UNC-Chapel Hill to Develop ‘Full-Blown Satellite Campus’ at Carolina North

Update: The university’s Board of Trustees on Thursday voted to allow the school to spend up to $8 million of its trust funds for planning efforts.

It’s happening. Nearly 20 years after UNC-Chapel Hill leaders proposed a mixed-use extension of the university’s main campus, Chancellor Lee Roberts on Wednesday announced plans to develop part of the property known as Carolina North.

Carolina North spans several hundred acres off of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, about two miles north of the UNC-CH campus, including a 750-acre forest with public trails. The university will develop about 230 acres at the site of the former Horace Williams Airport, which closed in 2018, and turn it into “a full-blown satellite campus,” Roberts told The Assembly ahead of the official announcement at a Board of Trustees meeting. 

The new campus is expected to include academic and research facilities, retail, and housing for both students—with space planned for 2,000 undergraduates in the development’s initial phase, according to Roberts—and Chapel Hill residents.

But the university is punting for now on whether Carolina North will become the new home of the men’s basketball team, an idea that has been floated for more than a year but has garnered significant pushback in recent weeks. Roberts said in the interview that UNC-CH is still gathering feedback on plans for the basketball arena.

The plan to develop the airport area was not unexpected. After becoming chancellor two years ago, Roberts identified Carolina North as a key asset to some of his strategic priorities, such as boosting UNC-CH’s engineering offerings and growing enrollment. 

Still, the move marks a major shift for UNC-CH; the university said in a news release that it will be the largest expansion of the school’s physical footprint since its founding more than 230 years ago. In the interview, Roberts framed the decision to develop the property as central to the university’s mission to serve North Carolina, particularly as the state experiences significant population growth. It will also help fill demand for affordable housing and encourage partnerships between the university and science and technology companies in the private sector, Roberts said.

“We can’t sit in a bubble and watch the state continue to grow and change around us without responding,” Roberts said. 

Carolina North, in Roberts’ eyes, was an opportunity ripe for the taking. 

“To me, it’s surprising that we haven’t taken advantage of the site until now,” said Roberts, who focused on real estate at the investment company he founded before becoming chancellor. 

“Most universities would do anything to have this kind of developable land this close to the existing campus, and so I think it’s long overdue.” (The school attributes the lack of development at Carolina North after initial planning in 2007 to a “sustained period of constrained resources” that stemmed from the Great Recession.)

Roberts estimated it will take about 20 years for the development to be fully built, though there will be “significant progress” in the next few years. Groundbreaking on construction is slated for summer 2027, per a university news release. Eventually, the site will be connected to the main UNC-CH campus by a planned bus rapid transit route that Chapel Hill town officials say will begin service in 2029. 

The university won’t rely on state funding for the project, Roberts said, though campus officials think it “would be money well spent” if lawmakers offered it. The state House and Senate last year each proposed allocating funds to develop a “conceptual site plan” for Carolina North, but a months-long standoff between the chambers meant they didn’t pass a full budget. 

The university’s Board of Trustees on Thursday voted to allow the school to spend up to $8 million of its trust funds for planning efforts, such as issuing requests for the master planning, infrastructure design, and development of the property in the coming months. The university said the total cost of this phase of development will be determined after that planning stage.

The big question for many UNC-CH alumni, though, is what will happen to the Dean E. Smith Center, where the Tar Heels have played for 40 years. The arena needs upgrades, including a new roof, improvements to its restrooms and concessions, and changes required by disability laws, which Roberts has estimated would cost about $80 million. Building a new arena at Carolina North would allow for a “modern facility” with more premium seating that could drive revenue in the increasingly expensive landscape of college athletics, Roberts said. 

The satellite campus would also lend itself to an entertainment district around the arena, which Roberts compared to the mixed-use Battery district that now houses the Atlanta Braves. The Wall Street Journal last year described the team as an “economic juggernaut,” and Roberts thinks basketball could be the same for Carolina North. (The Board of Trustees last summer also heard a proposal to build a cricket stadium, an idea that does not appear to have progressed.) 

But many Tar Heel faithful are not on board with the idea of moving the team from the Smith Center, as evidenced by a December letter that roughly 90 former UNC-CH basketball players, coaches, trustees, and donors sent to Roberts expressing their desire for the arena to remain on campus and easily accessible for students. The pro-Smith Center faction has ramped up their campaign in recent days, with former coach Roy Williams appearing in a social media video calling on the university to renovate the arena instead of relocating it.

Roberts told The Assembly that there is “no perfect solution,” though officials think moving the arena to Carolina North “could be a good solution.”

“What’s not an option is the status quo,” Roberts said. “We have to invest, make significant capital investments, no matter what we do, even if the decision were to remain in the Smith Center.”

As part of the planning efforts for Carolina North, the university plans to tap an advisory group of faculty, students, alumni, trustees, and members of the Chapel Hill community. There will be a separate group focused on the arena, Roberts said.

“Clearly, we have more work to do in gaining as much feedback as we can, as much advice as we can, so we’re embarked in a sincere effort to try to solicit that feedback,” he said.

Putting an arena at the site isn’t a do-or-die decision, Roberts said.

“Carolina North is going to be an attractive destination no matter what,” he said.