Article from Chapel Hill News:
CHAPEL HILL – Three proposed developments could create dozens of new multi-family homes, shops, offices and a new church west of Homestead Park.
On Thursday, Capstone Properties held a design charrette for the public to help plan an apartment or condominium project on 31.5 acres just west of the Southern Human Services Center on the south side of Homestead Road. The parcel abuts the northern edge of UNC’s Horace Williams Tract, the future site of the Carolina North satellite campus.
Next month, the Cary-based land-planning firm The Design Response will go to the Planning Board with a proposal for 23 townhomes and two office/retail buildings. Construction would total 77,567 square feet on 9.2 acres on the north side of Homestead Road, across the street from the Capstone proposal.
The project, called Bridgepoint, would require tearing down two single-family homes. The townhomes would average nearly 2,200 square feet each, with three of them affordable to those earning less than 80 percent of the local median income, in compliance with town policy.
This mixed-use project could go to the Town Council for approval as early as April.
The Episcopal Church of the Advocate, which has met in temporary locations over its first several years, has also proposed its own 42,300-square-foot complex on Merin Road, slightly farther west along Homestead Road. Over a 15-year time horizon, the project would eventually include a welcome center, meeting space, retreat center, outreach building, cottage and parsonage.
Site engineer Phil Post said the first building would total 3,600 square feet, comprising an office and worship space, not much larger than the house that currently sits on the site.
The church proposal is scheduled for review by town advisory boards beginning in March.
The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service is also proposing a new men’s homeless shelter in that area, near the intersection of Homestead and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Officials from the IFC, the town and the university are trying to schedule meetings with concerned neighbors before the IFC submits a formal development application.
