Chapel Hill lost a third of its mall in 2023. Here’s what the owner plans for 2024.

Tammy Grubb
·4 min read

Customers will continue to navigate construction fencing and limited parking at University Place mall in 2024, but Ram Realty Advisors promises the pain will be worth the new shopping, living and “eatertainment” planned for Chapel Hill.

The first people to live at the mall since it opened in 1973 could sign leases by August, said David Klepser, managing director of Ram Realty, which owns the mall. The redevelopment that started when Ram Realty bought the 43-acre site in 2018 will continue in 2024, adding new retail and restaurants and, for the first time, office spaces.

“We always had wanted to create a mix of uses that really reinvigorates the center and makes this a community space that’s activated 18 hours a day with a mix of uses, with restaurants, as well as retail, coffee shops, ice cream, fitness uses, folks living there, folks working there,” Klepser said.

Ram Realty demolished a third of the mall, located between Fordham Boulevard, Estes Drive and Willow Drive, in March, while construction ramped up on a 253-unit apartment building with a parking deck and ground-floor retail on the opposite end of the site.

An excavator tears into the clock tower that for many years stood at the corner of the A Southern Season store at University Place mall on Estes Drive in Chapel Hill. It will take about two months to demolish the eastern end of the mall, Ram Realty officials said.
An excavator tears into the clock tower that for many years stood at the corner of the A Southern Season store at University Place mall on Estes Drive in Chapel Hill. It will take about two months to demolish the eastern end of the mall, Ram Realty officials said.

Some tenants relocated, including Frank Art Gallery and WCHL radio. Others signed new leases, including CycleBar and Curry Up Now, which will start serving customers Indian street food in 2024. Fifth Third Bank opened its new branch at the corner of Estes and Willow drives — one of three banks — and a fourth, future building is planned for Estes Drive.

Customers will have more shopping and dining options on the mall’s eastern end in 2024, where the popular A Southern Season store closed in 2020 and was demolished in 2023. Construction materials, dirt piles and the skeletal structures of new storefronts that now are visible to passers-by will give way in 2024 to four new, one-story retail buildings and a main street surrounding a public lawn.

Two office buildings could also move toward construction in late 2024 in a parking lot between the mall and Fordham Boulevard. The remaining parking lots will be redesigned, adding dozens of trees and public plazas to the property.

A large building at the northern end of the site, housing Harris Teeter, Starbucks and Chapel Hill Tire, will remain.

An aerial of University Place in Chapel Hill, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023.
An aerial of University Place in Chapel Hill, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023.

What’s coming to the mall?

The mall had just over 302,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space prior to redevelopment, and more than 69,000 square feet of interior and exterior space is being removed, planning documents show.

In 2024, Ram Realty will wrap up six years of work to turn the traditional mall inside-out, creating an open-air shopping center with 350,000 square feet of retail space, 60,000 square feet of offices, apartments and a hotel.

Pedestrians and cyclists will benefit from a $4 million-plus plan to install a new multi-use pedestrian and bike path on Fordham Boulevard, plus new street lights, crosswalks, bike lanes and pedestrian signals on Estes and Willow drives.

Here’s a detailed look at the plan:

▪ The mall: Ram will offer customers more retail, dining and entertainment options when all of the storefronts are turned to face the parking lots. The leftover interior space will help create larger retail and restaurant footprints, up to 40,000 square feet, Klepser said. Several leases are under negotiation, and local and national businesses have expressed interest, he said, declining to be more specific.

▪ The Commons: A large public lawn flanked by two single-story retail buildings is being used as a staging area now for work on the eastern end of the mall. When the work is finished, Ram, its tenants and other groups will be able to host public events and activities on the lawn, including the Chapel Hill Farmers Market, which currently operates in a parking lot near Estes Drive.

▪ Chick-fil-A: A construction permit was approved in December for a freestanding restaurant with two drive-through lanes, just north of the Fordham Boulevard driveway. Construction of the restaurant, which replaces a now-vacant K&W Cafeteria, was delayed in part by concerns about how traffic congestion and emissions could affect the Binkley Baptist Church daycare next door.

▪ upStart: Ram Realty is helping creators and startup retailers try out new business ideas with shorter-term leasing in eight 600- to 800-square-foot storefronts on the ground floor of 900 Willow. The spaces will be turnkey ready, so that tenants can “come in with a can of paint, and your hardware and shelving ... to set up and test out a brick-and-mortar concept with a lot lower risk,” Klepser said.

▪ Offices and a hotel: Chapel Hill residents and commuters on Fordham Boulevard will see significant changes in 2024, including the construction of two office buildings up to three stories tall between the mall and Fordham Boulevard. A 150-room hotel and a second parking deck next to Fordham Boulevard are part of the long-term plans.