Welcome to “A Vibrant Chapel Hill, Today and Tomorrow!” a monthly interview series with Chapel Hill’s Economic Development and Parking Services office, exclusively on 97.9 The Hill WCHL & Chapelboro.com.
Every month, you will get updates from department staff and learn about initiatives the town is taking to ensure a Vibrant Chapel Hill, Today and Tomorrow. This month’s guest: Dwight Bassett, Director of Economic Development and Parking for the Town of Chapel Hill.
Aaron Keck: Dwight, thank you so much for being with us. Good morning.
Dwight Bassett: Thank you for allowing me to be here. Excited to be here. Always.
Keck: I know there’s a lot going on. I need to start by talking about all the cool stuff that’s happening on East Franklin, and especially East Rosemary Street, the new Innovation District. What’s happening now?
Bassett: We’re continuing to make progress on the parking deck. It will be open hopefully in spring of 2024, which is six months from now. The Innovate Carolina Junction opened a couple of weeks ago. Super excited about the impact of that. There are additional businesses beginning their upfit in that same building, which we think will add to the employment base and help support downtown. The hotel behind the former Town Hall is in the final steps of getting their zoning compliance permit and will begin construction hopefully sometime this winter. The Porthole Alley is beginning its final design, and that is exciting. So, a lot of great things, and we look forward to apartment buildings at the PNC Bank location and wet labs and other things coming downtown, primarily because of the employment that can support those businesses downtown and keep our community members here so they don’t have to go to Durham or RTP for their work.
(photo via Chapel Hill Economic Development)
Keck: What actually is The Innovation District? What’s the summary on the piece of paper?
Bassett: We did a plan last year, and it was prompted by the Chancellor’s office, that created a Carolina Economic Development group within the university. And one of the goals was to create a better front door for UNC. So they agreed to fund a planning initiative, which we completed in 2022. And we call it Downtown Together because it’s the town and the university in conjunction with the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership to help lay out steps needed to improve downtown and make it a better front door, as well as building this Innovation District that we’re talking about. So, a lot of components. Chapel Hill has aspired for a long time to be a live, work, shop, kind of place where you aren’t quite as dependent upon your automobile every day. And we think adding housing on East Rosemary, along with adding places to work on East Rosemary, strengthens our businesses and helps us take huge steps toward achieving that goal. The more important thing, if you look at the last five years, Chapel Hill compared to Durham, Chapel Hill lost about 1,000 private jobs in that time period. And in the same time period, Durham grew by about 4,000 jobs. And that is why it’s so important that we take some of this research that’s happening on campus and turn it into companies and job opportunities for our residents and their children.
Keck: You mentioned Innovate Carolina Junction, which is kind of a centerpiece of the whole district, and that just had a really cool opening ceremony a couple of weeks ago. I know some businesses and folks are already in there now. What is the importance of that at the center of all this?
Bassett: One of the things if you look at the “best of” research when it comes to successful innovation districts, is community building, which you don’t think about when you say innovation district, it is kind of rallying entrepreneurs and startup thinkers in a space. And The Junction can act as that. And Launch Chapel Hill plays a key role. Launch has been around for over a decade now, helping to accelerate companies. They will do a lot of events and things of that sort. This is our foundational component for building an innovation district, is having a place that people identify as where I go to meet other companies. I meet people, I learn about other things going in on the community. And so, this is sort of the “town square” of the innovation district.
Keck: That’s a great phrase.
Bassett: We hope that it can become the focal point for everything that occurs, whether it’s a company that’s located upstairs in that building or an adjacent building, that they would think about coming there for events and learning opportunities and fireside chats and things of that sort.
Keck: And there is an event space in there too?
Bassett: Yes, several.
Keck: What else is happening that folks should know about?
Learn more: Listen to the full conversation or read the transcript.