300 East Main

Guest Post by Ross Grady

Editor's note: This was originally written as part of a discussion on alt.music.chapel-hill about the proposed redevelopment of 300 East Main Street in Carrboro. For more background, see this Chapel Hill News article.

Most of us who actually live here have by-and-large seemed pretty optimistic in our assessment of this project.

I myself would like to get beyond the current namby-pamby weak-postmodernism that southern commercial architecture seems to be stuck in; it's neither vernacular enough to be useful in the South, nor interesting enough to be, well, interesting. (Like that white building at the western end of the project; I'd like to see more details of that one.)

I'd like to see structures that take advantage of the vast quantities of solar energy available to us here, like the new Club Nova apartments just a couple of miles further west do.

Last night about 80 folks met up with representatives from Main Street Partners, the company that hopes to redevelop the lot that currently is home to the Cat's Cradle, Performance Bikes, the Artscenter, Visart, and numerous other smaller shops and stores. I was actually quite impressed with the understanding the reps showed of the community. I think they realize that this project won't fly without early community buy-in. They also seem to be committed to finding ways to keep the current mix of tenants while attracting new businesses to town related to the music and publishing industries. I'm wondering if other folks have thoughts on this development? I'll reserve my comments for now so others can express themselves...