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Empty stores? There are a couple on Franklin St., but overall it's pretty filled up.
I get annoyed at people who reply to their own post.. but I'm gonna do it anyway!
Further to the point about Chapel Hill being anti-business, I certainly understand concerns regarding real estate development. It can be challenging to build anything that isn't strictly in coformance with the (sometimes unrealistic) zoning requirements. The minus is that you don't get huge shopping/parking complexes like Southpoint. On the other hand, the plus is that you don't get huge shopping/parking complexes like Southpoint.
But I'm curious, how else is it anti-business? If there's a vacant space in some retail establishment, and you want to rent that space and open up your business, is it more difficult in Chapel Hill than elsewhere, and how?
It can be difficult to build something that is strictly in conformance with the zoning requirements. It's a long and arduous process in Chapel Hill. When it's faster, easier and cheaper to develop elsewhere, development will follow the path of least resistance.
"Anti-business" is probably a poor term to describe the development environment in Chapel Hill. It's certainly not terribly pro-business. That is, the town doesn't seek to encourage business development and investment - by deliberate choice.
Like I said in my previous post, I owned a business in Chapel Hill for 12 years - first on Franklin Street and then in Village Plaza. These are my personal observations.
1. Downtown Chapel Hill simply does not have enough parking. The City Council has known this for decades and have made a deliberate decision not to address the issue. They believe that making parking difficult encourages people to use the bus system [and to their credit, they do have a good and free bus system]. The other thing it does, however, is prevent anyone from outside Chapel Hill from coming into downtown.
The irony of the whole thing is that the town complains that Franklin Street is overrun with bars and fast food joints, but by limiting the pool of potential customers to University folks, they all but prevent any other business from surviving there.
2. Chapel Hill drives away big box retailers. New Hope Commons was supposed to be in Chapel Hill, but the town powers made them unwelcome enough that they decided to build just over the county line. In fact, if you leave Orange County along almost any major road you will find a slew of retailers just over the county line where they were made more welcome.
3. The City Council does not care about representing the business community. Like I said, I owned a business on Franklin Street for twelve years. It was in the 100 block of East Franklin, so it was a very short walk from City Hall. In that almost-decade of time, we have one councilman come into the store or talk to me -- Bill Strom. The rest of the Council had no real interest in the business community.
Like I said in my previous post, I owned a business in Chapel Hill for 12 years - first on Franklin Street and then in Village Plaza. These are my personal observations.
1. Downtown Chapel Hill simply does not have enough parking. The City Council has known this for decades and have made a deliberate decision not to address the issue. They believe that making parking difficult encourages people to use the bus system [and to their credit, they do have a good and free bus system]. The other thing it does, however, is prevent anyone from outside Chapel Hill from coming into downtown.
The irony of the whole thing is that the town complains that Franklin Street is overrun with bars and fast food joints, but by limiting the pool of potential customers to University folks, they all but prevent any other business from surviving there.
2. Chapel Hill drives away big box retailers. New Hope Commons was supposed to be in Chapel Hill, but the town powers made them unwelcome enough that they decided to build just over the county line. In fact, if you leave Orange County along almost any major road you will find a slew of retailers just over the county line where they were made more welcome.
3. The City Council does not care about representing the business community. Like I said, I owned a business on Franklin Street for twelve years. It was in the 100 block of East Franklin, so it was a very short walk from City Hall. In that almost-decade of time, we have one councilman come into the store or talk to me -- Bill Strom. The rest of the Council had no real interest in the business community.
I could go on, but this is a good start
1 I will agree with somewhat, but they are trying (there are plans -- promise!). They also offer valet parking at two spots on Franklin St. (one one the east side, one on the west), and it's free if you eat at one of a number of qualifying restaurants.
2. Yep. They do drive away big box retailers, with a couple of exceptions. (Grocery stores, if you consider those "big box," and the Lowe's/Borders shopping center on the north side of town). I do think they should be more welcoming of retailers in town. However, I also think that New Hope Commons and Southpoint are horrificly ugly disasters, and I'm glad that shopping centers which look like those were not built in Chapel Hill. There are models of big box retailers that *would* work, however, and the town does need to work harder at attracting them and getting them built.
3. I think -- hope -- it's changing. I see some council members at various stores around town, and they do tweet about different local businesses that they are frequenting. I don't know if it's the same as seeking out business owners just to talk about business climate issues, but it's a start.
Several others (Matt Cjakowski & Gene Pease) were elected with a platform that they would be more business-friendly, so I expect that they are more business-friendly.
What store was it, by the way? I haven't been here that long, so I probably don't know about it, but I did go to Duke back in the day, so I may have run by it some time.
What I find ironic is I know a half dozen people who've started small businesses in Chapel Hill. Several restaurants, a bike shop and a furniture shop. While Chapel Hill may be anti-national chain, it is probably one of the most pro-local owned business towns around.
A bunch of conservatives move to the most liberal town in NC since it has the "best schools in the triangle".
They immediately start grumping about paying high taxes, most of which go towards funding the "best schools in the triangle". They grump that they have to drive to Durham to go to Costco or Walmart or Southpoint. Every week some conservative Moderator cut: language writes a letter to the editor. They run for city council, they run for mayor, one of them even wins a seat. They figure if they can pave more of those purty woods and fields on the edge of town, they wouldn't have to pay so much in taxes.
They ignore a certain demographic shift. In 1990, there were 39000 people living in Chapel Hill, and 6000 kids in the school system. Now the population is 54000 (growth of 38%), while the school system has 12000 kids in it (growth of 100%). So school age children have grown from 15% to 22% of the population, due to people moving into the district when their kids are school age (and moving out when they graduate).
Those who move to Chapel Hill for the schools, and then grump about the high taxes and real estate prices in chapel hill have no one to blame but themselves. It is their behavior which is driving the demographic shift that drives the need for increases in taxes. Cary has lots of big box stores and cheaper taxes, and a dandy little conservative school board to boot. Move there instead of trying to recreate the little slice of hell in Chapel Hill.
Sounds vaguely like what happened in Cary 10-15 year ago (although we don't have our own school board in Cary). Yeah for Glenn Lang... Thankfully they're moving on to Chapel Hill and Hillsborough now! Enjoy
Also, isn't UNC closing the airport? That's anti-business.
First off, UNC is not the town of Chapel Hill. The town has signed off on what UNC intends to do with the land the airport sits on. Which is the development of Carolina north, a "research and mixed-use academic campus". Which is proposed to have a pretty significant amount of privately owned incubator space, similar to what I assume is present at NCSU's Centenial campus (although the private investors appear to have backed out for the moment).
I don't see how these plans could be described as "anti-business"
1 I will agree with somewhat, but they are trying (there are plans -- promise!). They also offer valet parking at two spots on Franklin St. (one one the east side, one on the west), and it's free if you eat at one of a number of qualifying restaurants.
There have been plans for years, probably decades. At least since the mid-90s. I'll believe them when I see them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by geoff2v
2. Yep. They do drive away big box retailers, with a couple of exceptions. (Grocery stores, if you consider those "big box," and the Lowe's/Borders shopping center on the north side of town). I do think they should be more welcoming of retailers in town. However, I also think that New Hope Commons and Southpoint are horrificly ugly disasters, and I'm glad that shopping centers which look like those were not built in Chapel Hill. There are models of big box retailers that *would* work, however, and the town does need to work harder at attracting them and getting them built.
I'd agree with you about New Hope Commons, except to note that it would be a different place if it wasn't built right next to I-40. the bottom line here is that people want to shop at big box stores. Chapel Hill tends to want its both ways by not letting them into town, but having them close enough to go when you want to.
BTW, the Lowes/Borders complex isn't actually in Chapel Hill, is it? I haven't looked at the boundary in a while.
Quote:
Originally Posted by geoff2v
3. I think -- hope -- it's changing. I see some council members at various stores around town, and they do tweet about different local businesses that they are frequenting. I don't know if it's the same as seeking out business owners just to talk about business climate issues, but it's a start.
Again, I'll believe it when I see it. I should add that my store closed 4 years ago, and I don't go downtown much anymore, so if things have changed, I might not know about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by geoff2v
What store was it, by the way? I haven't been here that long, so I probably don't know about it, but I did go to Duke back in the day, so I may have run by it some time.
I owned Cerebral Hobbies. We sold board games, card games and military miniatures from 1994-2006 starting at 128 E Franklin Street [in the basement by Cosmic Cantina] and moving to Village Plaza in 2003. the reason we moved in 2003 was mainly parking. Many of our customers told us they only came in on the weekends, and then only rarely, because finding a parking space downtown during the week was impossible.
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