Franklin Street has seen many closures this school year

Franklin Street. It is as iconic to Chapel Hill as the Old Well, but lately the epicenter of downtown has seen several businesses come and go, leaving many to question if Franklin Street has lost its magic.

“If you think about being in Disney World, it really kind of sucks,” Katrina Ryan, owner of Sugarland, said.

“The weather is terrible, the food is terrible and you stand in line for 50 minutes to do anything that’s actually fun, so in the moment, it really kind of sucks if you really get down to it.

“Before, everyone is excited and after, everybody talks about it like they met the queen — and that’s the way people talk about Franklin Street.”

Ryan said the Disney version of Franklin Street has slowly ebbed away, leaving behind a street in need of an economic boost.

Qdoba Mexican Grill; Gigi’s Cupcakes; Top This! Roast Beef, Burgers & More; and Caribou Coffee have all closed their doors since November. In that same period, Artisan Pizza Kitchen was sold to a new owner, and the Cold Stone Creamery space was put on the market.

Finding the problem

The problems that plague Franklin Street are not easily pinpointed, but even successful business owners have noticed a drop in numbers over the past year.

“We’re not subject to the kind of whims of fate like somebody selling sandwiches, but our store traffic here was down $73,000 last year,” Ryan said. “That’s like 20,000 (fewer) cupcakes, which for in-store business that does about $500,000 a year, is a 15 percent decrease in one year. It’s also one of the worst in-store business years that we’ve had since the recession.”

She said a lackluster sporting season combined with the University’s athletic-academic scandal have proven to be detrimental to the town’s success.

“A part of it is that UNC kind of got screwed with scheduling, but then with all the academic scandal, the real UNC faithfuls who are coming downtown, paying for parking, buying T-shirts, well they’re sort of spirit-crushed,” Ryan said. “And anybody who doesn’t acknowledge that as part of the problem is completely off base.

“When the season isn’t good, people go home in their cars, not come downtown, because there is no reason to celebrate. You can see it in the business cycle.”

Don Pinney, the general manager of Sutton’s Drug Store, supported Ryan’s claims that game-day business has suffered in the last year, but he said there are too many factors affecting the recent decline in business to specifically label a cause.

“Everyone used to park and walk across and go to the game, and that doesn’t happen anymore,” Pinney said. “People can park and ride without ever having to go to the downtown area. I am just as busy with a game going on as I am without a game going.”

Pinney said on-campus dining options, like Wendy’s and the restaurants at the bottom of Lenoir Dining Hall, have driven business from Franklin Street.

Tom Scheidler, who was an owner of Top This! until April and a manager until November, said in an interview in January that many restaurants were forced to turn to discounting to bring in lunchtime traffic, which hurt profit margins.

“Students have little reason to leave the four walls of the campus when you have the dining halls where not just the students but the faculty and workers have meal plans, and, if I’m not mistaken, the dining halls stay open until midnight,” Scheidler said.

“There just really is no reason for people to go out and eat anymore, which makes it hard for anyone to survive.”

Scheidler also said the lack of available parking hurt not only his restaurant but also all businesses on the street.

Corporate leaders originally cited parking as a factor for Gigi’s Cupcakes closing in November.

“The biggest reason it’s closing is that we have three other locations in the Triangle area that do really well,” Alan Thompson, CEO of Gigi’s franchising division, said at the time. “So in Chapel Hill, because that site lacked parking, it really wasn’t a good site for us, and sales just weren’t up to par.”

Unfortunately, one of the ways to combat the town’s parking problem played a hand in a business’ decision to leave its long-term location. University Square, located at 123 W. Franklin St., is being redeveloped into a mixed-use center that will include a parking garage with more than 1,000 spaces.

Owen Gwyn, who owns the building that housed Caribou Coffee’s West Franklin Street store, said the space depended on foot traffic and with construction across the street, people would often try to avoid the area, which caused problems for the coffee shop.

Nothing new

Downtown Chapel Hill Partnership Executive Director Meg McGurk said the changes seen on Franklin Street in the past four months are characteristic of a business district as dense at Chapel Hill.

She said the town houses about 350 businesses in its central business district.

“It’s probably a pretty typical perception of college students who have a finite amount of time here in the community,” McGurk said. “So it might seem like a lot, but it’s actually pretty normal for our business district.”

She also said that while she could not think of a specific example, this pattern of turnover has happened before.

However, Ryan disagreed with McGurk, saying the patterns exhibited in Chapel Hill are different than other towns for one reason.

“Sure, in any downtown businesses open and close, but the thing about this one that’s different is that they are all in the same market segment,” Ryan said. “They are all fast casuals, so that’s not like any other town.”

city@dailytarheel.com