Local businesses weigh in on arrival of Ralph Lauren to Franklin Street

With last week's announcement that there will soon be a Polo Ralph Lauren Rugby store opening on Franklin Street, local business officials are speculating on what that will mean for area business.

Virginia Knapp, associate director of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, said she's pleased by the news.

"I think it's going to be an exciting addition to downtown and very complementary to the stores that are already there," Knapp said.

"(Ralph Lauren) really did a lot of research and picked Chapel Hill because this is really where this concept will have a very welcome market."

Nancy Murray, senior vice president of global public relations and financial communications for Ralph Lauren, confirmed Friday that Polo's second Rugby store will open at 135 E. Franklin St.

Chris Ehrenfeld, who co-owns Build Ex Inc. - the company that is building Rosemary Village, a new mixed-use development that will be built on West Rosemary Street - said that despite skepticism as to whether a corporate store can thrive on Franklin Street, such developments are beneficial to the business community.

"I think you need both locally owned as well as national stores. The broader the mix you have, the more people you're going to appeal to," Ehrenfeld said. "Chapel Hill's really staging a comeback right now."

Business officials seem to be divided as to how well the Rugby store will do when it opens in March.

Fayetteville developer Joe Riddle, who owns the building formerly occupied by the Gap, said he has doubts about corporate business on Franklin Street.

"I know how hard it is to please the fickle young crowd. Once it gets really popular, everybody gets it and nobody wants it anymore," Riddle said. "They really need to do something fresh and exciting and new. They have to be really good at what they are doing in order to make people want to shop there and not go to the mall."

A number of Franklin Street business said they believe just the opposite, saying that the mix of homegrown and corporate business is just what downtown needs and has always thrived on.

Dana McMahan, who owns Design 149 and Laughing Turtle Home, said Franklin Street has always had a mix of both types of businesses.

"I think it's a strong economic indicator that a corporate store did a lot of market research to determine whether or not this was the right town, and I think this is a strong indicator that Franklin Street is doing very well," McMahan said.

Murray said Chapel Hill was the only choice for a Rugby store in the South.

"I wouldn't even refer to it as a big corporate entity," Missy Julian-Fox, who owns Julian's, at 140 E. Franklin St., said of the Rugby store. "This is a new concept that Ralph has. I think what Franklin Street has always thrived on is a great new idea."

Julian-Fox said she does not see malls as being threats to main streets like Franklin Street in terms of garnering corporate business.

"It's always interesting that the malls these days want to duplicate main streets. We've got one that is alive and well," she said.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.