The Chapel Hill Town Council approved a Special Use Permit modification for the University Place Mall redevelopment at its meeting this week. This modification will allow buildings up to 90 feet tall on part of the mall site on South Estes Drive, and up to 75 feet tall in another part.
At its meeting Monday night, the Chapel Hill Town Council voted 5-2 to approve an application for a modified Special Use Permit (SUP) for the University Place mall.
This vote was made during a quasi-judicial hearing, which meant the council could only base its decision on the written and oral evidence presented day of.
While the modified SUP did pass with a majority vote, with councilmembers Hongbin Gu and Amy Ryan dissenting, the town council did have significant concerns about the layout and size of certain aspects of the redevelopment.
According to the applicant, Ram Realty Advisors, who bought the 43-acre site back in 2018, the current site plan splits the redevelopment into five “pods.”
Pod A includes a surface parking lot beside Willow Drive, up to 255 apartments and ground-floor retail, including 5,500 square feet of retail space for small businesses. Buildings could be up to 75 feet tall, or 5 stories, along the road to 90 feet tall, or seven stories, inside the property.
Multiple councilmembers expressed their concerns about the Willow Drive apartment building, including councilmember Michael Parker.
“I think for the most part this is a project that has a lot of benefits,” Parker said. “My major concern is really with the building along Willow Drive. The length of it certainly concerns me. We’ve talked a lot about ways of making it better – some of which the applicant has agreed to, some of which the applicant has not.”
Pod B would renovate about 295,000 square feet of existing commercial space, demolish the vacant Southern Season store, and continue turning the mall’s interior-facing storefronts outside.
A floor plan submitted by Ram Realty Advisors shows how the existing University Place mall could look once all the changes, including a planned demolition of the former Southern Season store, have been completed. (Photo via Ram Realty Advisors)
Pod C is dedicated to a central park or green space along the Fordham Boulevard side that will be pedestrian focused and include programmed space for the Chapel Hill Farmers’ Market and other recurring events. By 2027, the site could also include a 125-room hotel.
Pod D includes another 25,000 square feet of commercial and office space along Estes Drive, which already contains a bank, gas station and parking lots.
Finally, Pod E includes the renovation of an existing bank at the corner of Estes and Willow drives.
A block plan submitted to the town would create “pods,” each of which would include a specific amount of green space, along with commercial and residential construction. (Photo via Ram Realty Advisors)
While the council was in collective agreement that the mall needs to be renovated, some councilmembers, like councilmember Amy Ryan, were worried about how the redevelopment conforms to the town’s Land Use Management Ordinance – one of the four “findings of fact” needed to approve the SUP.
“I very, very much want the applicant to be able to redevelop this property successfully,” Ryan said. “It really is one of the hearts of Chapel Hill. I’ve shopped there for 20 years. It’s a really important place to get right so I do want that to happen, but according to the evidence presented, I don’t find that the current iterations of the project complies with the four findings.”
Councilmember Hongbin Gu said, while she likes the renditions of the building along Willow Drive and the proposed 4.5 feet bike lanes along the front of the mall, she said she worries the site is not going to be safe due to the potential of increased flooding and stormwater runoff.
Bolin Creek, which runs between Estes Drive and the Camelot Village complex across the street, often overflows during storms and has flooded the lower part of the mall property in recent years.
“It is too risky for us to allow those variations at this time given the situation for this project to deviate from the tree canopy and from the impervious surface,” Gu said. “I just cannot make a case for why this is safe for the future residents and neighbors.”
An architect’s drawing shows how future storefronts and related green spaces could look at the redeveloped University Place shopping mall on South Estes Drive in Chapel Hill. (Photo via Ram Realty Advisors)
Although the SUP modification passed by majority vote, Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger said the quasi-judicial hearing left something to be desired, and council will continue to have more questions in the future on what was not included in Monday’s presentation.
“I will say, this mall needs to be redeveloped,” Hemminger said. “It is not going to be successful. It will continue to go more dormant – I don’t really know the word to describe it – but I will tell you it just really gives me heartburn about the stacking on Willow [Drive] and the concerns there about what traffic will look like.”
The redevelopment, by 2028, is expected to add 2,726 more trips to surrounding roads during the morning commute. Over 8,000 more cars could be added in the evening, a traffic impact study conducted by the town showed.
Several stipulations adopted in the new SUP resolution include requirements that the applicant be in consultation with the neighboring Binkley Baptist Church during the construction process, the creation of a 10-foot buffer along the redevelopment, and a commitment to 90,000 square feet of green infrastructure.
The project is now set to move to the Chapel Hill Town Council’s technical review stage.
For more information on University Place redevelopment plans, click here.
Lead photo via Ram Realty/ Ashley Saulpaugh.
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