Story by Sergio Osnaya-Prieto
Art by Elizabeth Bryant
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina — Little victories help Matt Gladdek get through the day. Take the afternoon of Oct. 1, for example.
He stopped at Four Corners to get lunch and asked the owners if the new deck in front of the restaurant was attracting customers. As executive director of Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, he’d overseen the sidewalk expansion program that let it happen.
It was, he said, a little victory.
Before lunch, he stopped at Imbibe, the Cajun kitchen around the corner from Four Corners.
He wanted to speak to Mandey Brown, the owner, about the new to-go parking spot in front of the business. As they spoke, a couple parked and picked up its takeout order.
Another little victory.
Before Brown came Paula Gilland, CEO of Purple Bowl—known for its acai bowls and smoothies. And before Gilland, came another business owner, preceded by another, and so on.
For Gladdek, these conversations have defined the past six months of his life. These little victories are the result of constant planning and strategic meetings to help businesses stay afloat.
Despite his organization’s efforts, a long list of downtown Chapel Hill businesses, once packed with students and football fans, have permanently closed.
“While it’s been hard for me, I know it’s worse for all those who have put their blood, sweat and tears, in some cases for multiple generations in their family businesses, that are doing everything they can to stay afloat,” he said.
Chapel Hill is not alone in this crisis. Businesses in college towns such as Ann Arbor, Michigan, Athens, Georgia, and Bloomington, Indiana, have all seen large decreases in revenue as universities moved online.
Now the town is trying to look ahead—past the little victories and toward a long-term post-pandemic economic recovery process. However, being built around a university—UNC-Chapel Hill, which moved fully online after COVID-19 cases exploded in student residence halls and fraternities—complicates the town’s plans.
Unlike large cities or other small towns, college towns have to strike the balance between maintaining strong ties to their universities while developing a local economy that won’t collapse if the universities shut down due to COVID-19.
Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger knows how fragile this balance can be — and how hard it is to achieve.
“I’ve had several discussions with other mayors talking about the same thing, that it’s the downtown at the intersection of the college and the businesses … talking about the effects when (the university) is your major employer downtown,” she said. “It’s just devastating right now.”
Hemminger’s long-term strategy to recover from the pandemic is the same one she’s followed to boost the town’s economy since she came into office five years ago: focus on building commercial space and a strong private business scene — not one dependent on public institutions.
She said the town’s four top employers are UNC, UNC Hospitals, the public school system and local government.
“That’s not healthy for any community; you need to have other businesses, other large employers,” she said.
The strategy requires getting out of what Gladdek called a “nine-month economy and make sure we’re in a 12-month economy.”
Dwight Bassett, economic development officer in Chapel Hill, said business growth has been the town’s focus for the past 13 years.
“If you grow up in Chapel Hill, and you have a child that graduates from the university, there’s a limited opportunity for them to even think about staying in Chapel Hill, because there aren’t tremendous job opportunities,” he said. “And our goal is to change that.”
Hemminger said the town is working on the construction of a new parking deck downtown and an office building which will bring up to 800 jobs to the area.
She said the town has also developed a series of incentive packages to attract businesses such as Wegmans, a supermarket chain, and Well, a health technology start-up.
As for the college town businesses that have remained open during the pandemic, Gladdek said their strategy has been to establish deep ties with the local community — not just students.
Boone, nestled in the mountains of western North Carolina, is home to Appalachian State University. Much like Chapel Hill, its top employers are the university, a regional medical center and its public school system. However, town manager John Ward said the town’s economy has remained stable throughout the pandemic.
“I’ve got reduced capacity in our dining establishments, but I don’t have closed businesses due to COVID-19,” Ward said.
ASU is still offering in-person classes. The university had 101 active cases of COVID-19 among students as of Oct. 12, and one student has died of complications from COVID-19, university officials said in a press release.
But Ward said that even if the university shut down, Boone’s economy wouldn’t collapse. For the upcoming months, he said, tourists will play an important role in keeping the economy afloat.
“One of the things that we’re seeing is that our outdoor recreation providers, whether that be rafting, mountain biking, canoeing, or hiking, are actually helping buffer some of our other tourism numbers, like people coming up for festivals and major events,” he said.
He said cabin rentals have already exceeded 2019’s rental levels, a trend he attributed to the freedom families have by working or learning remotely.
According to Emil Malizia, professor in the UNC Department of City and Regional Planning, college towns’ location — such as Boone’s isolated location in the mountains — will play a big role in their ability to attract businesses after the pandemic.
He said “anchor institutions,” such as a university, though, will always be the main driver of a college town’s economy.
“Whatever else we can do, we’re kind of playing around on the edges,” he said. “I mean, if there’s a major reduction in force at the university, or at the hospital, which is possible, hopefully won’t happen, there’s not much we can do.”
Regardless of the recovery strategy college towns choose to implement, their biggest concern is the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic.
Gladdek said he feels “as if the rug keeps on getting pulled out from under you.”
“Right now you’re predicting how to just get through it,” Hemminger said. “And then, how do you recover out of it?”
