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(12/01/09 5:29am)
It’s not a good sign when there’s a late-night knock on Cindy and Greg Lee’s door.The knocks have come periodically since they moved four years ago to the home Cindy Lee’s grandfather built, tucked in a curve in Old N.C. 86 between Carrboro and Hillsborough. Once it was a lost woman who didn’t speak English, Lee said. Another time it was the driver of the Heelraiser car, broken down. Last Monday, a knock came from a limping, panicked 23-year-old. He had been with two others in a stolen car that crashed into a tree across the street, killing Ricky Ricardo Deangelo Snides, 22, of Mebane.“Who is it?” Greg Lee asked. He guessed it was his father-in-law, Bill Turner, who had just visited.Lee says the man on the other side of the door said his name — Ressan McMillan.McMillan said he needed help, that his leg was broken, Greg Lee said. Lee called 911 — they call often when people approach, Cindy Lee said — and kept the door closed. The knocks continued.Lee couldn’t see him. It was dark outside and his wife was on her way home from the School of Government, where she teaches, he said.Across the street and down the road a bit, a stolen red 2005 Honda Civic was crushed against a tree after it traveled south on N.C. 86 and went off the road into a muddy ditch.Cars from the N.C. Highway Patrol, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and Orange County Emergency Medical Services responded, and by that time McMillan was sitting on the porch chair. In the Lees’ driveway, he told the highway patrol he didn’t drive the car, and they still haven’t determined who did.Charges are pending for McMillan and the other survivor, Trevor Jarod Moore, 26, who was found walking to Carrboro the next day, said Dawn Berry with the Highway Patrol. McMillan had a broken wrist, a sore leg and cuts on his head, Berry said.The Lees gave witness statements and joked that an episode of “Cops” was playing out on their porch.“It’s sad that you have to be sort of nervous about people that knock on your door,” Greg Lee said.But it wasn’t someone running out of gas or needing a phone. It was the kind of thing that made it harder for the Lees to sleep.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(11/18/09 5:21am)
The Daily Tar Heel is set to move its headquarters off campus to 151 E. Rosemary St. starting next fall.In order to continue to improve as a news organization and as a business, the DTH must produce new content and hire more advertising staff, General Manager Kevin Schwartz said.After exhausting all options to expand its space in the Student Union or move elsewhere on campus, the paper’s board of directors approved a move downtown.With the move, the DTH is betting that its new content and products will generate enough revenue to support the rent, and that the staff will be able to recruit and retain writers who might live on the opposite side of campus.“There’s risk in doing this, but there’s risk in not doing anything,” Schwartz said. “We need to move forward.”About 200 news staff and 30 advertising staff currently work for the DTH in a 3,101-square foot space. The move will more than double the office space to 6,439 square feet.Editor-in-Chief and board member Andrew Dunn said online advertising revenues now make up a small portion of total income.With a bigger building, the DTH would have office space for staff to produce more online content and promote online products like the Heels Housing site, the Campus Rec Report site and the soon-to-be-released DTH iPhone application, Schwartz said. There will also be space for a multimedia studio, which would help recruit talented journalists, Dunn said.“We’re going to be able to drastically increase what we provide,” he said.The board will enter into a 10-year lease in the next few days, Schwartz said.Jonathan D. Jones, president of the DTH board of directors, said a primary concern was how the move would affect campus coverage.Junior Andrew Harrell, assistant University desk editor, said without the convenience of walking through the Union or the Pit to meet student leaders, the staff will have to work to make sure they are still connecting.“We’ll gain connections with the town but lose them with campus a little bit,” said Harrell, who plans to continue to work for the DTH next year. Other campus newspapers have been able to do the job from farther away, Schwartz said.The University of Georgia paper has been off campus since 1980 and in 2002 moved farther from the center of downtown, publisher Harry Montevideo said.“There was some concern, initially, moving away from the facility, but that was never realized,” he said.Schwartz said the paper will likely keep a small presence in the Union.The move will bring the large staff to frequent town businesses.“Students who are going to get a bite to eat in between classes or who are working late on a story, buying coffee, will be great for downtown merchants,” said Adam Klein, vice president of the Chapel Hill Carrboro Chamber of Commerce.The Union board hasn’t yet decided what to do with the space the DTH will vacate, Union director Don Luse said.It will likely be redesigned when the Union is brought up to code, he said.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(11/17/09 11:25pm)
The Daily Tar Heel is set to move its headquarters off campus to 151 E. Rosemary St. starting next fall.
(11/16/09 5:59am)
White House officials have noticed Rogers Road.The people of the historically black and low-income community just north of Chapel Hill have for years reached out to local leaders to tell of their struggle with air and water quality after a landfill was placed there in 1972.On Friday, Rev. Robert Campbell will go to the White House to tell that story to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.EPA officials were interested after Rogers Road was discussed at the N.C. Environmental Justice summit in October, said David Caldwell, project manager for the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association.“The neighborhood is buzzing. People around town are talking,” Caldwell said. “You’ve got an organization that has complained and brought concerns to so many people for so many years and you feel like it’s gone on deaf ears. “But all of the sudden it’s gone to the highest level of authority.”The invitation comes more than a year after the neighborhood filed an environmental justice complaint with the EPA. Campbell will use the meeting as an opportunity to follow up with the administrator, said Chris Heaney, an epidemiology doctoral candidate at UNC who has tested the area’s well water.“He’s actually carrying with him some research that shows lack of compliance with clean water regulations,” Heaney said.Campbell doesn’t know how much time he’ll have to talk. But he said his goal is to use the Rogers Road story to promote national conversations about environmental justice.Other communities in the country have briefed him on their issues.“Others might use our work as a pattern of doing their own,” he said.The local conversation is ongoing. Issues like clean water and sewer access for the neighborhood will be discussed at two public hearings this week — one at the Chapel Hill Town Council meeting tonight and one at the Orange County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday.The neighborhood is just past the urban services boundary for water and sewer access. Commissioners still have not selected a spot for a waste transfer site to move trash outside the county once the current landfill reaches capacity in 2012.Members of the Rogers Road community worked to ensure the site wasn’t placed near them.Commissioner Barry Jacobs said despite disagreements on a solution for waste, Campbell’s visit could mean good things for both the county and the neighborhood.“If Reverend Campbell can go to D.C. and help us get some money to bring water and sewer more thoroughly through that neighborhood, that’s fine with me.”
(11/13/09 5:32am)
Attorneys for a man charged with killing former Student Body President Eve Carson are trying to strike the decision to pursue the federal death penalty against him.The two motions, filed Oct. 28, come as defenders continue to build their case in favor of Demario James Atwater.Striking the death penaltyIn the first motion, federal public defenders argued that Atwater’s rights were violated when one of his attorneys missed the hearing that determined prosecutors could pursue the death penalty.One of Atwater’s attorneys, Greg Davis, was scheduled for radiation treatment the day of the hearing, the motion states. Without him, five prosecutors argued against one defense attorney at the hearing, the motion states.The motion asks the courts to hold the hearing again.“This is an appeal to the court to not allow this to go forward,” said Lynne Klauer, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Middle District of North Carolina, which is prosecuting the case. Defenders have already unsuccessfully asked the U.S. attorney general to reverse its decision.Building evidenceThe second motion requests items that are routinely provided to defense attorneys: information about any evidence, leads or witnesses that will be used in court against Atwater.The motion also asks for the names and races of all defendants and victims in cases submitted for death penalty approval since 1994 by the district prosecuting Atwater.State prosecutors are also seeking the death penalty against Atwater.Since the Racial Justice Act was signed into N.C. law in August, attorneys can use statistics to prove racism had a role in a state case.Statistics from the motion’s request could not be used the same way in a federal case.“They would have to show discrimination in their particular case, individualized without the use of statistics,” said Durham criminal defense lawyer Jay Ferguson.Davis would not comment on the request for information.But because the request is specific to the Middle District, it could be useful in the case if it revealed racial bias on the part of one decision maker, Ferguson said.In considering whether to pursue the death penalty, the race of the victim tends to have more bearing statistically than the race of the defendant, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center, a national group that tracks the death penalty by state.In cases since 1976 in which one person is executed for murdering someone of another race, 15 executions involve a white defendant with a black victim and 243 involve a black defendant and a white victim.“It raises questions about the arbitrariness of the death penalty and how we value one life over others and one life over hundreds of others,” said Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, based in Carrboro.Authorities say Atwater, 23, and Lawrence Alvin Lovette, 18, took Carson from her home to an ATM, forcing her to withdraw $1,400 and they shot her five times in a neighborhood off East Franklin Street.Lovette was 17 at the time of the crime and therefore is not eligible to receive the death penalty.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(11/02/09 5:58am)
Correction (Nov. 5, 2009 12:26 a.m.): Due to a reporting error, and earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the location of the men’s crew house where Stephen James Howard was arrested for assault. Police arrested him at 127 Mallette Street. The story has been changed to reflect the correction. The The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.
(11/01/09 8:39pm)
A student was stabbed early Sunday morning after Halloween festivities on Franklin Street ended, police said.
(10/30/09 11:33pm)
Of 60 signs endorsing Matt Czajkowski for Chapel Hill mayor on campus, only four remain, a Czajkowski campaign manager said.
On-campus campaign manager Kendall Law said a campus group took down the signs and replaced them with signs for an event.
With just days before the election, the campaign doesn't plan to put up new ones.
"If they're just going to be taken down in that magnitude I don't think we're going to waste good money on that," Law said.
(10/30/09 5:43pm)
Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy has endorsed mayoral candidate Mark Kleinschmidt.
(10/28/09 5:14am)
Ham’s Restaurants, Inc. filed for bankruptcy this week, but its Chapel Hill restaurant plans to operate as usual.Franchise owner Ryan Faircloth said there won’t be layoffs at the West Franklin Street restaurant, which operates independently of the corporation.“Our staff and our specials and all of that are staying the same,” he said.The local Ham’s employs about 55 people, Faircloth said.The corporation filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy after they were unable to pay more than $1.5 million in tax debts and about $836,000 to Sysco Food Services of Charlotte, according to their filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of North Carolina.“Basically filing is just a chance for us to kind of restructure and move forward,” marketing coordinator Amanda Jones said.As part of their reorganization, the corporation will close restaurants in Kinston, Charlotte and Burlington, Faircloth said. The company operates 13 Ham’s in North Carolina and one in Virginia, their filing states.The Chapel Hill location’s revenues have increased each year for the past three years, Faircloth said.The state of the economy was cited as a reason for filing for bankruptcy in news release from Ham’s Restaurants, Inc.In the Eastern District, where Ham’s filed their claim and which includes 44 counties in eastern North Carolina, about 20 percent more bankruptcies were filed in 2008 than in 2007, to 9,457 up from 7,895, according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court data. There have been 8,600 filings in the Eastern District in the first nine months of 2009. On Friday, Ham’s filed an emergency motion to use cash collateral to continue operating while they restructure.The company, based in Greensboro, was started in 1935 and employs more than 1,000 people, their release states.“Ham’s main priority at this time is to keep its employees working,” president and CEO Charlie Erwin said in a prepared statement.None of the laid off employees have expressed interest in moving to the Chapel Hill Ham’s, Faircloth said.Faircloth decided to operate a Ham’s after attending UNC. He said the franchise agreement leaves him with operational independence.“The only ones that they have closed were corporate-owned stores, not ones with franchise owners,” he said.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(10/26/09 4:20am)
The Varsity Theatre is scheduled to reopen with new owners in late November. The new Varsity will sell tickets to newly released and classic movies for $3.The former owner closed the more than 80-year-old Franklin Street theater this summer after declining ticket sales.Today, new owners will announce their plans for renovation, which include an upgraded lobby and concession area and a children’s birthday party room.The owners declined requests for an interview until their announcement.Former owner Bruce Stone, who operated the Varsity for nine years, said lowering prices didn’t work for him, and he doesn’t know how $3 movie tickets will work to sustain the new Varsity.Stone also stated in a June letter announcing the Varsity’s closing that downtown parking kept people from attending shows.“I’m not sure what their business plan is,” he said.The closure of the Varsity was a tangible effect of the failing economy which led to resident and student anxiety about a lost tradition, residents said.Chapel Hill residents Kunal Chawla and Meredith Norman were walking on Franklin Street and talking about how they missed the Varsity when they looked in the movie poster frame and saw an advertisement for its return.“I was under the impression it was going to be gone forever,” Chawla said. After the Varsity Theatre closed in the summer, residents suggested to the Chapel Hill Downtown Parternship that the void remain a cultural space: a subsidized theater or another type of arts venue like the ArtsCenter in Carrboro.Downtown leaders and a UNC professor researched the possibility of using the Varsity space as a nonprofit theater venue.Managers of the Lumina theater at Southern Village have said the Varsity’s closing has helped their theater. But the bump in student business could be negated by the reopening.“Going to the Varsity is part of the student experience,” Norman said. “I wonder how much they’re going to change it.”Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(10/21/09 4:35am)
Federal authorities will still seek the death penalty for one of the men charged with killing former Student Body President Eve Carson despite a request to reconsider.The U.S. Attorney General’s office decided in January to allow federal prosecutors to pursue the death penalty for Demario James Atwater. But after a new attorney general was appointed, Atwater’s federal defense attorneys asked him to reconsider. The original authorization came from Michael Mukasey, an attorney general appointed by former President George W. Bush. After President Barack Obama took office, a new attorney general, Eric Holder, was appointed. But he would not reconsider Mukasey’s decision.Atwater’s federal defense attorney, Greg Davis, said he drafted the request and sent it to a committee within the U.S. Department of Justice that reviews potential death penalty cases. He would not comment about when or why his office filed the request.The request is not a public record, said Lynne Klauer, spokeswoman for the U.S. District Attorney’s office in the middle district of North Carolina, which is prosecuting Atwater.“That process is not something that goes through court,” she said.Atwater, 23, will face the possibility of a death sentence in both state and federal trials.Authorities say he and Lawrence Alvin Lovette, 18, kidnapped Carson early March 5, drove her to withdraw $1,400 from her bank account, and then shot her just off East Franklin Street.Lovette, who has not been indicted on federal charges, cannot be sentenced to death because he was 17 at the time of the crime.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(10/19/09 5:00am)
If he reaches enough voters and swings his message right, Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy could have a chance in the 2010 U.S. Senate race, recent polling indicates.To defeat U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., in next year’s election, he will need to be briefed on national issues and raise enough money to buy TV ads in key parts of the state, said Tom Jensen, communications director of Public Policy Polling, which took the poll.But before all that, he would have to definitively say he’s running for Senate within the next month.“I’m not ready to say, ‘Oh, yes, I’m going to do this,’” Foy said Thursday. “I need other people who think it’s a good idea and are willing to step up and support me so I’m able to project a path toward winning.”In a recent telephone poll conducted between Oct. 2 and 4, 29 percent of respondents said they would prefer Foy to Burr, while 45 percent said they would vote for Burr over Foy. The remaining 26 percent said they were undecided.His polling numbers are in a range similar to Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., at this time in her race for U.S. Senate last election cycle.Foy’s assets are his connections through chairmanship of the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition and through his work with transportation and infrastructure, said Ferrel Guillory, director of the UNC Program on Public Life.The residents of the state are increasingly centered in urban areas compared to rural areas — a trend that makes Foy more viable as a candidate than he would have been just a few years ago, Jensen said.The fastest growing Congressional districts in the country are in the Charlotte metropolitan area and the western Triangle area, according to a study by the Program on Public Life.“I have a structure to work from,” Foy said.Foy has met with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to discuss their role in campaigns in North Carolina, he said.The committee spent money promoting Hagan in last year’s race. But that was in a different political climate, Guillory said. The party had fully backed Hagan, while this race has no clear winner yet. Democrats will no longer be the opposition party.Some other potential candidates included in the poll have bigger names in state politics, but the voting public still will not have heard of them, Guillory said.Burr’s numbers are low against any candidate, Guillory said.“Senator Burr does not have 50 percent against any of them, which is always worrisome for an incumbent,” Guillory said.Burr already has started campaigning in the state on the weekends and making appearances, Guillory said.Foy’s “exploratory committee” for a Senate race consists of him and one other person, he said.“Obviously the sooner I decide, the better,” he said. “I think it’s getting close.”Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(10/07/09 4:41am)
The NAACP is using one Chapel Hill business owner’s complaint of police racism as a jumping-off point to address issues locally and statewide.Tuesday, representatives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People asked for more action from the town.The town concluded in an investigation last week that police were not racist when they stopped Charles Brown on Rosemary Street on June 1, mistaking him for another black man.When state NAACP representatives meet in Hickory today, they will focus on forming a response to what they think was an invalid investigation, state NAACP president Rev. William Barber said at a press conference Tuesday.“This case is one of the things we are deeply concerned about and have for decades worked to prevent,” he said. “It highlights and dramatizes other cases.”Barber read a letter from local branch president Michelle Cotton Laws to Mayor Kevin Foy, which asked for the following:A chance for the NAACP to present Brown’s side of the case to the Chapel Hill Town Council.The establishment of a civilian review board to address future complaints.A review of race and location for police incidents of the past five years.n?A study of the environment for black business owners in Chapel Hill.The results of the police investigation are invalid because police interviewed other police to determine whether there was racism within their department, Barber said.“When you create distrust among the people, you actually undermine,” Barber said. “It’s not only a violation of the Constitution, it’s not only a violation of civil rights, it’s not smart. We can do better than that.”As of 9 p.m. Tuesday the NAACP had not received a response to their requests beyond a statement that they were received.Students on the Protesters’ Defense Committee came to stand with NAACP members at the press conference.“Because Charles Brown had the courage to stand up and say it wasn’t right, he is sort of the force behind all of this,” senior Laura Bickford said. “It’s an opportunity to expose these things and use them.”Brown was detained for 16 minutes and not arrested, the police investigation found.But the NAACP holds that it was an arrest and that Brown was held for almost an hour.The story so far
(10/02/09 4:55am)
Missing front teeth, burn marks on lips and fingers — the Carrboro narcotics investigator knows it when he sees it.Crack cocaine is the most frequently used drug in Carrboro, more than marijuana, Cpl. Jason Peloquin said.“We enforce everything equally,” he said. “It’s just that crack cocaine is so much more frequent.”Despite police efforts to cut down on cocaine use in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, arrests in recent years have stayed constant.Because it’s easily accessible, cocaine — in both crack and powder forms — is also one of the top two drugs in Chapel Hill, said Sgt. Jabe Hunter, Chapel Hill police narcotics investigator.“There’s demand,” he said.Of about 95 people who came into the crisis unit at the Freedom House Recovery Center off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in September, 35 were treated for cocaine, program director Bob Carmines said.Of those 35, about 10 were from Chapel Hill or Carrboro. The center, located in Chapel Hill, serves 18 counties, mostly Orange, Person and Chatham, Carmines said.Carmines estimated that 175 to 200 people come to the crisis unit from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area for cocaine each year.“It’s a drug that’s very, very popular, very available and a hard habit to kick,” he said. “Like any other drug it can destroy lives, families.”A need for constant enforcementChapel Hill police have ramped up enforcement of drug laws in recent years, Hunter said.Strengthened by following up on every tip and arrest, enforcement has led to a decrease in open-air drug markets, he said. Sometimes a routine follow-up turns into a big bust. Chapel Hill police’s mid-September find of 197.6 grams of cocaine led to the arrest of seven current or former UNC students.“We follow up wherever leads take us,” Hunter said, “Not all of the time are these cases successful.”Police find cocaine mostly in 1-gram bags — enough for a few highs, he said. Finding a gram means there’s more out there. The gram usually will have been chipped off of one kilogram someone brought to the region, Hunter said.After an arrest, police attempt to move higher up the chain of sale.“You can’t make any generalizations that any one type of person or gender will be a supplier,” Hunter said.But increased enforcement hasn’t changed the number of cocaine users who end up at the recovery center crisis unit, Carmines said.While drugs like heroin and prescription drugs trend in fads, cocaine is almost always popular, he said.Cocaine withdrawal is psychological — not physical — but Carmines said he sees many repeat offenders.“All we can do is get them off the streets,” he said. “But it’s easy access everywhere.”Sales become less obviousPeloquin said residents buy cocaine from dealers on the street, from sellers’ apartments or by delivery.Jennifer Watson, 23, lives in a recovery house and has met many former cocaine users on her path to sobriety. She and others at recovery houses said a trip off Rosemary Street can yield crack cocaine in a few minutes.“For every dealer they take down, there’s another one springing up,” she said.Still, it’s not as bad as it used to be, Hunter said. Ten to 12 years ago, there were five or six corners on Rosemary Street and Merritt Mill Road where drugs were regularly sold, he said.“These days you don’t see as much of the open air market,” Hunter said, attributing the decline to strict police enforcement.Peloquin said he knew of about 30 cocaine dealers two years ago, but now he knows of fewer.“We’ve got quite a few that are on our radar,” Hunter said, and police track them throughout the region.In spite of declining numbers of known dealers and open drug trade, Hunter said the number of arrests has stayed about constant.“There’s really no way to truly know how much is out there,” Hunter said.Neither investigator was able to release the number of open cocaine cases. Both said investigations last long after an arrest.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(09/25/09 4:58am)
Police are trying to gather more information about a man who raped a 19-year-old woman late Monday night, according to Chapel Hill police reports.The Chapel Hill woman, who was not a UNC student, was walking on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard away from downtown Franklin Street after 11 p.m., Chapel Hill police Lt. Kevin Gunter said.A stranger grabbed her from behind when she was near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Municipal Drive, dragged her to a car and raped her, Gunter said.After he raped her, he kidnapped her, drove her to the Chatham County line at U.S. 15-501 and left her there, Gunter said.She was there until daylight, when she found a bus and took it to an area closer to her home, Gunter said. She then called police, reports state.The woman was not injured or drugged and she has not reported that a weapon was used in the assault, Gunter said.“There are still some pieces to this that we’re trying to develop more information about,” he said.Police still don’t have information about the vehicle that was used in the assault, Gunter said.An investigator is working with the victim to see if she can remember anything more about the assault, Gunter said.Police have not released any further information about the victim.“Our main emphasis is protecting the victim,” police Sgt. Jason McIntyre said.The last rape in Chapel Hill occurred in February, on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard by Homestead Drive, Gunter said.“Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of sexual assaults,” McIntyre said.The Orange County Rape Crisis Center averages 400 clients a year, said Krista Park Berry, volunteer management and marketing coordinator.About 25 percent of those calls pertain to a rape, while the rest pertain to sexual abuse, harassment and stalking, Berry said.“It can be very scary when it happens in this community,” she said. “And there are many survivors of sexual violence who don’t come forward and report it.”The center only knows about half the ages of the clients they serve because of confidentiality, but of those, 25 percent are 18 to 29 years old, Berry said.Sexual violence tends to happen in isolated places like abandoned roads or houses, Berry said.Monday night’s incident is unusual because the victim didn’t know the person who kidnapped her, Berry said. An estimated 75 to 80 percent of sexual assaults are committed by people the victim knows, she said.The rape crisis center cannot say whether they are working with the victim.The repercussions of a rape vary, Berry said.“The severity of the sex violence isn’t determined by the aggressor, but by the victim’s reaction to the event.”Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(09/16/09 5:20am)
A former UNC tennis star is now in jail after hitting two students while driving drunk.
(09/11/09 5:23am)
An architecture firm that has worked with Duke University and Disney has been chosen to redesign the 12-acre lot that includes University Square and Granville Towers.Elkus Manfredi was chosen this week out of six finalists because it had the plan that best incorporated the site’s many uses — office space, retail and housing — into a single vision, said Gordon Merklein, executive director of real estate for the University.Now that the UNC-Chapel Hill Foundation owns the site, the University is planning to mostly tear it down, add office space, triple the retail space and build multi-level parking decks.The University was looking for an architectural firm that could make the site a multi-use destination while merging it visually and physically with the campus and with Franklin Street.“There is definitely a flow to their design thinking and process thinking,” Merklein said. “It’s very important that it be not just a retail location or an office location or a place to live, but that it incorporates all those elements.”Next week, representatives from the University will have a kickoff meeting with Elkus Manfredi.The Boston-based firm has worked at several universities, including Duke and Harvard. It has also worked on corporate sites and entertainment sites like Downtown Disney.Duke University Architect John Pearce worked directly with Elkus Manfredi when it was developing a master plan for buildings along Erwin Road.After development plans were far along, Duke ultimately decided not to use the firm.“We went through a selection process and determined that we wanted to take a different approach,” Pearce said.But he said he remembers the firm having good planning proposals, plenty of options, good drawings and strong communication skills.Elkus Manfredi also designed a multi-use development at The Ohio State University that Pearce said is a good indicator of what might come to University Square.“It’s just got the right kind of flavor,” Pearce said.The firm has also been hired in the past for at least 12 developments that follow Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design criteria — something Merklein said was essential in any architect the University picked.Public input sessions for the site, which developers are calling 123 Franklin St., will begin this fall.Rose Fiore, who works for Elkus Manfredi, said coworkers were excited to do a project near UNC.“It’s a wonderful part of the country,” she said.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
(09/10/09 7:58pm)
Architecture firm Elkus Manfredi has been chosen to re-do the 12-acre lot that includes University Square and Granville Towers.
(09/08/09 5:19am)
Now that University Square and Granville Towers are owned by the UNC-Chapel Hill Foundation, plans are in motion to mostly demolish and rebuild the site.The plans for the 12 acres include triple the retail space, a multi-level parking deck with 300 more spots and more than 200,000 square feet of office space.This week, one of six architect finalists will be selected to carry out the vision, said Gordon Merklein, executive director for real estate at the University.“It’s UNC, it’s the town, it’s the community,” Merklein said. “Everyone will feel this.”The University didn’t know exactly what it would do with the property when they announced the $45.75 million purchase in June 2008.But now large poster boards lean against the walls of Merklein’s office, each with a color-coded draft map of potential plans architects submitted for consideration. Planners are referring to it as 123 Franklin Street.Some architects keep Granville Towers student housing intact while others tear it down and add some market-value housing and grass. They are only ideas. But all put a spin on the University’s vision for the space: a site that will better connect with campus and with the rest of Franklin Street.The University is looking for plans that bring businesses to the sidewalk to increase customer traffic, Merklein said. There are 30,000 square feet of retail space now, but that number will increase to 90,000 or 100,000, he said.The University will also try to convince current businesses, like the Time Out Restaurant, to stay.Demand for parking spots downtown will increase as Lot 5, across from University Square, converts into a mixed-use development. So 123 Franklin Street will eventually be a central parking destination, Merklein said.Passage to the University will be improved, too, so Granville residents don’t have to walk by a Fraternity Court dumpster.Other components include a grocery store, some green space and a civic component like a movie theater or a museum.The Ackland Art Museum has expressed interest in moving there, business director Suzanne Rucker said.Plans will be tweaked after public info sessions this fall, and a final concept plan should be ready in the spring, Merklein said.The University still hasn’t figured out how it will move more than 1,300 students to alternative housing if Granville Towers closes for construction. “It‘s all kind of a coordinated dance,” housing director Larry Hicks said. “We need to take into consideration what’s going on there, they need to take into consideration what’s going on here.”Hicks isn’t sure what kind of person it will house — underclassmen, graduates, post-doctorate students or faculty.It could be 2014 before anything moves.“It has got to be economically feasible,” Merklein said.And it won’t happen all at once.“You’re going to see a deck go up, then a building,” Merklein said. “This is not a start all at once, finish all at once project.” Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.