Development ready to begin on South Creek community

GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT/GOVERNMENT

By Adam Powell
Correspondent

CHAPEL HILL–Community leaders put a unique twist on the traditional groundbreaking ceremony as they gathered at the future site of the South Creek development in Chapel Hill on the morning of September 10.

Instead of donning construction hard hats and ceremonially churning a couple shovels full of pre-mounded soil (as is the case with most municipal groundbreakings) Chapel Hill mayor Jessica Anderson, local executive Lee Bowman of Legion Land Development, and representatives of New York-based builder Beechwood Organization posed for photographs with a collection of small ceramic pots and native ferns that had been extracted from the land on which South Creek will sit.

They ceremonially placed soil for the native ferns in the pots, the ferns’ new homes as they are moved away from the site of the impending South Creek development.

The much-anticipated South Creek community, located on a 123-acre site across Highway 15-501 from Southern Village, will bring 815 new housing units to south Chapel Hill: 606 market-rate condominiums, 120 rental apartments, and 89 market-rate townhouses.

Initial land clearing and grading for the $500 million mixed-use development will begin in earnest for South Creek in late September, with anticipation to begin construction on the first condominiums in early 2025. The development will likely continue to be developed into the 2030s, given the large number of housing units to be constructed.

The innovative groundbreaking ceremony brought attention to the fact that local officials have been collaborating with the North Carolina Native Plant Society (https://ncwildflower.org/) whose stated mission is “to promote the enjoyment and conservation of North Carolina’s native plants and their habitats through education, protection, cultivation, and advocacy.”

Over the past several weeks, representatives of the North Carolina Native Plant Society have been visiting the site and extracting ferns and other plants, which will be placed in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham. This will ensure that the native plants will be protected and preserved for future generations. Beechwood Organization has also agreed to set aside 80 acres of the 123-acre site for public walking and nature trails, with 43 acres to be utilized for the 815 housing units and associated commercial/retail development.

The Chapel Hill Town Council approved South Creek last June, following a two-year process on behalf of Beechwood Organization to acquire the land and then prepare something that would work for town officials, who are keen on finding ways to add much-needed affordable and missing-middle housing to the town’s supply.

The council approved South Creek on the condition that 15% of the market rate condominiums and townhouses, along with 10% of the rental apartments, will be deemed affordable housing for Chapel Hill residents living at 65 to 80% of the local area median income (AMI). That comes out to approximately 91 condominiums, 13 townhouses, and 12 apartments (more than 110 units in total) designated for affordable housing.

In 2021, Beechwood Organization purchased the property from its former owners, Obey Creek Ventures LLC, another New York-based developer. Obey Creek Ventures LLC got approval from Chapel Hill town leaders in 2015 for its proposed Obey Creek development: 1.6 million square feet of mostly retail infrastructure. But after struggling to acquire the necessary commercial tenants, Obey Creek was eventually developed, and the decision was made during the COVID-19 pandemic to sell the land to Beechwood Organization.

According to Beechwood, the 606 market-rate condominiums at South Creek will be a mixture of studios, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom floor plans, while the 89 two-story townhouses will feature garages, range from two to four bedrooms, and offer between 1,600 and 2,900 square feet. The 120 rental apartments will range from 525 to 2,725 square feet. The apartments and condominiums will be located inside a series of five-story buildings, which will be built over retail and covered parking areas on the ground level.

According to Beechwood Carolinas Principal Steven Dubb in a comment on the developer’s website, the pricing for the market-rate townhomes will “start in the $300,000s and push close to the million-dollar range.”

The ground-level retail/commercial space will range between 21,000 and 52,000 square feet.

Although there aren’t a lot of details yet on possible retail and commercial tenants within South Creek, the developer indicated they are naturally looking for the right fit of tenants that will add value to the community and appeal to the new residents. Possible future tenants include: medical and other types of offices, along with restaurants, bars, and other consumer-oriented food and beverage retailers.

“(Beechwood Organization is seeking) the types of tenants that our owners and renters would consider to be an amenity to the community and who can support living in the community and not necessarily having to get in your car to go do everything,” Dubb said on the company’s website. “Based on the input from the town that we’ve gotten and what we know from doing projects like this in the past, the more quality retail we can build, the better the project is. We are hoping to maximize that (commercial space).” 

One of the things that Beechwood Organization is hoping will draw future residents to South Creek is the proximity of the community to Southern Village, which lies directly across Highway 15-501. A series of pedestrian connectors at Market Street and Sumac Roads will allow residents to walk back and forth between the two communities. Southern Village offers a wide variety of shops, restaurants, parks, and other amenities.

Residents of Southern Village, a single-family community constructed by Bryan Properties largely in the late 1990s and early 2000s, have addressed concerns about speeding along that stretch of Highway 15-501, while also calling the future pedestrian crossings as inadequate to address future pedestrian activity increases.

Nonetheless, Chapel Hill town leaders were determined to have a more dense urban community in the adjacent area that will attempt to address some of the town’s long-range concerns, notably a shortage of affordable housing throughout Chapel Hill.

“Our goal is to provide the greater Chapel Hill community with a development that speaks to its residential and commercial real estate needs in a way that encompasses our shared values: sustainability, stewardship, environmentalism, inclusiveness, and responsible growth,” said Robert Kardos, regional president for the Carolinas with The Beechwood Organization.

Adam Powell is a reporter on local news and sports and an education communications professional. A 2001 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, Powell has served as managing editor of multiple local publications, including the Mebane Enterprise, News of Orange County and TarHeelIllustrated.com. The public information officer for Rockingham County Schools in Eden, N.C., Powell is the author of four books and lives in Mebane with his wife and two children. This reporter can be reached at: Info@TheLocal Reporter.press