Does anyone else feel like University Mall in Chapel Hill is like something from the Twilight Zone? A downtown that got sucked into a vortex and mysteriously popped out inside a mall?
I get that feeling every time I go in there. If the roof weren't there and the parking situaiton were somewhat inverted, you'd be excused in thinking you were on Main Street USA. You'll find small, locally owned businesses, comfortable public seating, a police substation, a farmer's market, all it is missing is a library. Oh wait, there is a library in there now!
Sadly, the city has opted to return the library to a pastoral setting lacking the density of University Mall.
What do you think of these points from a letter from the Library Board of Trustees to the Town of Chapel Hill, "Mall is described as a "ghost land" and a "wasteland." It is viewed as a struggling retail venture with an uncertain future. Many businesses have left and there are fewer and fewer places of interest for library users. "? The letter also expressed the concern that "Staff will face a greater volume of demand from those with and without library cards. This will lead to need for additional staff which means additional funding from Town. " Uhh...how is that consistent with being a "ghost land"? Ya know, the mall wouldn't be a "ghost land" if there were a library in it that was so popular it called for lots of additional library staff! (Or are they alluding to that old yarn about University Mall being infested with chain-rattling ghosts who hitchhiked from the Twilight Zone Chapel Hill's downtown's journey through the vortex of bad urban planning?)
What do you think of these points from a letter from the Library Board of Trustees to the Town of Chapel Hill, "Mall is described as a "ghost land" and a "wasteland." It is viewed as a struggling retail venture with an uncertain future. Many businesses have left and there are fewer and fewer places of interest for library users. "? The letter also expressed the concern that "Staff will face a greater volume of demand from those with and without library cards. This will lead to need for additional staff which means additional funding from Town. " Uhh...how is that consistent with being a "ghost land"? Ya know, the mall wouldn't be a "ghost land" if there were a library in it that was so popular it called for lots of additional library staff! (Or are they alluding to that old yarn about University Mall being infested with chain-rattling ghosts who hitchhiked from the Twilight Zone Chapel Hill's downtown's journey through the vortex of bad urban planning?)
I understand that there are lots of concerns about the site and the public/private overlap, but people who think that University Mall is just a bastion of rampant commercialism that would distract from an almost monastic approach to books are missing the point. Civic institutions, like libraries, are catalysts for economic and community vibrancy.
Maybe there is a Chapel Hill in another Twilight Zone episode that plopped out of a vortex like ones "in Australia and New Zealand [where] it is now generally accepted that new public libraries should not be standalone, but should be, at minimum, within shopping centers as key retail anchors or collocated with other community facilities and agencies such as swimming pools, child care centers, family health and medical clinics — and that they should be multiuse and provide a range of spaces.” I, for one, would like to rattle chains with ghosts in "a mixed-use, multimedia complex that is meant to foster social interaction and creative ferment as much as reading and research, [...] an engine of city-center rejuvenation."
Check out this Ted talk video about creative mall reuse and retrofitting suburbia, then decide what you think of the issue.
Just for the record, I really like you, Chapel Hill! No hard feelings, buddy.
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