CHAPEL HILL - Whether they're taking a wait-and-see approach or expressing downright disappointment, it's safe to say some Town Council members are not exactly thrilled about the giant brick buildings they approved on N.C. 54 just down the hill from campus.

With 580,000 square feet of buildings -- half a Southpoint mall -- going up on the former site of old University Inn, the council is now rethinking its cheerleading for urban density, though certainly not retreating from it. It's a conversation that started before the first shovel hit developer Roger Perry's land, but his project has become a sort of punching bag for density opponents.

"Virtually all the reaction I get to East 54 is negative," said Matt Czajkowski, who joined the council several months after it approved East 54. "Clearly, that tract was going to get redeveloped, but developed with these monoliths right along the highway? That block the view of the hill, of Chapel Hill? That cast a shadow on the road? Is that what we want?"

Council member Jim Merritt, appointed to replace the late Bill Thorpe in October, heard the complaints from Glen Lennox residents at a forum last weekend, and they resonated with him.

"I'm not sure that was the appropriate place to put something that large," he said. "It's quite a bit of development there, just coming into the town of Chapel Hill."

Czajkowski and Merritt weren't on the council at the time and didn't vote for East 54. Mark Kleinschmidt did, along with eight others in a unanimous vote in February 2007.

"It's challenging for me when I see these buildings going up because they are so large," Kleinschmidt said. "Just seeing something of that size go up, I think it's emotionally evocative because the change on its face seems so great. ... My emotional response is, 'Wow, that's so big.'"

But Kleinschmidt and other veteran council members still believe in the principles of the town's Comprehensive Plan adopted in 2000, in part, to encourage a balanced transportation system. Immediately behind East 54 is the location of a potential commuter rail station. Council member Bill Strom said projects like East 54 can pave the way for a more robust mass transit system.

"It's a change in the development pattern, but the guiding principle there is that it is at a regional rail stop," said Strom. "In order to get federal and state support for these projects, you have to have density organized in a way that promotes ridership."

Strom, Kleinschmidt and Mayor Kevin Foy all agree that East 54's payoff will be in the future, certainly not while it's still under construction.

"I'm hoping I'm going to feel differently," said Kleinschmidt. "You're seeing the shell of a building and not what we hope is going to be the promise of those buildings, which is people doing what people do, living and working.

"Right now, I'm really looking at construction materials," he said. "I don't want to go up and hug this bulldozer or this giant steel crane. That doesn't make me feel like I'm in a charming college town. It's the opposite of that."

Council member Laurin Easthom said she's hearing from citizens around town who are "shocked" at the sight of East 54.

"They did not realize how big and how dense and how much that has changed that particular area. I'm hearing that a lot," she said. "When I drive down that road, it's just a total change visually to the skyline."

Foy said he's hearing the concern from citizens that East 54 is going to be the model for development in Chapel Hill.

"Is that going to line 54 in and out of Chapel Hill? Are those the kinds of projects that are going to line Martin Luther King from downtown to 40? Is that what our future looks like?" said Foy. "No, it doesn't have buildings lining all of those corridors. It's much more focused than that.

"I think people need the assurance that we've thought this through. The council has not just plopped down density just in a random fashion," said the mayor. "[East 54] has been approved because it was within walking distance of a proposed transit stop."

East 54 developer Roger Perry contends that the council is hearing complaints from a vocal minority in Chapel Hill.

"There hasn't been any groundswell of people showing up at Town Hall saying there was a mistake made at East 54," said Perry. "I think the vast majority of the people in this community recognize that this is the kind of development that needs to occur on transit corridors. ... This town's drawn an urban growth boundary around itself. The only way it's going to be able to survive as an economically sustainable community is with dense development."

The council is chewing on the density question with regard to the Ayden Court condos proposed near Meadowmont. Fifty-eight condos on a mass transit route and near the struggling businesses of Meadowmont Village would seem just the sort of cocktail the council ordered.

But steeply sloping land in the Jordan Lake watershed has town planners flummoxed about the potential stormwater runoff. The council has so far resisted creating a new zoning district that would allow density in that location.

Later this month, Foy plans to present a plan for collecting public input with the goal of defining desireable density and determining where it ought to be located.

"It's important that the council and the community at large agree on some guiding principles and then make it clear on a map what areas we're talking about," he said.