Carolina North will complement University’s vibrant campus
The new development will enhance the historic campus and thriving entrepreneurial activity in downtown Chapel Hill.
Carolina North will be a major new development, but it’s not replacing UNC-Chapel Hill’s historic campus or its entrepreneurial presence on Franklin Street, University leaders say.
Instead, the 230-acre campus extension along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard will complement those areas while inviting the broader community to interact with Carolina in a new way.
“We want to emphasize that this is a place for everybody who lives, works and studies in Chapel Hill and Carrboro,” said Tiffany Lacey, executive director of real estate development for Carolina North.
More housing options
Carolina North will help the University address enrollment growth while retaining on-campus residence halls for first-year and other undergraduate students. The expanded campus will provide a variety of housing options for additional undergraduates, graduate students, employees and the community at large, regardless of their affiliation with the University.
“Carolina North has been factored in as one of the places that we can leverage to make sure we can continue to provide enough student housing,” said Allan Blattner, executive director of Carolina Housing. “The first-year live-in requirement is not a financial decision. It’s an educational one with all kinds of positive outcomes: better connection to campus, better relationships with faculty, a better sense of place and community.”
The University will break ground later this year on a new residence hall, adding 734 new beds on the main campus. Renovations to Ehringhaus and Craige residence halls will also add new rooms for students who want to be close to classes, club sports and other amenities.
But not all students want to live in residence halls, and apartment options are limited on the main campus. That’s why some students choose to live off campus or, in the future, may choose the housing options available at Carolina North.
“You’re choosing a different lifestyle when you go off campus,” one with “a little bit more privacy and autonomy,” Blattner said. Focus group meetings with off-campus students also revealed they wanted laundry rooms and access to grocery stores and childcare — the kind of amenities planned at Carolina North.
But apartments for students are only part of the planned housing options at Carolina North. “We are committing to providing affordable housing, as well as workforce housing,” Lacey said. Complementing the housing will be a mixed-use district with restaurants, retail, parks and gathering spaces open to everyone in the community, not just Carolina North residents.
More startup services and connections
By offering space for companies to locate headquarters or regional offices, Carolina North will provide opportunities for startups launched through Innovate Carolina to grow, said Sheryl Waddell, director of economic development and innovation hubs. She sees the campus extension as the third corner of Carolina’s version of the Research Triangle.
“When we’re talking with industry, they see the value in having a close relationship, both physically and partnership-wise, with the campus. But the space there is quite limited,” Waddell said. Carolina North will give them that space, with the Innovation Junction on Franklin Street making the connection to the historic campus.
Future development at Carolina North could include office space for local branches of large companies and research space for industry partners. “A big part of the project is to identify and attract industry partners to Carolina North,” Lacey said, both official partners sharing academic and research space and companies who just want to be in the University’s orbit.
More welcoming to the community
The people most familiar with Carolina North now are the ones who use the 20-plus miles of trails in the 750-acre Carolina North Forest, which is not part of the planned development. The Pumpkin Loop Trail will be retained and improved, and focus groups are helping develop a “place strategy” to determine how people will want to experience Carolina North in the future.
The strategy includes exploring ways to “blur the edges” between the planned “live, work, play” spaces of Carolina North, Lacey said, like how the tree canopy, low stone walls and brick sidewalks unify the historic campus.
Also enhancing the connection to downtown Chapel Hill and the historic campus is the Town of Chapel Hill-led “NS RAPID,” a rapid bus transit improvement scheduled to be operational by 2030. NS RAPID will be a new north-south bus route with dedicated bus lanes and a multiuse pedestrian and bicycle path along MLK Boulevard, N. Columbia Street and US 501, providing improved connections between main campus and Carolina North.
