UNC Chapel Hill will break ground on its Carolina North satellite campus in 2027, Chancellor Lee Roberts and his aides say.
The plan for the first phase of development on the site will include housing for 2,200 students, plus classroom, lab and research space, Roberts told university trustees today. It will also include retail, hospitality and lodging, he said.
Roberts said population growth in the state and Triangle, and the site’s proximity to Interstate 40 and Carolina’s main campus set up a unique opportunity for the university.
Carolina North would occupy the site of the former Horace Williams Airport in Chapel Hill. It needs roads, water and sewer among other things before it can host development as forecast by Roberts.
University leaders have discussed plans to build an arena at the Carolina North site that would serve as the main home for UNC basketball. No decisions have been made about an arena, Roberts said.
The arena topic is generating much attention. Former UNC men’s basketball coach Roy Williams issued a social media comment this week urging the university to renovate the Dean E. Smith Center, often called the DeanDome, instead of building a new arena. He said legendary coach Dean Smith wanted games to be played at the main campus.
The chancellor said the project will take in 250 acres, about a quarter of the airport property. Much of the rest is forest, which Roberts called “a crucial resource” for both Chapel Hill and the Triangle.
“That’s not going anywhere,” he said, signaling that he intends to abide by UNC’s longstanding commitments to the town.
“Most universities would give anything to have this amount of developable land available to them this close to the main campus,” he said. “In fact, we don’t believe that there is this much developable land close to this much population growth anywhere else in the southeastern United States.”
Trustees endorsed the administration’s request for $8 million in spending authority to begin planning what Vice Chancellor for Finance Nate Kauffman termed the “enabling infrastructure” for the project. The money is coming from UNC trust funds.
Roberts also detailed steps to get the work going. He said Tiffany Lacey will be Carolina North’s project manager and executive director. She previously worked for Houston-based Brookfield Residential and Google, where she was senior development manager for a campus redevelopment in northern California.
Campus officials intend to issue a request for qualifications seeking a master developer for the site. Public-private partnerships will fuel most of the construction.
Trustees lamented that it’s taken decades to bring the project to the forefront.
Funding has been a major hang-up going back to former Chancellor James Moeser’s tenure, and the precise plan on that point remains vague. Officials say only that they see a mix of “state support, university trust funds, revenue-backed debt, private philanthropy and third-party investment.”
Total costs remain to be determined. Revenue-backed debt is the customary source of money for student housing.
The 2027 timeline for groundbreaking also leaves room for maneuver. A university news release said it would occur “early” in the year “once the plot is prepared.” But Roberts’ briefing slides for trustees called for a summer groundbreaking.
