Written by Mark Schultz | TRIANGLE NEWS & OBSERVER
CHAPEL HILL -- The developers of the University Square property on Franklin Street are taking a lesson from one of the Triangle's most successful downtown makeovers: Durham's American Tobacco Campus.
At a meeting Thursday, John McColl, executive vice president of development for Cousins Properties, said the company plans a grass quad inside the Chapel Hill site "similar to the American Tobacco interior."
The American Tobacco Campus across from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park has a long courtyard with a waterway and stage surrounded by a lawn and outdoor dining.
McColl told about 30 people at Chapel Hill Town Hall that the grass quad idea grew out of public meetings Cousins Properties and the UNC-Chapel Hill Foundation have held since the foundation bought the property for $45.75 million from US/GT, LLC, a company affiliated with the Kenan family, in 2009. The foundation is private, and the property will remain on the tax roll.
The current project covers half the 12-acre site. The Granville Towers dormitories are not part of the project and "are staying right where they are for now and the foreseeable future," McColl said.
The project would raze the retail/office buildings now standing between a parking lot and the Franklin Street sidewalk.
New buildings, including one rising 118 feet but only three stories along the sidewalk, would include 40,000 square feet of retail space; 300,000 square feet of office space, up from 80,000 square feet now; 90,000 square feet of "flex space" that could house an entertainment venue; and 150,000 square feet of rental housing, McColl said.
An underground parking garage doubling the number of spaces to about 1,000 would replace most of the surface parking.
Questions Thursday included how Cousins will connect the property to its surroundings, how much office space would cost, and whether the property, now marked by fences and sometimes driveway chains, would become more open.
"Anything you can do to enhance people cutting through this property would be really great," said Will Raymond.
McColl said the developers plan two Franklin Street entrances and a new entrance off Cameron Avenue.
Office space will rent for $30 to $33 per square foot, slightly higher than downtown rates now but in line with newly constructed space.
And yes, McColl said, the goal is to make the property "permeable," with people walking through 24/7.
"Our goal is to make this a place," he said, meaning a destination spot like American Tobacco with its restaurants, concerts and movies on the lawn.
Ruby Sinreich, a former member of the town's planning board, echoed that.
"Durham has been kicking our (expletive)," she said. "Chapel Hill has to catch up."