Not a lot of specifics, as Pat Evans pointed out, at the end of today's Friends of Downtown briefing on the redevelopment of University Square.

What we did learn is the shopping center's coming down and developers hope to submit plans for new building and possible wrap-around market housing this fall. They expect it to take two to two years to develop and get their plans approved, and then two more years to get the buildings on the ground.

Here are the numbers:

Retail space: 40,000 SF now, 90,000 to 120,000 SF planned

Office space: 74,000 SF now, 200,000 to 300,000 SF planned

Student housing: 1,100 now, 700 to 1,200 planned (not sure if this means students or units)

Parking: 900 spaces now, 2,000-plus planned

We'll have a short story in tomorrow's N&O and more Sunday in The Chapel Hill News. If Lynne Kane or anyone else who was there is reading this, did you catch the number of housing units planned for non-students?

Will Raymond caught the Cousins Properties developer off guard with a question about affordable retail and office space. He said they had discussed affordable housing but not other types of affordable space. The developers also dodged a question about how big the university wants to grow its student population.

As for that timeline, Town Council member Ed Harrison, who was there, says it's possible.

“I think the timeline’s a little optimistic. But it won’t miss it by much. I think with this type of framework, they can probably pull it off.”  

An architect has been selected to design a new University Square in Chapel Hill.

The Chapel Hill Foundation Real Estate Holdings and its development partner, Cousins Properties, have hired Boston-based Elkus Manfredi Architects.

Manfredi will soon begin designing an entirely new mixed-use development for the swath of land between Columbia and Mallette streets in downtown Chapel Hill rimmed by Franklin Street and Cameron Avenue.

The 12-acre tract is currently home to the University Square shopping center and Granville Towers, a private residence hall complex.

The Chapel Hill foundation is a non-profit arm of UNC Chapel Hill. It purchased the land recently for about $46 million and now plans a massive redevelopment project.

The Manfredi hiring is a critical step; the firm has experience with similar campus projects including one at Ohio State that caught the eye of Chapel Hill officials evaluating a handful of architecture firms, said Gordon Merklein, UNC-CH's executive director of real estate development.

Design will continue until spring and construction likely won't start for three years, he said.
The project will bring retail and office space closer to Franklin Street, creating a more urban feel, and will include a parking deck, officials say.

"It needs to reconnect to Franklin Street and reconnect to campus," Merklein said of the new development. "It doesn't do that at all now. It's just a suburban office building sitting back from the street."

The Atlanta-based Cousins Properties conducted a market survey, selected Manfredi, and ultimately will develop the project. 

Erskine Bowles, the UNC system president, is a member of the Cousins board of directors. He has not been involved in this project, Merklein said.