Marketing is everything, especially when it comes to easing development through the town’s approval 
process. Witness The Cottages at Homestead. The name evokes images of cozy little clapboard-sided single-story abodes, flowers in the window boxes, snuggled together in a clearing.
But look at the specs: The 1,175 parking spaces is your first indication that “cozy” and “little” won’t show up anywhere in the project description. The Cottages, proposed by The Capstone Co. of Birmingham, Ala., bills itself as “a university student housing neighborhood.” The development is entirely residential with a mix of 57 two-story cottage homes, 60 two-story townhouse units (15 buildings with four units per building) and 213 apartments divided among 71 three-story buildings. The units range from one to five bedrooms, and the complex includes a 12,000-square-foot clubhouse and indoor and outdoor recreation areas.
The Cottages is proposed to be built directly across Homestead Road from the proposed Bridgepoint development, bounded on the south and east by Carolina North, just west of the Southern Human Services Center. Harkening back to Town Council members’ discussion a couple weeks ago in which some council members objected to a commercial area at Bridgepoint because of the extra traffic it would engender, I wondered whether council members had any inkling of what was in the works across the street. One council member thought the 80 spaces planned for Bridgepoint’s commercial space was a bit much. I posit that those 80 spaces and then some will be needed for spillover parking from The Cottages.
Capstone has planned a parking space for each of the 1,120 bedrooms in its rental complex, plus 55 spaces for guests, sufficient parking, its proposal says, to serve as a park-and-ride lot. Granted, plans are in the works for a bike path to link Carolina North and the main campus, and buses already connect Homestead Road to the main campus and elsewhere in town. Still, the 80 spaces at Bridgepoint pale in comparison to the 1,175 across the street.
This illustrates the Sustainability Committee’s complaint about the futility of looking at development in a vacuum. What happens in one neighborhood has an impact elsewhere. If The Cottages is approved, the commercial section of Bridgepoint is a necessity. Think how well Ken’s Quickie Mart has done from Granville Towers business alone. How well will the proposed traffic circle on Homestead and Weaver Dairy Extension function with an additional 1,175 cars driving to Harris Teeter for orange juice and eggs Saturday morning?
The occupants of those 1,120 bedrooms, and their 55 guests, need a store within walking distance. Don and I are ready to put in a bid to open a small grocery store at Bridgepoint. Maybe we’ll call it Ye Olde Country Shoppe. It will fit right in.
— Nancy Oates
Frank
/ May 3, 2010“The occupants of those 1,120 bedrooms, and their 55 guests, need a store within walking distance. Don and I are ready to put in a bid to open a small grocery store at Bridgepoint. Maybe we’ll call it Ye Olde Country Shoppe.”
Go right ahead. You’ll fail as spectacularly as all of the retail has at Southern Village and Meadowmont. I’m glad that this development is wasting space with some goofy, useless retail thrown in to pretend they’re bulding another faux vilage. If a developer can build useful retail in that area, then that developer should go for it. It should be abundantly clear to anybody who has been in the area for even a few years that the faux village model of development is just that: faux.
Bill
/ May 3, 2010“You’ll fail as spectacularly as all of the retail has at Southern Village and Meadowmont” Do you care to provide some numbers to back up that claim? I think you are confusing normal business turnover with specatacular failure. How does the failure rate at Meadowmont and SoVil compare to other developments of similar size, certainly you know that rate or you could not make such a claim.
And, how many anchor stores have moved out of Meadowmont?
It is attitudes like yours that has Chapel Hill residential property taxes making “spectacular” increases.
Steve
/ May 3, 2010Capstone presents their plan to Town Council on May 17. For anyone concerned about the impact of a 1000+ undergrad student housing complex in a residential neighborhood 3 miles from campus please attend the meeting and speak up… before it’s too late. By the way, the developer is requesting a rezoning from low density R2 to high density R5C.
Geoff Green
/ May 3, 2010The plans call for a “parking space for each of the 1,120 bedrooms in its rental complex”. And this is targeted at undergrads. It seems to me that if there is sufficient public transportation, and if it’s a student population, you certainly could get by with fewer parking spaces.
I agree about the necessity for some commercial space. You do a nice job illustrating the problems inherent in looking at each development in a vacuum. (Earlier piece about Bridgepoint is here: http://chapelhillwatch.com/?p=210 ). The area is a reasonably short and moderately pleasant walk from MLK, which is planned to be one of the high-capacity public transit corridors over the long term. (The Chapel Hill Long Range Transit Plan suggests placing transit-oriented development up and down MLK.) Because Carolina North is coming and MLK leads right into downtown and the UNC campus, where many of the students living at the Cottages would go on a daily basis, and because UNC can on its own reduce student automobile commuting by limiting on-campus parking, it makes sense to place commercial and residential density in this spot. (And if there were fewer parking spaces at the Cottages, it would further encourage the use of transit.)
Ed Harrison
/ May 3, 2010The Capstone presentation on the 17th, as was the case at the CDC last month, is of their Concept Plan, a non-binding development plan. Since it’s a concept plan, I can offer opinions outside of the Council chambers. I attended all case presentations at the CDC meeting. I did not find this the most objectionable concept presented that night. But there’s certainly much an area resident could dislike about it, especially the acres of free parking on yet another under-designed NCDOT secondary road, for which two towns have been asking for funds to improve for many years.
Nancy writes: “Harkening back to Town Council members’ discussion a couple weeks ago in which some council members objected to a commercial area at Bridgepoint because of the extra traffic it would engender, I wondered whether council members had any inkling of what was in the works across the street.” I think that some is a bit of a stretch — one CM in particular. And yes, some (this one, for example) had an inkling of the type of development Capstone was to propose, but didn’t know the scale of it until a little bit before the CDC meeting.
The closest point on the site is about 3000 feet from MLK Jr. Boulevard. This is about 2.2 times the recommended walking distance (in “industry standards”) for transit service, which is 0.25 mile air distance. No transit service currently passes the Capstone property. As of this Spring, none is proposed. This doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future.
Frank
/ May 3, 2010“Do you care to provide some numbers to back up that claim? I think you are confusing normal business turnover with specatacular failure.”
Both developments (Southern Village and Meadowmont) are relatively empty. There are more vacancies at both of these developments than any other retail clusters in town. Drive through and look. It’s not rocket science. Just count the “for lease” signs. In both, there are also retail storefronts being used by businesses that aren’t necessarily retail.
“Mixed use” works in cities. It doesn’t work in suburbia. No matter how much our city planners want it to be true, no matter how many of these silly things get approved, it won’t have much of an impact. If anything, it just contributes to suburban blight. Sure, the spaces may be new and shiny and clean now, but the management companies aren’t going to continue to spend money to maintain empty buildings indefinitely.
Bill
/ May 3, 2010The truth is easy when you don’t provide any hard numbers to back them up.. good job.
Geoff Green
/ May 4, 2010Ed Harrison writes: “The closest point on the site is about 3000 feet from MLK Jr. Boulevard. This is about 2.2 times the recommended walking distance (in “industry standards”) for transit service, which is 0.25 mile air distance.”
Two words: moving sidewalks.
Steve
/ May 4, 2010Is this development solving a problem? The university says there is no shortage of student housing. Why then would this even get any serious consideration? It causes problems. It doesn’t solve any.
This all begs the question: Who really stands to benefit from this? Capstone? The ToC’s revenue department?
Frank
/ May 4, 2010“Who really stands to benefit from this? Capstone?”
That’s generally why development companies exist… for their own benefit.
But less obviously, every bit of housing that is added helps to reduce cost in the rest of the housing market. I say, as far as housing goes, “Build, baby, build!”
Steve
/ May 4, 2010Obviously, you do not live next door to the proposed development. Otherwise, you would be singing a very different tune.
Thanks for enlightening me re: development companies. I had no idea they operated in their own self-interest.
Nancy Oates
/ May 4, 2010Ed — I went back to check Capstone’s proposal, and it says that the A bus route goes to Southern Human Services, next door to the proposed Cottages, and the HS route goes along Homestead between Rogers Road and Seawell School Road. Both of those are closer than MLK, even though no bus may pass in front of the Cottages site at present.
And to the grocery store skeptics, although there are plenty of bare spots in the commercial areas of Meadowmont and Southern Village, the grocery stores in both places seem to be doing decent business.
Frank
/ May 4, 2010“And to the grocery store skeptics, although there are plenty of bare spots in the commercial areas of Meadowmont and Southern Village, the grocery stores in both places seem to be doing decent business.”
There’s a Harris Teeter exactly one mile from the proposed development. It’s doubtful that Harris-Teeter would consider placing another location so close to the original, especially considering the new-ness of the Carolina North location.
Meadowmont Harris-Teeter is probably doing OK only because they closed their Glen Lennox location, but in reality, none of us really know how well that location is doing.
Weaver St. Market, however, is bleeding badly, to the tune of $1.2 million in 2009, alone. Predictions that I’ve heard are that 2010 will be as bad, if not worse for Weaver St. Market. I would be willing to wager that the only profitable (sustainable) business in Southern Village is the Lumina, and given the state of movie theaters in general, there’s no telling how long they’ll be able to stay open.
In both of these mixed use developments, the vast majority of the retail space is either completely vacant, or under-utilized (ie: storefronts used for professional services). Between these two retail dead zones, the constantly changing University Mall, and all of the other retail spaces, we have *plenty* of retail vacancies. The last thing that Chapel Hill needs is more empty boutiques.
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“The occupants of those 1,120 bedrooms, and their 55 guests, need a store within walking distance.”
The residents may *like* a grocery store within walking distance, but that number of people falls *far* short of being able to support even a small grocery store.
Terri Buckner
/ May 4, 2010“every bit of housing that is added helps to reduce cost in the rest of the housing market.”
How did you arrive at that conclusion? Every bit of housing adds to the cost of living in this county. We need a moratorium on new housing until we’ve built a commercial base. We could get that moratorium if OWASA and the school districts (SAPFO) would say they are at capacity instead of continuing to expand.
Bill
/ May 4, 2010Yes, let’s stop building altogether. After all, I already live here.
I just have to wonder if Frank has ever actually owned a business, or if he/she is just a PhD in the subject of owning a business.
Frank
/ May 5, 2010Terri, the city/county can’t just build a commercial base. By definition, it’s built by private people. Looking at the vacancies around town, we have more commercial space than we have people to fill it. Demand for housing is going to continue to increase dramatically, as UNC continues to grow. Putting moratoriums on residential development will just continue to force more and more people to Hillsborough and Pittsboro, increasing traffic and congestion. We need dense housing, and lots of it, to meet demand.
When we have more dense housing, then it’ll make sense for more walkable commercial development from a financial standpoint. We don’t have any business that is walkable because we don’t have dense enough housing. Even the region’s shining beacon of community/sustainable/insert-buzzword-here living, Weaver St. Market in Carrboro is not in any way sustainable by the few hundred people who live within walking distance of it. When we have a few blocks of Greenbridge-like development, THEN it will make financial sense for all kinds of local businesses to grow up to serve those residents. Look at any major city. Commercial development is interspersed among residential because it makes financial sense to do so.
Bill: Keep wondering. All I’m talking about is simple math. A grocery store makes tiny margins. With fixed costs, a grocery store like a small Harris-Teeter that we’re all used to is unsustainable by just a few hundred people. Heck, even Weaver St. Market is in serious trouble, as I’ve mentioned earlier.
Demand for housing outpaces supply right now. That’s why 1000 sq ft. mill houses in Carrboro sell for $250K. Demand will continue to increase with the university. We need more housing, but trying to force developers to make retail space where it doesn’t make any financial space will create more Meadowmont-like situations. If and when Chapel Hill/Carrboro becomes as dense as larger cities, only then will local, walkable businesses be realistic. Hoping that suburbanites (Homestead, Weaver Dairy Road) will be able to walk to grocery stores any time soon is simply folly because the numbers simply don’t add up.
Here’s some very simplistic math:
The small Harris-Teeter in Carrboro probably pays about $30,000/month in rent. Payroll is probably somewhere along the lines of $30-$50K/month. Add in, say, $30K in operating expenses, and we’re up to $90,000/month in expenses for HT Carrboro. If the average person spends $500/month at the grocery store, and the average grocery store has a profit margin of 3%, then that means that just to break even, that one grocery store would need 6000 customers, all spending $500/month in order to shop there. (500 * .03 * 6000 = 90000). Even in relatively dense Carrboro, there are not anywhere near 6000 people within walking distance of HT. I’d say that there are 1000 people withing walking distance, and that’s being generous. That means that for a HT to break even, they’d need 6 times the density of Carrboro currently. That looks like… a modern city.
Walkable grocery stores in suburbia is a pipe dream. If you want to live in Chapel Hill/Carrboro affordably and be able to walk to your grocery store, then lobby for more Greenbridges and fewer Meadowmonts/Southern Villages.
Terri Buckner
/ May 5, 2010Frank, I do understand the currently prevalent theory you are promoting that says everything (population, businesses, etc.) has to be large in order to be economical. But I’ve always been a fan of E.F. Schumacher’s small is beautiful theory, and the past 10 years of being back in CH/Carrboro have affirmed that position.
Your HT example points out the problem. The Carrboro HT is simply too big. It’s physical size requires it to be a one-stop food center for the majority of those who shop there. When I lived in Norfolk and Atlanta, I lived in small, walkable neighborhoods–much less dense than Carrboro–that had small bodega-like stores. I shopped at the small, corner grocery for my staples, the wine store, the specialty food store, and the bakery to round of my menu. Those smaller businesses didn’t the high overhead for staffing or inventory as you point out the Carrboro HT is faced with, so they weren’t constantly faced with the dilemma of how to grow in order to increase their profit. They were owned by local people, so the revenue they generated stayed in town instead of flying off to some corporate office. They attracted people from outside the neighborhood by their quality so they weren’t totally dependent on local traffic.
Chapel Hill lost that type of small-scale local economy for a variety of reasons, including land use planning policies that favored residential over commercial development. The local economy is now out of scale. Too much residential and not enough commercial. Building more residential as a solution to the problem has been tried and it’s failing.
How long do you think it’s viable to push one solution to an accepted problem without receiving any feedback that the solution is being successful? What I’ve seen working locally over the past few years, in Carrboro and on Franklin Street, is an increase in small, locally owned businesses that are recruited and supported by local government. You claim that Meadowmont and SV businesses are not thriving due to lack of density. I claim that they are out of sight, out of mind, not receiving the kind of recent love and care shown to downtown Carrboro/Chapel Hill businesses.
By your theory, a business’ customer base has to come from those within walking distance–build a small town within the larger town. By my theory, a customer base should come from those who live within walking distance but the business should be attractive enough to draw in a larger customer base from other neighborhoods–we all live in one community and share resources.
js
/ May 5, 2010If I could afford a $250k house, I’d rather live in a 1000sqft mill house than 1000sqft Greenbridge for $461k. To be honest, $250k fora a 1000sqft mill house seems on the low end, though.
I did notice that all the land trust subsidized GB units are sold, though. I could not find any pricing info on the OCHLT website of how much they went for.
Geoff Green
/ May 5, 2010Apropos of all this, a new mixed-use development is being proposed, this time across 15/501 from Southern Village. 1,200 multi-family units, 570,000 square feet of commercial space, and a hotel. No retail apparently, which should make the Southern Village retailers happy. http://blogs.newsobserver.com/orangechat/big-developments-coming-up-for-review http://www.kovensconstruction.com/obeyCreek.html
Nancy Oates
/ May 5, 2010“… make the Southern Village retailers happy.” Only if they build a pedestrian footbridge over the highway. Would you risk your life traipsing across a four-lane for a quart of milk or sauntering home after dinner and drinks at Town Hall Grill?
Geoff Green
/ May 6, 2010@Nancy: The very preliminary plans include a pedestrian underpass and there’s a stoplight at the main entrance to Southern Village. Not too dangerous, really.