CHAPEL HILL - The Town Council will hear development plans for Southern Village and a nearly 30-year-old apartment complex at Monday’s public hearings.

The council gives developers feedback during concept plan reviews but does not vote on projects until the developers go back, revise their plans and formally submit them.

Blue Heron Asset Management LLC wants to expand the Timber Hollow apartment complex, approved in 1985, to 293 apartments. There are two options for the 19.55-acre complex at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Piney Mountain Road.

One plan would add a four-story, 95-apartment building and retain a 50-foot buffer along MLK Boulevard. The other would add a four-story building, but with 70 apartments, and four two-story quadplexes along MLK Boulevard. That plan would leave a 30-foot buffer along the road.

Both plans include underground parking garages and a new, two-story clubhouse and cafe. The developers would need higher-density residential zoning and a modified special-use permit.

Timber Hollow is located in the Central MLK/Estes Focus Area, one of six smaller areas identified in the town’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan. The community is beginning the process of planning the area’s future, which could focus on redevelopment, reinvestment and an emphasis on transportation connections.

Timber Hollow’s future tax bill could be $300,000 to $350,000, Blue Heron developer Ron Strom said.

Southern Village project

South of Chapel Hill, developer D.R. Bryan has renewed plans for a Southern Village hotel. The proposal includes a 68-unit apartment building next door.

The estimated $20 million project would have 125 hotel rooms, aimed primarily at university and hospital visitors, and front U.S. 15-501 near Market Drive.

A second streetfront would face Barksdale Drive in the Southern Village Apartment District, putting the hotel a two-block walk from Market Street shops and restaurants. It also would be convenient to Chapel Hill Transit stops and a park-and-ride lot.

The project would require modifying the Southern Village Master Plan, the Southern Village Apartments special-use permit and securing new SUPs for the hotel and apartments. Four parcels on U.S. 15-501 would be rezoned from residential to mixed-use village arterial. Southern Village owns one parcel and has contracts pending for the other three.

In documents filed with the town, Bryan said he also wants to modify the Village Core SUP to set new caps on residential and commercial uses, creating flexibility to meet market changes.

A hotel was proposed in 2008 for a parking lot in the Southern Village Center, but the plan was withdrawn when residents objected. The idea for the new hotel was based on comments from a resident who opposed that plan, Bryan said.

He has talked with several hotel owner-operators interested in an upscale facility, Bryan said. Parking would be below the buildings, driveways only along the highway and building heights similar to the Village Center.

The project would replace 1960s-era rental housing and be opposite the proposed Obey Creek development’s 600 rental units and a 130-room hotel, retail and office space.

The Hotel at Southern Village website forecasts the project generating $309,058 in property taxes and occupancy tax revenues of $178,000 annually based on 65 percent occupancy.