| The
Heart of Chapel Hill |
From The Chapel Hill News |
| Town's
center of gravity has shifted, but central
business district remains crucial to town's
identity. |
|
| Imagine taking care of your
routine shopping needs between the 100 and 200
block of Franklin Street. You pick up your bread
and milk at one store, head to another for a few
specialty items and then peruse some clothing
racks at another before heading home. |
| As recently as
the early 1970s, this small area was Chapel Hill's
commercial center. Long-time Chapel Hill resident
and real estate agent Eunice Brock recalls buying
her groceries at the A&P, selecting some gourmet
foods at Fowler's and updating her wardrobe at
Belk and Robbins department stores, all within
this square block. |
| “If you wanted to do any upscale
shopping, you went to Cameron Village in Raleigh,”
Brock noted. |
| While downtown Chapel Hill
still draws crowds of people looking for an entertaining
night out or good food, fewer residents find Franklin
Street an attraction for the daily chores that
Brock cited. |
| Residents of such neighborhoods
as Southern Village, Meadowmont and other developments
are looking for convenient places to grab their
groceries, dry cleaning, do their banking and
run other errands as close to home as possible,
said Kara Pittman, president-elect of the Chapel
Hill Board of Realtors and owner of Terra Nova
Global Properties in Carrboro. |
| “Franklin Street barely covers
the day-to-day errands that we run,” Pittman said.
“There isn't a grocery store, parking is difficult
to get in and out to drop off cleaning.” |
| As the town expands farther
from its core, the days when the downtown was
central to the town's well-being may be long gone.
Does that mean a resident of the town identifies
with the several-block strip downtown, with the
adjacent UNC campus or with the new neighborhoods
on the periphery? |
| “It was very common for someone
to say, 'What department of the university do
you work with?' when they met you,” Tom Heffner
remembers of the 1960s when he came to the town
as a student. “At that time, the university and
the hospital were the focus of Chapel Hill.” |
| Heffner, owner
of Heffner Properties, entered the university
as a student in 1966. Six years later, he and
his wife built their first home in Lake Forest.
Before he chose a career in real estate, Heffner
worked at the Morehead Foundation. He recalls
how well his professional identity fit in with
the town's culture during the 1960s and 1970s. |
| Franklin Street will always
be a magnet for newcomers. Pittman said she repeatedly
comes across investors seeking properties close
to campus and young professionals who want to
buy a residence that is within waling distance
of Franklin Street. |
| “The heart of Chapel Hill
is still on Franklin Street and the surrounding
campus,” Pittman said. “It's not a geographical
location-it's where the crowds go when UNC pulls
in a basketball victory like last year. It's history.
It's how we characterize Chapel Hill as quaint.
It's where we go for a night out on the town or
for good eats.” |
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PHOTO COURTESY
OF THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION |
| Chapel Hill in
the late 1940s and, below, today. As the town
expands farther from its core, the days when
the downtown was central to the town's well-being
may be long gone. |
|
FILE PHOTO
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| |
| The Town
Council has begun a drive to bring more residents to
the downtown area. It has contractd with Ram development
Co., a building company based in Florida, to construct
condos and shops on Parking Lot 5 at Church Street between
West Franklin and West Rosemary streets and of the Wallace
Parking Deck on East Rosemary Street. Plans call for
233 condominiums in all. Those efforts are in the planning
stage. |
| Members
of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership cite downtown
living as key to bringing 24-hour use of downtown and
boosting business and safety. |
| Until 1950,
town limits roughly bordered the Gimghoul Castle neighborhood
(down Tenney Circle) to the east, the area that would
become UNC Hospitals to the south, Merritt Mill Road
to the west and the Northside neighborhood (north of
Rosemary Street, between Lloyd and Columbia streets)
to the north. |
| The town
began to expand in the early 1950s. But the town really
started to outgrow its campus-centered limits with the
founding of Research Triangle Park in 1959. Overnight,
Chapel Hill's academic community integrated into RTP's
new professional base. The unofficial birth of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel
Hill “Triangle” with RTP's establishment marked Chapel
Hill as one of three attractive destinations where RTP
professionals could settle down. |
| Expanding
town limits continue to push Chapel Hill neighborhoods
away from the downtown. Although the town has expanded
as far east and west as it can, butting up against Durham
and Carrboro, the town in recent years has seen more
growth to the south toward Chatham County and to the
north into Orange County. |
|
CONTRIBUTED
PHOTO |
| The town line with
Durham is just past Barbee Chapel Road on N.C.
54. |
|
Northern expansion does
have its limits, however. The Joint Planning Agreement
established between Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange
County in 1986 defines where these entities may annex
land up to an urban services boundary, a line displaying
the extent to which the town will provide water and
services. The boundary line was last amended in November
2000.
To the east, the line between Chapel Hill and Durham
has been established. The Durham County line starts
just before Barbee Chapel Road east of Chapel Hill on
N.C. 54 and extends southward. J.B. Culpepper, planning
director for the Town of Chapel Hill Planning Department,
said that the U.S. Postal Service also settles the town
boundary debate through its assignment of postal addresses. |
| “We get calls
from people who live near the [N.C. 54/Interstate 40
junction] who aren't sure whether they have a Chapel
Hill or Durham address,” noted Culpepper. “Occasionally
you'll argue with business owners who claim they're
in Chapel Hill, but their address is within Durham city
limits.” |
| The remaining transition
areas on Planning Department maps allow Chapel Hill
to grow mostly northwestward and southward. Land to
develop the Larkspur subdivision north of Homestead
Road was annexed in June. |
| “What we have ahead
is a lot less growth,” observed Erika Buchholtz, president
of the Chapel Hill Board of Realtors. “The current town
leadership is also very eco-friendly. Other than Carolina
North [the university's proposed satellite campus],
there won't be so much [in-town] growth in the future.” |
| Given Orange
County's property tax rate and the rising cost of homes,
Buchholtz noted, an increasing tide of residents will
likely go across the county line to spend less on commercial
and residential development. |
| Whether
an island village or a Triangle-area pillar, Chapel
Hill remains a blend of both for those who relocate
to the area. Sona and Anish Patel and their young son
Aman live in a custom-built home in Lake Hogan Farms,
which was developed using land annexed in 2003. |
| A Raleigh
friend enticed the Patels to consider the Triangle area
after Sona, an internist at Alamance Regional Hospital,
completed her residency at Southern Illinois University.
Geographically, Chapel Hill offered Sona a reasonable
commute to work (Anish works for Microsoft in pre-sales
at home) and the chance to reside in quiet, family-friendly
neighborhood on the outskirts of town. |
| Beyond location,
the culture of Chapel Hill provided all the more reason
to stay. |
| “It's quite
a cosmopolitan, very welcoming town. We wanted more
space where we live, but we go to Franklin Street often,”
noted Patel. “Our priority was a [good] school system,
and Chapel Hill has one of the best school systems around.” |
