,” he said. “And so, one of the things that we’re really excited about is that will be probably have the most state-of-the-art bus stops — we need to come with a fancier name than bus stop — in North Carolina.”
“My argument with my guys was like, ‘Hey, we’re buying bus stops for about $15,000, and I’m like, well, how much are we spending on a parking space in that parking deck? They said, ‘Clay, you know the parking spaces are $18-20,000.’ I said so you’re telling me we spend more on one parking space than we spend on a bus stop. And I was like, then we’ve got to do custom bus stops. So, we’ve got a Scandinavian company that has designed these state-of-the-art bus stops.
“And I’m hoping that when people say, ‘Hey, I’m interested in riding the bus, the response will be, ‘You want to live at Glen Lennox because they have the best bus stops in town.’ We think that’s going to be a great investment. And if it means I can build six less parking spaces, we paid for the bus stops!”
(photo by Dakota Moyer)
“Glen Lennox Stories” is a series on Chapelboro sponsored by Grubb Properties
