Chapel Hill Should Add “Green” to Franklin Street

By Eric Surber

Walk from the Planetarium to Sugarland, and one thing is clear. Franklin Street is unsightly. Flowerbeds like muddy sandboxes, tall grasses and dandelions characterize the downtown landscape, or the complete absence of one. 

Twenty years ago, Chapel Hill launched “Streetscape” to revitalize the worn out downtown area, focusing mainly on Franklin Street. For two decades its mission has been “to enhance the pedestrian experience with sidewalks, crosswalks, lighting, benches, public art and plantings.” And since 1993, many of these goals have been crossed off this list. To date, the project has resurfaced 8,256 square feet of sidewalk, built new crosswalks on Franklin Street, installed new lights downtown and facilitated large-scale public art projects.

Last year, the landscape design company Mikyoung Kim unveiled “Exhale,” a 70-foot, snake-like fog sculpture with an LED lightshow display on Franklin Street’s public plaza. But the plants have been forgotten.

Downtown’s only green comes from bland American Elm trees, monkey grass and a variety of spindly weeds because none of the $250,000 voters approved in 2007 for “Streetscape” went toward landscaping projects. Voters will decide on a $50 million bond next November, allocating some to “Streetscape.” And if Chapel Hill wants to improve its aesthetic, the town should start taking plants more seriously.

Columbus, Indiana, resembles Chapel Hill in size. With 44,000 people, the town is small, and like Chapel Hill it’s beautiful. Forbes magazine listed it as one of America’s prettiest towns, partly because of its world-class landscaping. Paul Kennon, an award-winning landscape artist, designed the Columbus streetscape to be elegant and coherent. The town’s pear trees blossom in the spring, while perennials color the ground throughout the summer. His design is low maintenance—albeit not “no maintenance” like Chapel Hill’s—and gets national attention. Furthermore, Columbus and Chapel Hill’s tax structures are similar, showing that excellent landscaping can be affordable.

Furthermore, Chapel Hill has already hired Mikyoung Kim Designs, the firm that built “Exhale,” to draft a landscaping plan. The plan outlines problems with Franklin’s current landscape, like how the disease-prone American Elm is the only tree to line the street. It suggests different drought-tolerant, low-maintenance plants that can tolerate heavy urban traffic. Dandelions aren’t on the list.

The lists, plans and outlines have been available since 2009 when Chapel Hill hired Mikyoung Kim, but were lost in bureaucratic cyberspace. Citizens shouldn’t be satisfied with Franklin Street’s current landscape. If the streetscape bond is approved next November, Chapel Hill should actually implement its landscape plan. With so much beauty in the city, it’s a shame the sidewalks are such an eyesore.