New campus pushes talks

Town and University officials charged with plotting the course of the school's growth chatted Sunday about where a major expansion is headed.

Discussion about the University's proposed satellite research campus, Carolina North, proceeded cautiously after some members of the Chapel Hill Town Council expressed reservations at their annual retreat Saturday.

Mayor Kevin Foy emphasized that he did not want informal discussion to be interpreted as decisions on the part of the council, which indicated it would seek public input first.

"This is supposed to be a conversation," Foy said. "We are not making decisions."

Carolina North, to be located on the University's Horace Williams property, is planned as a research and innovation campus. Faculty, employee and graduate student housing also is planned, in addition to retail space.

The meeting among the council, UNC Chancellor James Moeser, Carolina North Executive Director Jack Evans and trustees Roger Perry and Bob Winston comes just more than a week before the council sees the concept plan Jan. 23 for the Innovation Center, a business incubator and the first building slated for construction.

Sunday's conversation sought to identify the process for moving the plans forward.

"We really are driving toward the creation of a process," Moeser said. "The key issue is how we get to that process."

At immediate conflict is the special-use permit the University requested to allow construction to begin on the Innovation Center before the master plan is approved.

Several council members said Saturday they did not want the University to make a habit of requesting special-use permits for each building of the campus.

"That's not what we want either," Moeser told the council. "If the town will work with us in good faith to bring this, then we won't bring any more."

Perry, who is chairman of the Board of Trustees, said that the University has a "unique opportunity" with the Innovation Center but that its success depends on timeliness of receiving approval.

"We're asking for special consideration, and we know it's not the right thing to do ordinarily," Perry said.

The master plan calls for construction in stages. The University plans to develop on about 250-acres of the nearly 1,000-acre plot throughout the next 50 years.

A 15-year scenario of possible growth shows a portion of that construction complete and centered near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

"We don't know exactly in what sequence these projects will realize," Evans said.

One project the University is prioritizing is the relocation of the UNC School of Law to the Carolina North campus, which Moeser said is "very close to being a decided matter."

"This is not idle talk on our part," Moeser said. "We're really quite serious about moving ahead. We want to expand the law school."

Perry said that it would be "irresponsible" for the University to construct anywhere else on the property, as the 750 remaining acres are largely undeveloped, but that the rest of the plans are open to change.

"Beyond that, there is flexibility," he said. "I don't think anything is 100 percent cast in stone."

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.