Friends of the Downtown group talks Halloween, parking

Syrian refugees, downtown parking initiatives and Homegrown Halloween were all topics of discussion at the October meeting of the Friends of the Downtown Thursday.

Pat Evans, chairperson of the Friends of the Downtown, discussed a recent humanitarian effort taken on by Chapel Hill. She mentioned an upcoming event at Mediterranean Deli to raise money for the Syrian refugees in town.

Jamil Kadoura, owner of Mediterranean Deli, sent Evans an announcement that said, “four or five different families are currently being hosted here in our town.”

Evans said Mediterranean Deli will hold a fundraiser for Syrian refugee families in Chapel Hill Nov. 15 from 6-9 p.m.

Evans mentioned housing for the upcoming academic year at Shortbread Lofts.

“All the apartments were filled within five hours,” Evans said. “There was a long line out the door.”

Roy Piscitello, a part-owner of Shortbread Lofts and co-owner of Breadmen’s restaurant, said women made up around 80 percent of the applicants.

The topic then shifted to the upcoming Homegrown Halloween celebration and the changes in this year’s event. Columbia Street will not be closed this year, and the event will last from 8-10:30 p.m.

“They will have 300 extra public safety officers to keep everyone safe downtown,” Evans said. “The town is trying to return this to the family Halloween that I remember many years ago.”

Antoine Puech, a downtown property owner, informed attendees about a new office space in downtown.

“We acquired the former NC Pharmacy Association building, and that’s right across from where the Panera Bread is,” Puech said. “It’s at the corner of Church and Rosemary Street. It’s about an 8,000 square foot building. For the next four or five years, it’s available as office space or some other use.”

Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger opened her speech by introducing parking initiatives in downtown Chapel Hill.

Hemminger moved on to talk about circling when looking for a parking spot.

“Circling is a very dangerous thing to have happen in your town,” Hemminger said. “People are circling, looking for a spot, they don’t pay attention.”

She said the town is working on directing people to better locate available spots. The town is working on a project to address the issue.

Hemminger also said light fixtures were added to a parking lot off of Roberson Street to improve pedestrian safety.

“We’re fixing the walkway between that area into the 411 West lot there, so people will know. We’ll have signage up,” she said.

Hemminger said the town voted to move forward in trying to secure that area as an overall surface parking lot.

“That will increase 135 spaces to that area if we can make that successful. I’m hoping we can,” Evans said.

Hemminger also discussed the installation of Google Fiber in Chapel Hill.

“We’re gonna become a Google Fiber network,” Hemminger added, “We’re working on Google with all of that as well. There’s gonna be this great opportunity for Chapel Hill to be that innovative, creative place to want to work. We wanna see more and more of that happening.”

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